Intimidation and Killing of Journalists on the Rise Worldwide, Say Groups

Intimidation and Killing of Journalists on the Rise Worldwide, Say Groups

Abid Aslam, OneWorld US
Tue May 3, 1:05 PM ET

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 3 (OneWorld) - Journalism is an increasingly dangerous profession and last year claimed the highest number of news gatherers' lives in a decade, according to media watchdogs.

Even where journalists enjoy relative safety--as in the United States--their freedom to report is under government attack, they further warned.

Reporters Without Borders, in a report released Tuesday to mark World Press Freedom Day, said last year's death toll rose to 53 compared with 40 killed in the line of work in 2003. The figure was the highest since 1995, it said.

''It may never have been as dangerous to inform people,'' said the Paris-based organization, which goes by the French initials RSF. ''Freedom of the press is far from being assured around the world.''

RSF listed Iraq as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists, saying 19 were killed there in 2004 and more than 15 were taken hostage.

A total of 56 journalists and their assistants have been killed in two years in Iraq, making it more dangerous than the 1991-1995 fighting in the former Yugoslavia, during which 49 journalists were killed, it said.

A total of 63 journalists were killed in Vietnam, the worst war for journalists, but that was over a 20-year period from 1955-1975, RSF added.

Asia was not far behind Iraq in 2004, with 16 journalists killed. ''Almost all of them were killed because they expressed their opinions,'' the report said.

''Denouncing the corruption of elected officials or investigating crime turned out to be fatal for journalists in Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka," it added.

Twelve journalists died while working in Latin America and one in Africa, according to the report.

Reporters Without Borders also published an ''Enemies of Press Freedom Blacklist'' naming ''those who have personally committed crimes or grave offenses against journalists or media and who are still unpunished.''

The list included leaders of countries where reporters have been killed, and violent movements that have pressured or killed journalists who were reporting on their activities.

The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a separate report, branded the Philippines, Iraq, Colombia, Bangladesh, and Russia as the world's ''most murderous'' countries in which to be a journalist.

The organization said that the vast majority of journalists killed on the job since 2000 did not die in crossfire but that 121 of the 190 journalists slain worldwide were ''hunted down and murdered in retaliation for their work.''

The killers have gone unpunished in more than 85 percent of these slayings, it added.

''By failing to investigate and punish the killers, the governments in these five countries embolden all those who seek to silence the press through violence,'' CPJ executive director Ann Cooper said in a statement.

In most cases, journalists were murdered in retaliation for reporting on government corruption, crime, drug trafficking, or the activities of rebel groups, the report found.

In the Philippines, for example, all 18 journalists slain for their work since 2000 had reported on government and police corruption, drug dealing, and the activities of crime syndicates, the report said.

In Colombia, all 11 journalists murdered in the past five years where reporting on drugs, paramilitary organizations, or local corruption. At least eight received death threats and warnings before being gunned down, the report said.

In Bangladesh, nine journalists have been slain since 2000, eight of them in the lawless southwestern Khulna district, the domain of criminal gangs and outlawed political groups. Seven had received death threats.

''Bangladesh has long been a violent place for journalists; they are routinely beaten, harassed, and threatened while carrying out their work,'' CPJ said.

In Russia, it added, at least seven journalists died in contract-style slayings in direct reprisal for their work. The group continues to investigate the motives in four other contract killings that may have been related to the victims' work.

Most of the victims, according to CPJ, were print journalists investigating organized crime and government corruption, while a few were broadcast journalists who had criticized the policies of influential local politicians.

Crossfire was the leading cause of death for journalists in Iraq but even there, 13 of the 41 news personnel who died on the job since 2000 were murdered, CPJ said.

More than half of those murdered were Iraqi journalists targeted by insurgents because they either had ties to or were seen as affiliates of the occupation forces, foreign organizations, or political parties. The CPJ report also noted that U.S. troops have been accused of targeting journalists, particularly those critical of the U.S.-led military occupation.

Journalists in the United States enjoy relative physical safety but their freedoms and protections are under government attack, New York-based rights group Freedom House said in its own report for World Press Freedom Day.

The country has experienced ''notable setbacks'' in press freedom including prosecutorial efforts to compel journalists to reveal confidential sources and thus undo longstanding protections, Freedom House said.

Government efforts to increase its influence over media included paying journalists to promote President George W. Bush's policies--such as the ''No Child Left Behind'' education law--without identifying their government sponsors, the group said.

Under Bush, federal agencies also have stepped up the distribution of video news releases--propaganda made to resemble independent news--to local television stations. The stations frequently fail to identify the government as the source, thus encouraging viewers to believe they are watching genuine news, Freedom House said.

Those setbacks earned the United States 24th place out of 194 countries covered by Freedom House's annual survey of the legal environment in which media operate, political influences on reporting and access to information, and economic pressures on content and the dissemination of news.

Freedom House said media in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden were the freest in the world while those in North Korea, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Cuba, and Turkmenistan were the most oppressed.

The United States tied for 24th place with Barbados, Canada, Dominica, Estonia, and Latvia.

Copyright © 2005 OneWorld.net.

By Lionheart on May 3, 2005, 17:44 in Politics & the war.