Term Paper #4

    

    

    

     Many reporters do not have freedom of speech in other countries like reporters do in the United States. Many reporters have their freedom of speech suppressed. They often face such punishments such as death or imprisonment. In many countries' terrorist, drug lords, and governments want to control all the information coming in and out of that country. Since 1992 there have been over 1,000 deaths of reporters. They are more at risk when they enter war zones. It is very important for these reporters to go to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan because the people in the United States need to know what is going on in these countries. 

    Reporters from the United States face very high risk when in Afghanistan. There have been multiple accounts of killing and imprisonment for these people. There are even sometimes when these people get their heads cut off live on camera. The reason this happens is because their government and terrorist want to have full control of all information and social media. They limit everything for the people living there. If caught giving information that they don't know about can cause these people to face harsh punishment. One case where their freedom was suppressed was when a 22-year-old woman was beaten by police for her head scarf being too loose. This sparked many protests in Iran and has already cause destruction and death. Even a 10-year-old girl was shot in the head during one of the protests. Mohsen Shekari a 23-year-old man is being sentenced to death because he is being accused of blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the militia during a protest. In other counties other than America people do not have the right to protest their government. They will be shot or sentence to death by their government in a heartbeat. An Iran general has even acknowledged that over 300 people have already been killed during this protest.

The media and the amount of information out of these countries is very limited. You don’t see many videos or news coming out of these countries unless an American reporter are there. Usually if anything is posted by somebody that lives there it will be taken down by the government, but if it’s posted to the internet, it really never goes away. The internet is a strong place and if something is ever posted it can be found. This makes the job of their freedom of speech a tad bit harder for the government to control. When caught posting something, the person usually faces hard punishments for it. The more protest and secret social media post that they make will make it harder for the government to control. These restrictions on their freedom of speech and use of social media will not realistically continue. As technology increases it will make it easier for them to post what is happening in these countries without getting caught and it will help everybody learn more about what is going on. Also, the more reporters we have going over there and finding out what is happening it will make it harder for the government to stop this. Soon they will just have to let it happen and realize that they can’t put a stop to it. It is also very wrong for these people to have their rights this suppressed. The government should not have this much control on what they do. They are soon going to realize this will not happen much longer. It seems these people are fighting against the government hard and its working. Lately you have seen a lot more clips and videos coming from countries such and Iran and Iraq. To assist this fight social media is the main tool they will use. Social media allows them to post whatever they want to the internet for other people to see. They use such social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. These social media platform help make these videos seen by other people very easy. These platforms help people understand what is happening in these terrorist countries. It also helps them get in contact with certain people. Even though their post might get taken down by the government, social media allows these videos to stay on the internet and never really go away. Social media is also a great platform for them to write and talk against their government. They can use such apps like Twitter and Facebook to have free speech and talk about what they want to.

Iran’s government is having to face more protest due to authorities shutting down mobile internet access all over the country. This is another way they try to suppress these people’s freedom. Therefore, they are protesting it, because it is not right for the government to able to control what they do and have the power to shut down all their internet access. They shut down the internet access due to a trend of messages and social media post about the people dying in the protest in Iran.  Iran’s government are blaming foreign enemies for stroking the tensions of the people. This is not true. If their government would not control their freedom that would not have to face problems like this.

Since these counties forbid freedom of speech, it causes so much harm. Innocent reporters are beaten, killed, and jailed for just getting all the information from being in their country. Many people are even killed for just making social media post. This is why American’s do not take our first amendment for granted.