Andrés Colmán Gutiérrez and I agreed that neither in Paraguay nor in Germany do journalists experience the greatest danger from the government. Until a few years ago, Colmán Gutiérrez was also a domestic RSF correspondent. He spoke of 19 journalists who have been murdered in Paraguay since the end of the dictatorship in 1989, especially in connection with research on organised crime and drug smuggling in the border region with Brazil. For him, the Mafia is the greatest danger for freedom of the press in Paraguay. However, he also denounced a climate of almost total impunity after violent crimes against journalists because the corrupt judicial authorities did not investigate independently, a phenomenon which we have, unfortunately, heard of in many Latin American countries.

On our ranking list for freedom of the press, Paraguay ranks 100th among 180 countries, i.e. in the middle of the field worldwide. Our Jahresbilanz der Pressefreiheit 2021 [Annual Report on Freedom of the Press for 2021; in German] shows that, unfortunately, the situation in many other countries is significantly worse: as of 1 December, 488 journalists around the world were in jail, approx. 20 per cent more than in the previous year.

During the online discussion, it was emphasised how important protection against surveillance is for international journalism. In this connection, the ruling obtained by RSF from the German Federal Constitutional Court in May 2020 was a success: according to this, the surveillance of foreign journalists outside Germany by the German Foreign Intelligence Service is bound by Germany's constitution. What is worrying, however, is that a large number of the journalists in Germany and worldwide, probably also in Paraguay, underestimates the risk of surveillance. Through our work, we know of numerous cases in which colleagues ran into danger after they had been spied on by governments, authorities or other actors.

But the media comes under pressure not only from governments, secret services and authorities: for the past several years – and even more so since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis – doubts regarding the independence of the media are being articulated more loudly in public, especially in Western democracies. Apparently, a greater diversity of opinion can also lead to increased doubts regarding fundamental values and rights such as freedom of the press.

One aspect, which I learned to appreciate even more during the discussion with Andrés Colmán Gutiérrez and the Paraguayan guests: solidarity with the colleagues within the journalist community in Paraguay who are attacked is significantly less pronounced than here in Germany. This is also the case in other Latin American countries, and it is due, among other things, to the fact that the unions for journalists in Paraguay, which could organise such solidarity, are much, much weaker. In Germany, however, the growing number of attacks on journalists has, as I see it, strengthened their solidarity.

Just a few weeks ago, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two media professionals: the Filipino journalist, Maria Ressa, CEO and co-founder of 'Rappler', an investigative medium, and Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of 'Novaya Gazeta', an independent Russian newspaper which criticises the government. This was an extremely encouraging sign and one which was urgently required: if the human right to freedom of opinion and of the press is important to us, we must firmly defend the right to a free press, not only under totalitarian regimes, but also in democratic countries such as Germany and Paraguay.