31 May 2005
WAN, IPI ASSESS GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM CONDITIONS
Press freedom on a global level is deteriorating, with independent media under siege in most regions of the world and dozens of journalists killed because of their work, says a new report by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).
Surveying the state of press freedom over the past six months, the report names Nepal, Cuba, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, China and Zimbabwe as the worst among countries where independent media are being suffocated by government censorship.
WAN released its report at the World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum, which is being held this year in Seoul, Korea from 29 May to 1 June 2005.
In Nepal, the media has faced an "onslaught of pressure and terror" following King Gyanendra's declaration of a state of emergency on 1 February 2005, says WAN. Over 1,000 radio journalists have lost their jobs and scores of others have been assaulted or harassed by police. Although the King officially ended the state of emergency on 29 April, no improvements in restrictions on the media have been noted.
In Cuba, 23 journalists remain behind bars, making the country one of the leading jailers of journalists in the world. In Belarus, the dictatorship of President Aleksander Lukashenko continues to create an extremely difficult environment for media.
Ongoing attacks on cyber-dissidents in China in the name of national security continue to land scores of journalists and human rights activists in prison with harsh sentences, while Turkmenistan's government bars independent media and remains completely isolated from the outside world.
Press freedom in Zimbabwe under President Mugabe?s regime has deteriorated in the past few months, with the elimination of the last independent media through licensing and security laws. In Eritrea, 16 journalists remain imprisoned in unknown locations.
WAN says 38 journalists have been killed worldwide since November 2004, half of them in Iraq and the Philippines.
The full report is available here: http://www.wan-press.org/article7247.html
The International Press Institute (IPI), which held its annual congress in Nairobi, Kenya, last week, expressed its ongoing concern over press freedom conditions in Nepal, Ethopia, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The countries were placed on IPI's Watch List, which puts governments on notice that the press freedom group is closely monitoring their actions.
Highlighting Nepal, IPI called on the government to remove restrictions on the press and a ban on political activities. It said a 2 February 2005 order banning the media from reporting anything that is against "the spirit and letter of the 1 February royal proclamation and supports and encourages the activities of the terrorists directly or indirectly" remains in place.
See IPI's Congress Resolutions: http://www.freemedia.at/Protests2005/pr_resolutions24.05.05.htm
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