In a healthy society, it is important that journalists are free to do their reporting without facing violence, torture and even death. It’s part of our universal rights to have an independent press. I was watching Christiane Amanpour documentary “Scream Bloody Murder”. Suddenly I saw a video where Christiane Amanpour was talking about journalists being killed in the connection with their reporting in countries where hostility toward an independent press is at a high scale. I was asking myself why she is telling us about it, we’re not journalists. Then I thought of something. Journalists are the ones who give us the pieces news we watch daily and sometimes they take risks to bring awareness about things that we have never been informed about. I realized that watching the news is an opportunity to feed myself with knowledge and you cannot not be a good write,if you don’t read and watch the news about events that take place around the world.   

Freedom of press under attack 

Freedom of press is under attack by governments, secret services and some illegal cowardly organizations . Journalists are people like you and me who are just love their profession. They’re doing us a favour by providing us with sources of information which can increase our knowledge. We have a right to agree or disagree with them. However when it comes to threaten their lives, it sends a signal of foolishness by bandits who are behind such evil acts. If the barbaric terrorists have nothing to hide, why being are they behind such primitive acts?  Journalists are often victims of murder, violence, terror, death threats etc. They are many causes behind the attack on the free press and I am going to list some of these reasons here: Political motives, government officials, criminal groups, local residents etc. The types of death are murders, 78%, combat related 17% and dangerous assignment 10, 1%. In many countries around the world, journalists get murdered in Russia, Pakistan, Burma, Nigeria, China, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Niger, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran and other countries around the world. This kind of savage approach from those who stand behind such demonic actions has an affect on how journalists do their job and which precautions; they take for doing something which is important. You can ask why do I care in other words why is it my business. You can also ask yourself this question. I am not a journalist and it is not something which I dream of.       

 The motives behind the book 

The reason why I am writing this book is because I want to speak out against those who threaten the freedom of press. Freedom of press gives journalists an opportunity to do investigations in themes; they are prepared to share with us who watch the news. Before some of the journalists complete their works, they find themselves in situation where they get in situations where they get abducted, jailed, tortured, beaten or in the worse case, they even get killed and  criminals go unpunished and justice is never served for those journalists might have left behind: their families, their friends and loved ones. We don’t hear much from our respective governments from 1st world countries who promote democracy and freedom around the world.    Poetry This book is a book of poetry and my 3rd book. I am going to use poetry as a powerful tool to express these problems and I am going to bring my deepest emotions into them. In the end, I will end up making a conclusion and I am going to put things into perspectives. My goal is to bring awareness to you about the lack of impunity which still goes on until today around the world. You and I can make a difference to defend the right of our journalists to have the freedom of press wherever they do their profession. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be aware of different circumstances we watch on the news, whether it’s on TV, radio, internet etc. Most of the journalists risk their lives for brining awareness and getting our attention on things they have discovered. They do it with integrity and passion and as human being, I encourage them to keep doing their work because they are the source of the pieces of information, we need.    

Human rights  

I talk about human rights violations from the unfair trade to dictatorships, war crimes, discriminations to genocides because they have a negative influence in our societies. Genocide is the following acts of crimes committed with intent to destroy in part a national, racial, tribal, political, ethnical or religious group. Such killings have a serious impact on mankind and they cause mental harm to members of the group. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Dictators and religious extremists use their power to suppress their own people because of their addiction to control. When a certain countries don’t have access to fair trade, it is also a violation of human rights because the only way our nations survive is by trading different commodities and other natural resources with other countries. Abusing children and using them to war for selfish motives destroys their mindsets because they are robbed of their lives. I can go on and on the lists are endless. Human rights violations are a reality in many places around the world. Sometimes we choose to put our interests above our fundamental rights, which have led to where we are today because we choose to compromise. I am not an idealistic person, I believe we leave in a real world, but that does not give us the right to ignore such violations.  

Religion

 I criticize all religions, especially the three Monotheist religions(Islam, Christianity & Judaism)  because I believe religion is a threat to all civilization and too many liberties have been taken away because of religion because it inflates its way by ideas that have never stopped growing. Religious dogmas want to claim authority where it does not have any authority. The currency of religion is fear and control over other people’s lives. Religion is out of control now because we’ve been too diplomatic and sometimes, we compromise what we stand for out of the fear of causing offense to those who believe in deities. The UN wants to apply a law that would suppress our rights to criticize any religion, especially the Monotheists faiths. Does the UN understand that in some of those countries, where religion is mixed with politics, there are human rights violations from one way to the other, especially in countries where there are lots of lunatics who practice the religion of peace, which actually is the religion of war . They want enforce their unwanted values in the world and they want to claim themselves as victims, as they are the oppressors who discriminate against women, people who don’t think or live like them and other minorities. As an Atheist, I believe that people should think for themselves and make their own decisions in life, not religious clerics trying to rule other people’s lives by using the god-label. Religion is god’s way of telling us that he does not exist.   

Conclusion 

 To get Freedom of Press:The Sitting Duck, please go to:

http://store.i-proclaimbookstore.com/frofprsidu.html    

To read my interviews, please go to the following sites: 

  American Chronicle 

 http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/116708    

As the pages turn

http://asthepagesturn.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/freedom-of-press-interview-with-balthazar-rodrigue-nzomono-balenda/  Broowaha.comhttp://www.broowaha.com/articles/5109/literarily-speaking-with-poet-balthazar-nzomono-balenda 

 My journey as a published author

 http://carolsnotebook.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/guest-post-balthazar-rodrigue-nzomono-balenda-author-of-freedom-of-press-the-sitting-duck/