Nel nostro blog abbiamo già fatto riferimento al GI-TOC, l'Iniziativa Globale contro la Transnational Organized Crime, un'organizzazione indipendente della società civile fondata nel 2013, con sede a Ginevra, in Svizzera, nata da una serie di discussioni di alto livello tra funzionari delle forze dell'ordine dei paesi sviluppati e in via di sviluppo a New York, nel 2011-12.
Di particolare interesse appare un articolo recentemente pubblicato sul sito Internet, dal titolo originale "Of kingdoms and crooks: The rise of geocriminality" (Di regni e truffatori: l'ascesa della geocriminalità) di Martin Thorley, che discute il fenomeno emergente degli stati che utilizzano le reti criminali come strumenti di politica estera. L'articolo cita diversi esempi di questa tendenza, tra cui l'uso di reti criminali da parte di Russia, Cina e Iran per omicidi, campagne di disinformazione, attacchi informatici e sabotaggi.

La relazione tra stati e attori criminali non è nuova, ma la connessione tra i due domini si sta evolvendo a causa della globalizzazione e dell'internazionalizzazione dei mercati. Storicamente, gli stati hanno utilizzato le reti criminali per la diplomazia clandestina, ma il più profondo coinvolgimento tra stati e reti criminali sta diventando un fenomeno più ampio e radicato. Questa nuova forma di strumentalizzazione statale del crimine è definita "geocriminalità".

È più probabile che la geocriminalità si verifichi in stati forti in patria ma isolati all'estero, poiché coloro che detengono il potere sono soggetti a un controllo e a una responsabilità limitati. Tuttavia, le condizioni necessarie per la geocriminalità non sono limitate agli stati autoritari e rimangono dubbi sulla sua fattibilità in altri contesti.

L'articolo si conclude osservando che comprendere lo sviluppo delle relazioni tra Stato e criminalità è essenziale per mitigare le minacce associate e che qualsiasi analisi significativa delle relazioni internazionali e della sicurezza nazionale dovrà sempre più tenere conto di questa configurazione dell'attività criminale e delle opache reti che la sostengono.
Il sito propone altresì sette interviste ad altrettanti esperti, che spaziano dai motivi per cui la Cina supporta il crimine organizzato alle sanzioni internazionali contro Corea del Nord (vedi il trailer qui youtube.com/watch?v=ahfav1pibw… ).

Lo scritto è reperibile [en] qui globalinitiative.net/analysis/…

#geocriminalità

@Politica interna, europea e internazionale

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Attacks on press freedom that used to seem outlandish or unlikely in the United States are happening across the country. Here’s the latest.

Targeting student op-ed writers threatens the free press

On Wednesday we published an article about how India’s revocation of American journalist Raphael Satter’s overseas citizenship to punish him for his reporting was a “not-so-farfetched” cautionary tale for the United States. “Once a government claims the power to use residency status as a cudgel to regulate speech, things escalate quickly and unpredictably,” wrote our advocacy director, Seth Stern.

But cautionary tales become realities quickly these days. The same day we published that piece, news broke that the Trump administration had abducted Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student from Turkey. Masked men grabbed her off the street after an organization called Canary Mission had flagged her “anti-Israel activism,” which apparently consisted solely of cowriting an op-ed that was critical of the Israel-Gaza war. She has reportedly been transferred to a facility in Louisiana, despite a court order against moving her out of Massachusetts. The arrest comes weeks after reports that Columbia University investigated an op-ed writer in response to pressure from the administration.

We said in a statement that “if reports that Ozturk’s arrest was over an op-ed are accurate, it is absolutely appalling. No one would have ever believed, even during President Donald Trump’s first term, that masked federal agents would abduct students from American universities for criticizing U.S. allies in student newspapers. Anyone with any regard whatsoever for the Constitution should recognize how fundamentally at odds this is with our values.” We also joined a letter from the Student Press Law Center and other press freedom and collegiate organizations condemning the abduction and calling upon Tufts and Congress to take action and put themselves on the right side of history.

Max Frankel’s press freedom legacy

Max Frankel, a New York Times reporter and editor who helped push for the publication of the Pentagon Papers, died Sunday at the age of 94. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Frankel was well known for his decades of reporting. But it’s another piece of writing, not initially published in a newspaper, that holds a special place in First Amendment history.

An affidavit by Frankel filed in New York Times Co. v. United States, better known as the Pentagon Papers case, has become one of the most important public documents laying out the realities of national security reporting and Washington’s unspoken rules around government secrecy and leaks. Read more about Frankel’s legacy from FPF Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus.

NPR and PBS are just low-hanging fruit

At a congressional hearing this week, lawmakers attacked NPR and PBS for perceived bias and questioned whether there is still a need for the government to fund media these days. Trump separately said he wants both outlets defunded.

The stunt would’ve been concerning in normal times, but it’s particularly worrying now. Whether or not you think there’s a legitimate debate to be had about the government funding journalism, it’s clear that public media is just the low-hanging fruit — this administration intends to seize upon any and every legal theory, however far-fetched (or just ignore the law entirely), to punish the free press.

We joined a letter with the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) about the dangers of the administration’s attacks on NPR and PBS. Stern also had more to say on DW’s The Day, which also airs on several PBS stations.

New executive order gives DOGE more control over agency records

A new executive order has the potential to grant the Department of Government Efficiency more control over agency records, and hints that the Trump administration may be considering issuing a new executive order on classification.

Both could spell bad news for the public’s right to know. Read more here from our Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, Lauren Harper.

Texas anti-SLAPP bill wouldn’t only impact journalists

The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen understands the importance of laws against frivolous lawsuits targeting speech, known as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs.

That’s why their litigation group has represented several Texas consumers who have been sued over their speech. For the latest in a series of interviews about the implications of attempts to weaken Texas’ anti-SLAPP laws, Vogus talked to Public Citizen attorney Paul Levy. Read the interview here.

What we’re reading

Israeli strikes kill two Gaza journalists, including Al Jazeera reporter (The Washington Post). Journalists are civilians, and targeting them is absolutely illegal and inexcusable. Everyone involved in these assassinations should be held accountable, including U.S. officials who bankroll war crimes.

Security lessons from a Signal group chat (FPF). Our digital security team explores what journalists can learn from this week’s big story — Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s accidental inclusion in a sensitive Signal group chat about bombing apartment buildings and whatnot.

The AP’s freedom of speech — and yours (The Wall Street Journal). “Today the U.S. government wants to control the AP’s speech. Tomorrow it could be someone else’s.” Read why you should care about the White House banning the Associated Press, regardless of your political views.

Leakers to Musk: We’re ‘not Elon’s servants’ (Politico). “The public deserves to know how dysfunctional, destructive, and deceptive all of this has been and continues to be,” a Food and Drug Administration employee told Politico.

Was chaotic JFK declassification marred by National Archives firings? (The Classifieds). Harper questions whether errors in the recent declassification of JFK records, including exposing social security numbers, had something to do with Marco Rubio taking over the National Archives while also serving as Secretary of State.

freedom.press/issues/student-a…

Local newspapers play an indelible role in American journalism, reporting some of the country’s biggest stories from its smallest communities.

So when authorities in Marion, Kansas, and Clarksdale, Mississippi, attacked their local newspapers for coverage with which they disagreed, the outlets themselves became the story. And outrage quickly ignited across the U.S.

In February, a judge granted the City of Clarksdale an order requiring The Clarksdale Press Register to delete an editorial raising questions about transparency within the city’s government. And in 2023, police raided the Marion County Record’s newsroom and its publisher’s home over the paper’s use of a public website to verify a news tip.

In both cases, the officials involved had longstanding grudges with the newspapers over critical coverage long before the attacks made national headlines.

To get a first-hand perspective on the fight against these unconstitutional efforts to quash free speech, we spoke to Clarksdale Press Register Publisher Wyatt Emmerich and Marion County Record Publisher Eric Meyer in an online webinar on March 26, 2025.

Meyer said the similarities between his and Emmerich’s experiences are “just overwhelming.” One of those similarities was the backlash that followed.

“When they were raiding our office, I said, ‘This is going to be on the front page of The New York Times,’ and they laughed at me,” Meyer said. “It was on the front page of The New York Times.”

The police raid of the Marion County Record and the takedown order issued to The Clarksdale Press Register both stem from prior butting of heads with their local governments. In Meyer’s case, the paper had a “contentious” relationship with the town because “we had the audacity to actually report news and reported in a way that was not positive and uplifting to the city.”

Similarly, Emmerich said Clarkdale’s mayor took issue with their editorials “because he didn’t like our coverage,” and even organized a boycott against the paper. “The mayor offered me $30,000 to fire the editor,” Emmerich said. “We were the fly in the ointment, and he wanted to get rid of us as best he could.”

“He’s a younger mayor and just doesn’t understand the role of a traditional newspaper,” Emmerich continued. “He assumed that because he was mayor, the newspaper’s job was to do what he told us to do, and we didn’t do that.”

But even as tensions boiled over and the local governments in Marion and Clarksdale tried to throw sand in the gears of accountability, Emmerich and Meyer kept their papers’ presses rolling.

“It was two all-nighters to put out the paper because we lost everything,” Meyer said. “They took our backup drives. We didn’t even have our name plates.”

Emmerich said stunting a local paper like his, either in court through publishing gags or through other means, could decimate the community’s access to reliable information. Similarly, Meyer said he sees his paper as a challenger to assumption and an excavator of truth — not a placater to the public or the local government.

“We need to understand that there is a role for journalism in society, and that role is not necessarily being the cheerleader for the town,” he said. “We are here to present the views that aren't heard, to explore the facts that aren't explored.”

It’s been over a year since the police chief who led the raid on the Marion County Record resigned, but the fallout hasn’t ceased. Meyer said he is “keeping the lawyers busy” by suing the county, the city, the former police chief, and other individuals involved in the raid.

“We got so many subscriptions out of this. We’re the 121st largest town in Kansas, the 57th largest county. A year after the raid, we had the eighth largest paid circulation in the state.”

Eric Meyer, Marion County Record publisher

Meyer also plans on filing wrongful death suits. His 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, died a day after police executed a search warrant at the home they shared. Her death, he believes, was caused by the stress of the raid.

By standing up to intimidation that flew in the face of the journalism their papers produced, Emmerich and Meyer both experienced an outpouring of support thanks to the nationwide attention their cases received.

“We got so many subscriptions out of this. We’re the 121st largest town in Kansas, the 57th largest county,” Meyer said. “A year after the raid, we had the eighth largest paid circulation in the state.” Marion is a town of less than 2,000 residents.

Keeping a small town newspaper’s finances in check is essential, especially at a time when one-third of U.S. newspapers have shuttered since 2005. But Meyer and Emmerich agree that success isn’t just measured in dollar signs or subscriber rates. Their papers must hold power to account in order to fulfill their mandates.

“Because there's so little good local journalism, the good local journalism that is there tends to be very powerful and gets results,” Emmerich said. “And unfortunately, one of those results is pushback from the city council in the form of intimidation tactics and such.”

Despite being lifted, the publishing gag against The Clarksdale Press Register “did hurt us,” Emmerich said, but “we weathered that storm.” The paper is still vulnerable, however, because Mississippi is one of several states that lacks an anti-SLAPP law protecting journalists from legal actions known as strategic lawsuits against public participation that are brought in order to chill speech.

Still, both Emmerich and Meyer believe the risks they are taking to report the truth and hold officials accountable outweigh the consequences of playing it safe. After all, a public that is disengaged from its reality “sure as hell hurts democracy,” Meyer said. And in a country that routinely distrusts and villainizes local news, these attacks did not occur in a vacuum; if they can happen in Clarksdale or Marion, they can happen anywhere.

“People don’t think they can change things. I've written the same editorial probably 50 out of the 52 weeks in the year, just with different ways of expressing it,” Meyer said. “If you don't believe that you can make a difference in something, all you listen to are slogans. If you believe you can make a difference, you'll look at facts.”

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