Later this week, Amal Clooney will celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary with George Clooney. But on Tuesday, Sept. 24, the international human rights lawyer had bigger concerns on her mind. People reports Amal gave some impassioned comments on the state of the freedom of the press in 2019 while speaking on a panel about the subject. “Our research targets laws being used every day to punish journalists for their work,” she said. “Laws like criminal libel, vague or overboard hate speech laws, so-called fake news laws, and laws that muzzle the media by imposing arbitrary conditions on ownership, accreditation and funding.” She went on to slam Donald Trump for his treatment of the press and habit of dismissing reporting as “fake news.” “Such laws are part of a rising drumbeat of legal assault on journalists,” Amal said, “and they are particularly open to abuse when senior officials vilify the media, creating a toxic environment in which individual journalists are incredibly vulnerable to attack.” Amal was named a special envoy on global media freedom at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office back in April.
