Observed on May 3 every year, The United Nations created this day to highlight the basic principles of press freedom worldwide. By celebrating World Press Freedom Day, journalists and supporters of democracy help protect freedom of speech, access to information, and media independence, which are constantly under attack globally.

World Press Freedom Day is observed annually on May 3rd. Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993, this day serves to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom, assess the state of press freedom throughout the world, defend the media from attacks on their independence, and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
The day also acts as a reminder to governments of the need to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It highlights the importance of a free, independent, and pluralistic media in fostering transparency, accountability, and democracy.
World Press Freedom Day provides an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of press freedom and the challenges faced by journalists worldwide, including censorship, harassment, imprisonment, and violence. It also encourages dialogue and collaboration among media professionals, policymakers, civil society organizations, and the public to promote and protect press freedom around the globe.
World Press Freedom Day History
On the recommendation of the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference, World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993.
May 3 acts as a reminder for the Governments to respect their commitments to press freedom. This day is a reflection for media professionals on issues of press freedom and professionals.
World Press Freedom Day is a support day for media persons who are involved in press freedom, Journalists, media, etc.
World Press Freedom Day 2024 Theme
World Press Freedom Day is observed every year on May 3. It is significant for the press which deals with the information of the public on the Global Scale.
The Theme of World Press Freedom Day 2024 is “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the Face of the environmental crisis”.
Significance
The Significance of World Press Freedom Day was to celebrate the principles of press freedom, to prevent the media from attacks, and to assess the state of press freedom.
The main aim of World Press Freedom Day was to raise awareness of the freedom of the press and freedom of expression. This day also represents a day of reflection for media professionals about issues of press freedom.
The Global Conference provides an opportunity for journalists, civil society representatives, national authorities, and to work together for identifying solutions.
The United Nations has celebrated World Press Freedom Day before 1993. In 1948, Article 19 said that everyone has the Right to Freedom of opinion, everyone has the right to say their opinion without fear, and everyone has the right to receive and impart their ideas through the Press and Media to the people.
Prizes
UNESCO marks World Press Freedom Day by conferring the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on a deserving individual, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger. Created in 1997, the prize is awarded on the recommendation of an independent jury of 14 news professionals. Names are submitted by regional and international non-governmental organisations working for press freedom, and by UNESCO member states.
The Prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, on 17 December 1986. Cano’s writings had offended Colombia’s powerful drug barons.
UNESCO also marks World Press Freedom Day each year by bringing together media professionals, press freedom organisations and UN agencies to assess the state of press freedom worldwide and discuss solutions for addressing challenges. Each conference is centred on a theme related to press freedom, including good governance, media coverage of terrorism, impunity and the role of media in post-conflict countries.
UNESCO to host 2024 World Press Freedom Day in Chile
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will host 2024 World Press Freedom Day ceremonies in Santiago, Chile, from May 2 to 4, 2024. Celebrated every May 3, theme for this year is “A Press for the Planet: Journalism in the face of the Environmental Crisis” and focuses on the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the context of the current global environmental crisis The 31st edition of World Press Freedom Day aims to highlight the significant role played by the press, journalism, access, and dissemination of information to ensure and secure a sustainable future that respects the rights of individuals and their diversity of voices, as well as gender equality.
World Press Freedom Day 2024 is an important opportunity for the international community to collectively reflect on these multidimensional challenges, the fundamental role of journalism, and the transformative power that reliable information has to protect our planet, achieve sustainable development, and consolidate democracies. Partners from the media, academia, and civil society will also organize events in Santiago and around the world centered on this year’s theme.
The Day will serve as a platform to bring together key actors and to reflect on the fundamental role of journalism and reliable information in protecting our planet, and discuss topics, including the importance of reliable and accurate information, especially that which denounces and investigates the environmental crisis and its effects.
The conference will touch on the following
The importance of reliable and accurate information, especially that which denounces and investigates the environmental crisis and its effects.
Violence faced by journalists and communication workers when promoting sustainable development and environmental protection, encouraging a gender-responsive perspective that promotes non-sexist journalistic discourse.
Support for the media to strengthen their institutional capacities to report on climate change and environmental crises, paying special attention to the viability of the media.
Dis- and misinformation about environmental issues and its impact on public and political support for climate action, effective policies, and the protection of vulnerable communities affected by climate change.
Use the occasion to recall the Santiago Declaration, which stresses the importance of respecting media pluralism and cultural, linguistic, and gender diversity as a fundamental factor of our democratic societies and which should be reflected in all media.

The role of other critical voices, such as scientists and artists, will also be discussed. The urgency of tackling the massive waves of dis and misinformation about the current global environmental crisis will occupy a prominent space in next year’s agenda.
World Press Freedom Day 2024 promises to be a pivotal moment for reflection, dialogue, and concerted action towards ensuring a press that is truly dedicated to safeguarding our planet and promoting a sustainable future for all.
Persecution of Journalists
Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be the region with the highest number of murders of journalists, according to the 2022 UNESCO Director-General’s Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity.
Since 1993, more than 1,600 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information to the public. In nine out of ten cases the killers go unpunished, according to the UNESCO observatory of killed journalists. Impunity leads to more killings and is often a symptom of worsening conflict and the breakdown of law and judicial systems.
While killings are the most extreme form of media censorship, journalists are also subjected to countless threats – ranging from kidnapping, torture and other physical attacks to harassment, particularly in the digital sphere. Threats of violence and attacks against journalists, in particular, create a climate of fear for media professionals, impeding the free circulation of information, opinions and ideas for all citizens. Women journalists are particularly impacted by threats and attacks, notably by those made online. According to UNESCO’s discussion paper, The Chilling: Global trends in online violence against women journalists, 73 percent of the women journalists surveyed said they had been threatened, intimidated and insulted online in connection with their work.
In many cases, threats of violence and attacks against journalists are not properly investigated. This impunity emboldens the perpetrators of the crimes and at the same time has a chilling effect on society, including journalists themselves. UNESCO is concerned that impunity damages whole societies by covering up serious human rights abuses, corruption, and crime.
Journalists who were murdered
From high-profile deaths like Jamal Khashoggi’s killing inside Istanbul’s Saudi consulate, to a shooting outside a journalist’s home in Yemen, to an attack on a convoy in South Sudan that killed five, such targeted acts to silence the press reflect government corruption and suppression of people’s rights and weaken public trust in a country’s judiciary.
Jamal Khashoggi (Saudi Arabia)
Jamal Khashoggi, former editor-in-chief of the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan and columnist for The Washington Post, was killed by a team of Saudi military and intelligence officials on October 2, 2018, shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkish and Saudi courts have tried and sentenced several suspects in the case. It was revealed in September 2020 that, after Khashoggi’s murder, U.S. President Donald Trump admitted to helping shield Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the journalist’s murder according to a report released by the CIA. A current lawsuit against the U.S. intelligence community seeks the release of documents that may provide information on its awareness of threats to Khashoggi’s life.
Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela (Ghana)
In 2018, a member of parliament during a TV appearance threatened and encouraged violence against Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, and Divela had said he feared for his life. A member of the investigative journalism outlet Tiger Eye Private Investigations, 33-year-old Divela was shot and killed by two men on a motorbike in January 2019. He was driving in the Madina neighborhood of Ghana’s capital, Accra, and had been assisting government prosecutors with an investigation into corruption within the country’s soccer leagues. A Tiger Eye lawyer has called for charges to be brought upon the member of parliament, in addition to the two suspects.
Dalia Marko (South Sudan)
Dalia Marko, a reporter for the local radio station Raja FM, was among five journalists killed when unidentified gunmen ambushed an official convoy in South Sudan in 2015. There were 11 victims in total. According to reports, the convoy was returning from Sepo to Raja, having visited families of individuals killed in another attack by unidentified gunmen, when it was attacked with gunfire and machetes and set on fire. The motive for the attack remains unclear, and government spokesmen pointed blame at the time at different rebel groups. This is the deadliest attack on journalists in South Sudan since CPJ began collecting data in 1992.
Natalia Estemirova (Russia)
Since 2000, at least five journalists from independent Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta have been killed, including Natalia Estemirova. She also contributed to Caucasus news website Kavkazsky Uzel, served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch and was one of few people reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. In 2009, four men forced the 50-year-old into a car in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as she was leaving her apartment for work. According to press reports, the journalist shouted that she was being kidnapped as the car sped away, and later that day her body was found in the neighboring region of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds in her head and chest. A colleague believes Chechen authorities were behind the murder, condemned by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Larry Que (Philippines)
Publisher of weekly community newspaper Catanduanes News Now and owner of a local insurance company, Larry Que was entering an office building in December 2016 when a gunman fatally shot him in the head at close range and escaped on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice. The newspaper had recently published a column by Que alleging “official negligence” over an illegal methamphetamine laboratory and naming Catanduanes Governor Joseph Cua as responsible. Que’s wife believes Cua hired a hitman to “silence” Que. She filed a murder complaint, which police said is still under investigation as of August 2020. She also pursued charges of graft and misconduct against Cua; they were dismissed for lack of evidence.
Nabil Hasan al-Quaety (Yemen)
Secessionist conflict threatens justice in journalist’s murder. Journalist Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, 34, whose wife was expecting their fourth child, was killed in the southern port city of Aden on June 2, 2020. A group of men in military uniforms attempted to hit al-Quaety with their car as he exited his home and opened fire when he ran, shooting him in the head, chest and hand. The assailants then fled. A freelance reporter, videographer and photographer, al-Quaety had worked with the news outlet Agence France-Presse since 2015. The Yemeni government claims sole authority in Aden, but the city is effectively run by the Southern Transitional Council fighting for separation from the country. Both have condemned the killing, but an official investigation could prove difficult due to this makeup. A spokesman for the secessionist group said it recently embedded al-Quaety as a photographer and speculated that forces within the government may be responsible for his death.
Danilo López (Guatemala)
Two gunmen shot Danilo López in March 2015, while the reporter for Guatemala City daily Prensa Libre was walking in a park with a fellow journalist. In more than a decade with the newspaper, López had often written about corruption and misuse of public funds and had received threats in connection to his reporting. The case awaits a murder trial against Julio Juárez Ramírez, a former lawmaker who has been charged with orchestrating the attack and sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Global Magnitsky Act. Courts sentenced the getaway driver to 30 years in prison, charged but have not arrested the alleged gunman and acquitted two other suspects. Authorities believe the case may be linked to an organized crime network working with a drug cartel and transferred the case in 2015 to a special court in the capital after local prosecutors investigating the crime received threats.
Shujaat Bukhari (India)
Four suspects are yet to be charged in the June 2018 killing of Shujaat Bukhari, founding editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper. Several unidentified gunmen fired at him as he was leaving his office for an iftar party. He suffered injuries to the head and abdomen and died, as did two police officers who had been assigned to protect him after an attack in 2000. In the days preceding the incident, Bukhari had requested additional security amid the conflict-ridden situation in Kashmir. Police claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group was responsible, but the group has denied involvement. In November 2018, police and the army killed one of the prime suspects in a shootout. There have been no updates in the case since.
Norma Sarabia Garduza (Mexico)
In June last year, unknown attackers shot and killed reporter Norma Sarabia, 46, at the front door of her residence in Huimanguillo, in the southern state of Tabasco. She had received frequent death threats as a correspondent for newspapers Diario Presente and Tabasco HOY and had recently reported on a series of violent crimes, including murders and a kidnapping. Soon after her death, the Tabasco state attorney general’s office said in a statement released on Twitter that it had opened an investigation. To date, however, there has still been little movement in the investigation. Sarabia is one of 56 journalists killed in Mexico since 1992.
Daphne Caruana Galizia (Malta)
Daphne Caruana Galizia, a prominent journalist who reported on corruption and helped cover the Panama Papers, was killed in Malta in October 2017 by a car bomb near her house. Her widely read blog, Running Commentary, included investigative reports and commentary on politicians. Former Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat considered Galizia a harsh critic of his but condemned the “barbaric” attack and stepped down in January 2020 over the political crisis sparked after the case. Four men have been in detention—some since December 2017—but no trial date has been set. CPJ and 18 other organizations have called on authorities to prevent political interference in the investigation.
Gauri Lankesh (India)
She was an Indian activist and journalist from Bangalore, Karnataka. She worked as an editor in Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada weekly started by her father P. Lankesh, and ran her own weekly called Gauri Lankesh Patrike. She was murdered outside her home in Rajarajeshwari Nagar on 5 September 2017. At the time of her death, Gauri was known for being a critic of right-wing Hindu extremism. She was honoured with Anna Politkovskaya Award for speaking against right-wing Hindu extremism, campaigning for women’s rights and opposing caste based discrimination.