Amal Clooney criticises Donald Trump's attempts to silence the press

Amal Clooney, the UK government's special envoy on media freedom, is calling out US President Donald Trump for his treatment of the media.

Amal Clooney, who is running a campaign to crack down on media censorship, blamed the US president for the negative terms that are being used by authoritarian world leaders to describe journalists.

In an interview with The Guardian, the British-Lebanese barrister said: "At the same time some of the language used about journalists by authoritarian leaders is inspired by the language that came from the U.S. president." Donald Trump has often labelled the news articles criticising him as "fake news," described journalists as "dishonest, terrible people," and once called media as an "enemy of the people."

The accomplished barrister who has often criticised the PLOTUS for frequently lashing out on left-wing media and calling them names, said there have also been times when she would have preferred British ministers to do more to voice their concern about press freedom when meeting autocrats such as the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

The 42-year-old further stressed: "If world leaders are becoming more united and more innovative in finding ways to silence the press, shouldn't we as defenders of the press do the same."

The mother-of-two also urged democracies from around the world to get involved with the initiative and said: "There is safety in numbers, so that is why this needs international sign-up," referring to the Foreign Office's pledge on media freedom which has been signed by more than 30 countries.

Clooney further said that the plans to ensure press freedom are being launched into a "pretty bleak" human rights landscape. "Autocrats hold dear control of the media. All I can do as a human rights lawyer is keep trying to move an issue further up the to-do list and keep pushing so where a country is wavering they are more likely to do something than not. But yes, it is a pretty bleak landscape when it comes to accountability for human rights abuses," she said.