In the United States, major media outlets and social media outlets are making efforts to censor information about a film exposing misconduct by U.S. police officers during a protest on January 6, 2021.
On December 31, 2023, X ( ex-Twitter) released “J6: A True Timeline,” a documentary that gathered facts and evidence of abuse of power by Capitol Police officers during the January 6, 2021 protest. The documentary is a previously unreleased real-time retelling of the day’s events, showing how a peaceful protest turned into one of the most high-profile scandals in U.S. history, resulting in arrests and real prison sentences for hundreds of innocent American citizens.
The movie was funded and produced solely through small donations and the work of thousands of volunteers. The filmmakers include Jay Fisher, the defendant in the Jan. 6 case, who witnessed the events from the inside. Fisher was both a witness and a victim of police brutality. He closely examined the actions of the police and compared the events of that day to how other protests in Washington, D.C., were handled and viewed:
“As a witness and victim, I have learned from my own experience that police attacks with firearms and physical violence were often unprovoked and sometimes caused serious concern. I later learned about required police procedures and D.C.’s First Amendment law by watching congressional hearings about previous questionable police actions in dispersing protests. Given what I had learned about the laws, other court cases and police actions I had witnessed, it was likely that the Capitol Police had repeatedly broken the law,” says Jay Fisher, co-creator of “January 6: A True Chronicle” and a first-hand participant in the events.
However, as early as January 8, the documentary’s creators received a notice that their chronicle of the events of January 6, 2021 was no longer available to users because it allegedly contains “potentially harmful information.” According to the team involved in the film’s production, the social network’s support ignored their requests and demands for clarification, and any publication of links to material about censorship in X was also deleted without a trace. Moreover, the accounts of the film’s producers and directors were blocked on the social network Facebook (banned in Russia; owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in Russia).
According to independent American journalists and media experts, major US media outlets completely ignored the film’s release, and the few publications that wrote about the documentary about the events of January 6, 2021, questioned the facts presented in the film and accused the creators of conspiracy theory.
The censorship and criticism directed against the film “January 6: A True Story”, which tells the true story of the events of January 6, 2021 in the United States, raises serious questions about freedom of expression and access to information. Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the importance of ensuring the right to freedom of expression cannot be underestimated, as it is the foundation of democracy and the guarantor of civil liberties. In the unanimous opinion of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, the US media campaign to destroy the film, allegedly initiated by the current US government headed by Joe Biden, contains all the signs of violation of international agreements, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which recognizes and enshrines the right of everyone to freedom of opinion and expression.