2006 Annual report | 3.05.2006
World Press Freedom Day: Our annual survey and new list of predators
Few years have started off as badly for Reporters Without Borders as
2005. On 5 January, we were horrified to learn of the kidnapping of
Florence Aubenas, special correspondent in Iraq for the French daily
paper Libération, and her local guide Hussein Hanoun. Every kidnapping
is painful for families, friends, employers and colleagues of the
journalists held hostage. But this one was especially so because Aubenas
is a good friend of Reporters Without Borders who has always campaigned
with us to defend jailed or persecuted journalists, especially in Tunisia.
So just a few days after the safe return to France of two other
kidnapped French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot,
we had to launch a new campaign and ask everyone to switch to the new
victims and lobby just as hard for them. We weren’t disappointed. The
response was excellent and Aubenas and Hanoun were freed on 11 June,
after 157 days.
Meanwhile, other foreign and local journalists were kidnapped in Iraq
and then freed. They included Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena and
Romanian journalists Marie-Jeanne Ion and Sorin Dumitru Miscoci.
Unfortunately, the kidnappings show no sign of ending and each week
brings new ones.
As this is being written, the fate of American reporter Jill Carroll, of
the Christian Science Monitor, and Rim Zeid and Marwan Khazaal, of the
Iraqi station Sumariya TV, is uncertain. Once again, we can’t let up in
our campaigning. We have to remind the kidnappers every day that Carroll
and her Iraqi colleagues were simply doing their job as journalists and
that nothing can justify subjecting them to this terrible ordeal.
But press freedom isn’t threatened just in Iraq. Next door, in Beirut,
journalists live in fear of being attacked. Two senior journalists,
Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni, of the daily paper An-Nahar, were killed
in car-bomb attacks during the year and a star presenter for the TV
station LBC, May Chidiac, was seriously wounded in another.
Lebanon has the best record for press freedom in the Arab world but is
now moving towards self-censorship. The best-known political
commentators are moving about carefully and no longer dare to openly
criticise neighbouring Syria, which is accused by many of being behind
the attacks. Others have gone into exile, to France and elsewhere.
Press freedom has its predators
Reporters Without Borders compiles an annual worldwide list of predators
of press freedom to show which powerful people are attacking journalists
and media outlets. This very exclusive club expanded in 2005 to include
new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who made inflammatory remarks
as soon as he took office and forced reformist newspapers to close down.
Heads of state sometimes develop a sudden urge, after years in power, to
crack down hard on personal freedoms. Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe, after two decades of fairly moderate rule, got tough a few years
ago and turned his country into a nightmare for journalists and anyone
who wanted to express themselves freely. Nepal’s King Gyanendra followed
suit in 2005, when he assumed full powers on 1 February and began
censoring hundreds of media outlets, especially the many independent
radio stations, and arresting truckloads of journalists.
In 2006, other fears have arisen, such as with the victory in
Palestinian elections of Hamas, which has little time for critical or
independent media. Elections in Haiti and Peru could also affect press
freedom one way or the other.
Leadership changes elsewhere inspire hope. Authoritarian reflexes
persist in Ukraine, but new President Viktor Yushchenko seems determined
to end the brutal and repressive practices of his predecessor. Liberia’s
new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female head of
state in Africa, has been welcomed by all and the war-exhausted
country’s media can breathe again.
The most deadly year for a decade
2005 was a bloody one, with at least 63 journalists and five media
assistants killed worldwide and more than 1,300 media workers attacked
or threatened - the highest toll since 1995, when Algerian Islamic
fundamentalist groups attacked anyone who didn’t support them. Violence
against journalists is now routine in Bangladesh, the Philippines,
Nigeria and Mexico and it goes unpunished. A few killers of journalists
were arrested and given prison sentences in 2005 but others are still
walking free. Guilty policemen, soldiers, drug-traffickers, members of
armed groups and criminals of all stripes are still at large and know
they’re safe from the law. Impunity is still the main enemy of human
rights activists.
Exile abroad is one result of such violence. The Journalists’ Residence
for refugee media workers, set up in Paris with the help of Reporters
Without Borders, is as full as ever. Similar houses ought to be opened
in cities such as London, Madrid, New York and Berlin, wherever
journalists flee to escape death or imprisonment.
Reporters Without Borders often hears that a journalist has disappeared,
leaving no word with employers and family who suffer terribly in their
search for signs or news of the missing person. We’ve added a special
page to our website (www.rsf.org) so that vanished journalists such as
cameraman Fred Nérac and reporter Guy-André Kieffer, as well as the
lesser-known Acquitté Kisembo, Ali Astamirov and Djamil Fahassi, are not
forgotten.
New tasks on the horizon
Imprisonment is the favour weapon of authoritarian rulers to silence
journalists and more than 100 currently languish in jails around the
world. The picture is much the same from year to year and China, Cuba,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran and Burma are still the countries holding most
journalists.
In these places, a sharp commentary, an over-strong adjective or an
irritating news item are immediately dubbed “threats to public order,”
“sedition” or “undermining state security.” Punishment can be five, 10
or even 20-year prison sentences, as well as cancellation of civil
rights, all aimed at breaking the journalist involved and frightening
others who might utter some critical or disobedient thought.
No form of media escapes censorship, not even blogs, which soared in
number in 2005. Many journalists in Iran or Tunisia, for example, turn
to the Internet when censored in the mainstream media. Websites,
personal pages and blogs in such countries have become the only source
of opposition or independent news. But the censors are watching and bar
access to sites and filter, monitor or delete material they don’t like.
China is by far the top world expert at this but other countries are
catching up.
But our focus isn’t all on countries south or east. We must also keep a
careful eye on press freedom in Europe and North America. It would be
foolish to compare the plight of journalists in Burma with those in
Europe. But it needs to be pointed out that not everything is perfect in
Western democracies.
The battle to defend the secrecy of journalistic sources, which landed
American journalist Judith Miller in prison, is more pressing than ever.
The issue is hotly debated in France, Belgium and neighbouring
countries. The repeated searches of journalists’ homes and offices in
several European Union member-states are alarming. Concentration of
media ownership, even if it doesn’t yet seem to much affect media
diversity and freedom, will also perhaps concern us in the future.
Some good news too
There was also good news in 2005, which encourages us to continue
campaigning. The release of a journalist, the reopening of a censored
media outlet or the sentencing of an enemy of press freedom cheer us and
make us cautiously optimistic. The media is freer now in India, some
Central American countries and the Indonesian province of Aceh.
Reporters Without Borders has helped to reform the press laws in
Mauritania and hopes to do the same in Chad and Cameroon. Mexico has set
up a special prosecutor’s office to investigate attacks on journalists,
showing that it acknowledges the serious situation.
The row over the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed printed in a Danish
newspaper in September is a sign that people are very interested in
freedom of expression. The definition of that often varies from one
continent to another, but the row has shown that nobody is indifferent
to the issue. And making an issue of press freedom can only benefit us all.
PDF: http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/report.pdf
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17084
No comments:
Post a Comment