Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has urged governments to do more to protect media freedom or risk "shredding the very fabric of democracies.
"No state is perfect and no region is untouched. But if democracy as we know it is to stand a chance of survival, we need leaders who believe in liberal values to step up," Ms Clooney told a panel on media freedom at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Ms Clooney is representing award-winning Philippines journalist Maria Ressa, who has been repeatedly arrested on charges her legal team says are designed to silence her.
Amal Clooney speaking during the Global Conference for Media Freedom at The Printworks in London. Source: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire
"When Maria (Ressa) was arrested at her office in Manila, the police officer who handcuffed her whispered into the ear of one of her colleagues, 'Be silent or you're next.' I would bet that her colleague will not be silent. And it's our job to make sure that she's not next."
In July, Ms Clooney criticised police raids on Australian journalists at a press freedom conference in London.
“What happens in a country like Australia or the UK or the US will be looked at by every other leader in the world and potentially be used as an excuse to clamp down even further on journalists," she said at the July event that was attended by Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
Ms Clooney previously acted for Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were released from a Myanmar jail in May after being arrested for reporting on a massacre of Rohingya civilians.
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney says a record number of journalists are being abused.. Source: AAP
The prominent lawyer, who is married to Hollywood actor George Clooney, has campaigned strongly on media freedom and her foundation monitors trials of journalists being prosecuted across the world.
"It is clear to me that although more than 170 states have signed up to the international treaty in which they promised to protect free expression, the international system that is supposed to enforce this promise, is broken," she said on Thursday.
"We know this because record numbers of journalists are being abused across the world through vilification, threats, surveillance, imprisonment, even murder. And because all too often, the abuses are governments themselves."
