United States: Over 400 Attacks On Press Freedom In Under A Month
One of those incidents involved a DW reporter named Stefan Simons. He was shot at with rubber bullets and threatened with arrest in Minneapolis several weeks ago. How typical is his experience based on your research?
Unfortunately, Stefan's experience of getting shot at by the police with non-lethal projectiles is not uncommon. During the past few weeks, we have recorded at least 89 rubber bullet or projectile incidents, 27 pepper sprayings is 49 tear gassings.
Not all of those were necessarily directed at the journalists because they were journalists. Sometimes it's simply an issue of being in a protest in a crowd. But there were numerous incidents in which the police targeted journalists. We are deeply concerned about this and we are requesting that the police open investigations into these incidents.