FRANCAISReporters sans frontières - History
2000-2009
-2000, Tunisia: during the World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2000 in Paris, RSF invites Taoufik bin Brik, a journalist who just started a hunger strike to protest against ten years of harassment by the police of President Zine el-Abidine bin Ali. Presented as a symbol of the struggle against authoritarian regimes, the guest soon becomes an embarrassment because of his provocations and his accusations against the French government. Consequently, he loses his credibility in the eyes of the public and RSF repudiates him, for “his attitude is doing harm to the cause of the press freedom”.
-2002-2003, France: RSF sets up a legal structure, the Damocles Network, to support prosecuted journalists. The organization also starts to publish an annual worldwide rating of the freedom of the press. In 2003, it eventually opens a shelter in Paris to accommodate journalists in exile.
-2002, Venezuela: RSF intervenes to support the press and the opposition after a failed coup d’Etat against President Hugo Chavez. Left-wing groups consequently accuse the association of serving the interests of American imperialism.
-2003, Cuba: while the western media focus on the war in Iraq, RSF protests against the arrests of opponents to the regime of Fidel Castro in April 2003. The local correspondent of the association, Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, is himself jailed and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. In Paris, RSF occupies the Cuban Tourist Information Centre and demonstrates in front of the Cuban embassy, where it clashes with the diplomatic staff. Like in Venezuela in 2002, Robert Ménard will be sharply criticized by left-wing groups for his attacks against Fidel Castro.
-March-April 2008, China: RSF leads a campaign for the boycott of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. In March, Robert Ménard and two activists of the association go to Olympia, in Greece, to disrupt the lighting of the Olympic flame. Behind Qi Liu, the Chinese representative at the organizing committee of the Games, they raise a banner showing the five Olympic rings as handcuffs, a design created for RSF by the agency Alice in April 2001, before Beijing was selected. The route of the flame is then marked out by this logo printed on black T-shirts that some French political and television personalities chose to wear. When it arrives in Paris on the 7th of April, Robert Ménard raises a black banner and the Tibetan flag on the top of the cathedral Notre-Dame, which he climbed the day before with the help of two Sherpas.
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