Definition

Watchdogs

Individuals, groups or organizations that guard against loss, waste, theft, or undesirable practices, by monitoring companies, governments, institutions and other centers of power. Watchdogs contribute to making sure that they do not engage in any inefficient, irresponsible or illegal activity without being held accountable.

Unleashed

To be free from or as if from a leash, restraint or control; to be set in motion forcefully.

Journalists, reporters, fixers, photographers, cartoonists, freelances, radio journalists, editors, cameramen, TV anchors, columnists, interpreters, whistleblowers, writers, artists, poets, activists, bloggers, publishers, critics, media, newspapers, citizen journalists, NGOs, lawyers, sources, netizens, news sites, Human Rights defenders, scribes, dissidents, documentary makers … Nowadays, news providers can wear many different clothes.

But, regardless how they dress, when they inform, when they spread the word, voice their opinion, their concern, their indignation, when they alert, witness, cover, film, record, note, see, hear, write, publish, broadcast, explain, criticize, comment, leak, paint, depict, sing, tweet, post, like, follow, call, satirize and speak for the general interest, these modern times watchdogs walk the same roads of free information and free expression.

The cause

All over the world, news providers act as protectors of our societies, as guardians of democracy. All over the world, they are repressed for doing so.

The Asian continent illustrates well the global decline of freedom of information observed in 2017:

In July, Chinese dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo (aged 61) died a few days after he was granted “medical parole” by the Chinese authorities. He had spent seven years in prison (out of the eleven years he received for his criticism of the Communist Party).
In Vietnam, bloggers Nguyen Van Hoa, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh were convicted to seven and ten years in jail for allegedly conducting “anti-state propaganda,” when they were in fact covering environmental issues of public interest.
In the Maldives, independent media outlets are harassed by the government while bloggers are forced to censor themselves to avoid similar fate as that of Yameen Rasheed, stabbed to death for satirizing his country’s political and religious establishment. Those are some of the latest names of individuals repressed while contributing to society’s public debate and democracy’s pluralism.

They, and those before and after them, are the reason why Watchdogs Unleashed exist.

We seek to protect news providers and defend freedom of information and expression wherever it’s threatened or denied. Watchdogs Unleashed seeks to gather individuals sharing a thirst for freedom of information and freedom of expression, in order to constitute a collective force, able to stop all forms of coercion on news providers and effect positive change in societies.

Our axioms

We deem that only when freedom of information and free speech are guaranteed can a society achieve democracy, that democracy can only survive while those freedoms exist and are respected.

We think that freedom of information and freedom of expression come first. Those freedoms can never be promised as the result of peace, stability or democracy. Instead, they are prerequisites of the latter.

We assert one cannot be asked to enjoy these freedoms wisely and responsively before those freedoms are guaranteed. In other words, if freedom of information and free speech come with some duties and responsibilities, their abuse should never lead to total bankruptcy, jail, deportation, threats, physical and/or psychological harm, nor any other loss of fundamental freedoms.

We recognize only few and very circumscribed limitations to freedom of information and freedom of expression. We take every case separately and look at the context carefully. Our ultimate red line is incitement to violence.

Join Us

If you share the same principles, join the fight for the freedom of all news providers who are persecuted all over the world.

CONTACT US