How Will We Protect The World's Journalists?

The news is out aboutalarming free speech breaching in Somalia and the UN is concerned.  The government is in the process ofenforcing a new law that is alarming to UN experts, especially in terms ofcorruption. 

President Hassan SheikhMohamud’s new law requires journalists to disclose their sources and restrictthem from spreading information against Islam. 

This new legislation couldbe a huge breach on freedom of the press and expression and could become lawwithin the next few months.  In thesame way, if journalists are accused of violating the legislation, they will besuspended.

What does this mean forjournalism?

In many parts of theworld, the media is being corrupted by the government – even in the US.  Freedom of the press is a right notonly for journalists, but for the people as well.

Taking away this rightfrom journalists is a way for the government to censor the information that iscirculated within the world. Not only does this take away rights fromjournalists, it also takes away the rights of people to know.

Story thanks to AlJazeera, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa