Journalists Mark Another Year of Persecution

By Kanya D'Almeida Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2014 (IPS) - The world’s leading media watchdogs – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) – Wednesday released their annual press freedom reports, analyzing the overall global climate for information providers.

Almost predictably the news was bleak, with CPJ reporting 70 journalists’ deaths in 2013, bringing the total death toll since 1992 to 1,041. According to ‘Attacks on the Press’, Syria, Iraq and Egypt claimed the top spots for the most number of assassinations last year with 28, 10 and six deaths respectively. For the second year running Turkey won itself the notorious distinction of imprisoning the most number of media workers, with Iran and China in hot pursuit of the title.

Meanwhile, RSF’s World Press Freedom Index 2014 again placed Turkmenistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Eritrea last on its list of 180 countries, calling those states “black holes” where “freedom of information is non-existent.”

China, Somalia and the Syrian Arab Republic also featured among the 10 worst countries in the world for journalists, with Syria alone reporting 63 deaths since March 2011.

For the fourth consecutive year Finland placed first on the index, with the Netherlands and Norway yet again bagging the second and third spots, and Luxembourg and Andorra following close behind.

South America showed some improvement, with Panama, Ecuador and Bolivia all recording double-digit “rises” on the index; still, the region’s overall performance was dragged down by Guatemala’s two-fold increase in attacks on journalists, including four murders last year, as well as Panama’s 13-place drop to number 105 on the list.

But much of this news was overshadowed by the United States’ rapid decline to number 45, a 13-place fall since 2013, putting it in the company of such tumultuous nations as Haiti and Romania.

Both CPJ and RSF sounded the alarm on the U.S.’ crusade against whistleblowers and the sources of information leaks, with the latter citing the “trial and conviction of Private Bradley Manning and the pursuit of NSA analyst Edward Snowden [as] warnings to all those thinking of assisting in the disclosure of sensitive information that would clearly be in the public interest.”

CPJ expert Jacob Weisberg, author of the report’s foreword, suggested that the “scope of the NSA’s digital spying raises doubts about the U.S. commitment to freedom of expression and strengthens the hand of China and other restrictive nations in their calls for more government control over the Internet.”

Another major concern was the privatization of violence against journalists, with militias in countries like Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo naming journalists as “enemies” of their respective causes. The same holds true in states like Honduras, Brazil and Paraguay, where journalists are hunted with a fearsome determination by organized criminal cartels.