A/HRC/44/49 that government officials avoid denigrating those who will be reporting information regarding public health steps that individuals should be taking. 37. Lack of an enabling environment for media work. Given the essential role of media workers, Governments should be enabling them to continue their work, including, where appropriate, by classifying it as essential. When conducting their work, media workers should be provided with protections deemed necessary in the pandemic, such as protective masks and other relevant gear. An enabling environment also involves the holding of open press conferences that include independent media and ensuring that all media outlets, not just State-owned media, have access to public officials and other information sources. 38. Lack of protection of access for foreign journalists. The global nature of the COVID-19 crisis militates in favour of ensuring reporting that is available across borders. In particular, this means that Governments should not take steps to interfere with reporting from the international press. Unfortunately, there have been several reported instances of hostility directed by Governments at foreign press representatives.43 39. Failure to release journalists from prison. WHO has stated that “people deprived of their liberty, and those living or working in enclosed environments in their close proximity, are likely to be more vulnerable to … COVID-19 … than the general population”. 44 Nonetheless, individual journalists remain behind bars in countries around the world. The Committee to Protect Journalists has stated that more than 250 journalists are currently in prison.45 No media worker should be in prison by reason of their work. And yet those journalists, subjected to arbitrary and unlawful detention, now face the additional risk of their health and lives. Whether States wish to frame their releases as humanitarian or not, it is imperative that all States release any journalists in their custody. It is critical that any State that continues to criminalize journalism, including under the guise of prohibiting defamation or countering terrorism, does not pursue such cases during the pandemic given the additional risk posed by detention. 40. Over the long term, it is also critical that States repeal any laws criminalizing journalism, including those adopted under the guise of addressing terrorism or defamation under other categories. In a 2002 joint declaration, freedom of expression monitors of the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States stated that “all criminal defamation laws should be abolished and replaced, where necessary, with appropriate civil defamation laws”.46 In the Declaration of Table Mountain, on press freedom in Africa, adopted in 2007, Governments were called upon to repeal criminal defamation and insult laws. The Human Rights Committee, in its general comment No. 34 (para. 47), also urged States parties to consider the decriminalization of defamation, and noted that, in any event, imprisonment was never a proportionate penalty for defamation.47 43 44 45 46 47 12 For instance, the State Information Service of Egypt revoked the credentials of a Guardian journalist who published a report on COVID-19, saying the reporting did not meet journalistic standards. “Egypt revokes credentials of Guardian journalist“, International Press Institute, 18 March 2020. See also Joel Simon, “How not to fight Chinese propaganda“, Columbia Journalism Review, 21 February 2020, and Jon Allsop, “China expels American journalists at the worst possible time“, Columbia Journalism Review, 18 March 2020. WHO, “Preventing COVID-19 outbreak in prisons: a challenging but essential task for authorities“, 23 March 2020. Committee to Protect Journalists, “Release all jailed journalists now“, 30 March 2020. Available at www.oas.org/en/iachr/expression/showarticle.asp?artID=87&lID=1. See also specific concerns expressed by mandate holders in communications regarding individuals held because of the content of their expression: AGO 1/2015, AZE 1/2017, KHM 3/2016, LBN 1/2016, MYS 6/2018, MMR 7/2017, NGA 2/2018, NGA 3/2019 and THA 3/2017. Available from https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/Tmsearch/TMDocuments. These represent a small set of all communications concerning the criminalization of journalism.