Jeremy Corbyn says he will fight for the freedom of the press. His record tells another story

Like Theresa May’s approach to Brexit, cherry picking is the Labour leader’s modus operandi when calling out a lack of press freedom overseas

In his leader’s speech at the Labour Party conference this year, Jeremy Corbyn made an attempt to show that he cares about the importance of a free press around the world. “We must, and we will, protect the freedom of the press to challenge unaccountable power,” he said, before going on to cite countries where the press are imprisoned, harassed or sometimes even killed by authoritarian regimes.

What a shame his record exposes this as an empty promise. Like Theresa May’s approach to Brexit, cherry picking is Corbyn’s modus operandi when calling out a lack of press freedom overseas. His historical allies, despite their questionable records, were not on his list.

Venezuela is the first name he conveniently excluded. When I stayed in Caracas in 2009, I saw hours and hours of the speeches of former president, Hugo Chavez, on my hotel room television. This was the same year that Chavez shut down 32 radio stations and two television stations. His successor, Nicolas Maduro, has closed a further 46 according to the Venezuelan National Union of the Workers of the Press. Last year, when there were mass protests, the Spanish CNN news channel was taken off air. And it’s not just professional newscasters who are affected: there have been reports of one government ministry forcing public employees to email their social media names to managers. On Chavez’s death, in 2013, Corbyn tweeted: “He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world.” Many Venezuelan journalists would beg to differ.

Then there is Iran, where four journalists have been killed since 1992 – another country Corbyn neglected to mention in his Liverpool speech.

Its state-sponsored propaganda TV station, Press TV, is banned by Ofcom, the UK press regulator. A few years ago the Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian was jailed for over 500 days in Tehran due to a dispute with the US. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian national, has been imprisoned on the grounds that she was working as a journalist in Iran, when in fact she was visiting her parents. Only last month, at least seven journalists were given prison terms of up to 26 years, ordered to be flogged publicly and forced into exile on their release.

But this month a Labour party activist organised a live streaming on Press TV of an event where one of the party’s MPs, Joan Ryan, lost a motion of no-confidence. Jeremy Corbyn has appeared a number of times on the same channel, receiving £20,000 in the process; he refused to tell Channel 4 this week whether or not he regretted the decision.

Finally there is Syria, which has an equally appalling record when it comes to the treatment of journalists. According to Freedom House, in 2015 Syria was one of the “most dangerous places in the world to practice journalism”. The organisation claims that Bashar al-Assad has killed, injured, abducted or imprisoned dozens of journalists.

In his conference speech, Corbyn said that the free press has meant the freedom to spread “lies and half-truths”. Back in April, he was the one who was suggesting that chemical weapons attack in Douma “may not have been” perpetrated by the murderous regime of Assad when all evidence pointed the finger towards him. To date he has not explicitly and unequivocally condemned Assad.

Corbyn was right to talk about the fact that some countries do not have a fair and impartial media – and, yes, some of the stories in our own free press about Labour’s “spy connections” are possibly exaggerated. However, by failing to talk about what is happening to the press in Venezuela, Syria or Iran – and in one case taking their money – Corbyn does nothing to help advance the rights, freedoms or physical safety of journalists worldwide.

If he wants to be taken seriously when it comes to press freedom and human rights, it is high time that Corbyn called out the abysmal record of the regimes he has supported for decades. If he failed to do so and then became prime minister, what a terrible message that would send to the rest of the world.