FPA Statement on the Arrest of Journalist Don Lemon

The FPA deplores the arrest of Don Lemon for reporting a demonstration inside a Minnesota church. It is a threat to the First Amendment rights of all residents in America and but adds a further chilling effect for foreign press journalists whose visa status is already under highly critical scrutiny. If a journalist well-known to an American audience can be arrested, then a reporter working for an audience outside the United States has every reason to expect consequences.

Many of our members, rushed downtown in Manhattan to the World Trade Center to report on 9-11 and its aftermath, and following this logic could have been charged with complicity in the attacks! 

— Ian Williams, Foreign Press Association President