RIGHTS: RSF Calls for Global Protection for Journalists

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, May 3 2000 (IPS) - Journalists made their voices heard on World Press Freedom Day in the Spanish capital Wednesday as they demanded international guarantees to freely exercise their profession.

The Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF – Journalists Without Borders), the Press Association of Madrid and the International Press Club agreed that laws compelling countries to respect journalists’ right to work are essential, and that related disputes should be decided by international courts.

RSF used World Press Freedom Day, declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), as an opportunity to announce these claims and to present its annual report on press freedoms in the Ibero-American Community and the rest of the world.

The RSF report indicates that 36 journalists were assassinated in 1999 and five more have been murdered so far this year. As of Dec 31, 1999, 85 reporters remained in prison in 25 countries. Last year’s totals were 446 journalists arrested, 653 threatened or attacked and 357 media outlets were banned or suspended.

Reporters have become a military target. Last year 28 died in areas of conflict like Sierra Leone (10 victims), Yugoslavia (6), Colombia (6), Chechnya (3), East Timor (2) and Lebanon (1).

As of April 5 this year, the countries with the most journalists in prison are Burma (12), Syria (9), Ethiopia (8), China (8), Vietnam (4), Cuba (4), Iran (3), Rwanda (3), Turkey (2), Egypt (2) and the Congo (2).

Violence against members of the press has dropped dramatically in America Latina, but six journalists were killed – all in Colombia – in the course of their work in 1999. There were eight such assassinations the previous year.

For the first time since 1996, there were no journalists murdered in Brazil or Mexico. But five reporters were attacked in Guatemala and their counterparts in Mexico and Peru received death threats.

In Chile, journalists Alejandra Matus was forced to seek exile in the United States in order to avoid arrest under the State security law for revealing the poor functioning of the nation’s justice system.

On the positive side, RSF points out that Panama’s situation improved with the arrival of Mireya Moscoso in the presidency, as she threw out several “gag laws” imposed by the military regimes of the 1970s.

But in Cuba, says the report, the government considers independent journalists to be “mercenaries of North American imperialism,” and continues to systematically repress them. Four reporters are in prison, four more were forced to flee the country and some 50 were arrested and released last year.

The number of threats against reporters has fallen in Peru, but the government uses official advertising dollars to consolidate its control over television, “a strategic medium in the presidential elections” this month, according to RSF.

The report release ceremony was led by RSF president, Fernando Castelló – a Spanish journalist for the Efe agency – and Carlos Pulgarín, of Colombia’s ‘El Tiempo’ newspaper.

Also taking part in the presentation were fellow Spaniards José Oneto, director of Zeta Group, a media organisation, and photographer Gervasio Sánchez, who has received several awards for his work covering the armed conflicts in Africa and former Yugoslavia.

Castelló emphasised that Spain, a member of the Ibero-American Community, is also a country where freedom of expression is under attack.

He pointed to the fact that the illegal Basque organisation ETA had sent package bombs to two journalists: Carlos Herrera of Radio Nacional and Jesús María Zuloaga of ‘La Razón’ newspaper. Fortunately, government security units discovered the explosives and were able to prevent the two from being injured.

Oneto, in turn, revealed that when an ETA leader was arrested two weeks ago, he was found to be carrying a list of 42 journalists.

These “black lists are fed by the accusations of high-ranking public officials from the Basque Country,” said Castelló, referring to statements made by Basque Nationalist Party leaders who govern that region.

The RSF president called on the Spanish and Basque governments, saying they must implement protections for journalists, and Basque political authorities must put an end to their harassment of the press because they are only stoking the ETA fires.

Pulgarín stressed that journalists in Colombia face threats from three fronts: government military forces, right-wing paramilitary groups and guerrilla forces, with drug-traffickers allied with one or more of them, depending on who controls the territory.

“As long as corruption gallops on, impunity will continue for those who threaten and attack journalists,” declared the Colombian press leader.

Oneto and Sánchez criticised the measuring sticks used by international organisations in evaluating their members or potential members. Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and has been accepted as a candidate for membership in the European Union, Oneto pointed out, but continues to hold journalists prisoner and allow threats to be made against them.

Pulgarín asked “why the situation in Kosovo is more important for the major media than that of Sierra Leone?” Because, he said, the relationships between these media giants and transnational economic powers are growing closer all the time.

At the Press Association, meanwhile, secretary general José María Torre Cervigón cited a joint 1999 message from then-director general of UNESCO, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, UN secretary general Kofi Annan and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

The three leaders had written that freedom of the press is a cornerstone of human rights and a guarantee of all other freedoms.

Cervigón also quoted Pakistani journalist Razia Bati, who said “we journalists must seek out and tell the truth because we are the voice of the millions who have no voice.”

At many of the World Press Freedom Day ceremonies here, speakers invoked the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which establishes that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”