RIGHTS: World Still Dangerous Place for Journalists, Says New Report

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Jan 7 2001 (IPS) - The climate in which journalists worked in many countries across the world last year was far from free, given the number of reporters who were killed, arrested, imprisoned and threatened, a new report says.

During the last 12 months, 26 journalists were killed, a majority of them by rebel groups or independence movements waging armed conflicts against governments, states Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF), in its review of abuses committed against media workers in 2000.

Furthermore, reveals this Paris-based media rights organisation, 329 journalists were arrested, 77 were imprisoned, and 510 were threatened or harassed. Media organisations, it adds, were not spared either, resulting in close to 300 being censored.

Such dismal numbers, however, are lower across the board when compared with what RSF documented in its review of media violations in 1999. In that year 36 journalists were killed, 446 arrested, 85 imprisoned, 653 threatened or harassed, and 357 media groups censored.

Nevertheless, affirms RSF, the reasons for the attacks on journalists have remained the same. “In many countries impunity remains the rule in cases of murders of journalists,” it declares.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) agrees with that assessment, too, following a study it released this week that accounts for journalists who lost their lives in 2000 because of their work.

According to Ann Cooper, executive director of CPJ, while many of the deaths occurred in countries ravaged by war or civil conflicts, “the majority did not die in crossfire. They were very deliberately targeted for elimination because of their reporting”.

Moreover, she adds, “if people who want to silence the press know they will not be held accountable, they will commit and get away with murder”.

And for both CPJ and RSF, the murders of journalists in Colombia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka last year reflect this climate of impunity. In Colombia, for instance, three journalists were “shot dead by assassins” belonging to right-wing paramilitary forces, bringing the number of Colombian journalists killed during the past decade to 34.

Yet, notes CPJ, “no arrests have been made”.

Among the other countries identified by these two organisations in their respective studies on journalists killed in 2000 were: Bangladesh, Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Mozambique, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Spain, Ukraine and Uruguay.

For RSF, the number of journalists imprisoned for their work was equally troubling, too. “Over half the journalists imprisoned in the world are in only four countries. The largest jails for journalists are in Burma (which has 13 reporters behind bars), China (12), Iran (9) and Ethiopia (9).”

In the case of China, it adds, 12 journalists were given heavy jail sentences, usually handed for “counter-revolutionary propaganda” or “subversive activities”.

In Iran, on the other hand, two imprisoned journalists “are likely to be sentenced to death”. These two men – Hassan Youssefi Eschkevari, of the monthly Iran-e-Farda, and Khalil Rostamkhani, of the Daily News have been accused of being “mohareb” (fighters against God) for “writing or distributing articles which could undermine ‘national security”‘, states the RSF report.

Moreover, RSF affirms, the conditions where reporters are imprisoned remain “deplorable”. And the situation in Burma illustrates such a state, where “prison authorities have refused medical care for several journalists”.

Regards the 329 journalists who were either arrested or detained, RSF identified a disturbing pattern. In most cases, the reporters were taken in “without any explanation” by state authorities.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where as many as 25 journalists were detained last year, it was not only a case of being arrested by one of the nine security services in charge of “national security” that exposed this form of media suppression. Some of the journalists, notes RSF, were “beaten up, maltreated or even whipped during their detention in one of the numerous jails in Kinshasa or other large towns in the country”.

But governments were not the only ones who abused the media in this manner. The incidents in Colombia and the Philippines reveal the involvement of armed groups, too, states the report.

In Colombia, for example, some 20 journalists were kidnapped by militant groups during the course of 2000 to “protest against their coverage of the war”, while in the Philippines, “25 journalists were held hostage” between May 13 and Sep. 20 on Jolo Island by the rebel group Abu Sayyaf.

According to RSF, the spate of media suppression last year also affected close to 300 news organisations, with Iran being among the countries with the worst record. In that Middle Eastern nation, the courts, which are dominated by religious conservatives, succeeded in shutting down over 30 reformist publications.

For RSF, the climate of impunity that has given rise to such attacks on journalists and media organisations “remains extremely worrying”, and placing emphasis to “stop this impunity should be a priority in the next few years”.

The CPJ’s Cooper underscores the need for similar pressure, too. “Press freedom groups must maintain pressure for justice, so that all journalists can do their jobs free from the fear of violent reprisals.”