Press Freedom Day with the US Mission at the UN: I Stand with Evan

To mark World Press Freedom Day, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Representative of the United States to the United Nations, convened journalists, United Nations Member States, and civil society leaders for a discussion on the judicial harassment of journalists around the world.

The panel, moderated by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, highlighted the recent one-year anniversary of the arrest of The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich, and included remarks by Mariana Katzarova, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Almar Latour, Dow Jones CEO and WSJ Publisher, Professor Can Yeginsu, Media Freedom
Coalition High Level Panel of Experts Representative, and David Rohde of NBC News. Danielle Gershkovich, Evan’s sister, spoke to her family’s unwavering commitment to spotlight Evan’s detention and that of all those wrongfully detained. The event was cosponsored by the Permanent Mission of Greece to the UN and Ambassador Evangelos Sekerisat delivered the closing remarks.

“Around the world, journalists are intimidated and harassed,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said. “Far too often they are violently attacked and wrongly detained simply for telling the truth. That was Evan’s crime.”