PARS.- The secretary general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Christophe Deloire, died this Saturday at the age of 53 of “a devastating cancer”, announced the organization defending freedom of expression. press.
Deloire, who had been in office since 2012, transformed the organization “into a champion of the defense of journalism, for twelve years,” the NGO said in a statement sent to AFP.
He was “a relentless defender, on all continents, of the freedom, independence and pluralism of journalism, in a context of information chaos,” he added.
“Journalism was the fight of his life, in which he worked with unwavering conviction,” said the Paris-based NGO.
RSF, founded by four journalists in 1985 in Montpellier, in the south of France, became a reference in the defense of press freedom and the right to inform in the world.
The organization detects and denounces obstacles to freedom of information and comes to the aid of journalists imprisoned or threatened in various ways (legal assistance, loan of bulletproof vests, subsidies, pressure on governments and institutions).
Since 2002, the NGO has published an annual report on abuses committed against journalists in 180 countries, called the “world press freedom ranking.”
Deloire, who directed one of the great journalism schools in Paris and worked for years in local media, demanded among others the truth about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, and denounced the continued attacks on press freedom in Russia.
RSF described Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as “predators” of press freedom.
Deloire also used to warn against increasing violence against journalists.
FUENTE: AFP
