Human Rights
World Press Freedom day marked by somber reality
> By ROMAN ROLLNICK
Copyright © 2002 by The Earth Times. All rights reserved

Messages came in from around the world. Amnesty International in London, the Vienna-based International Press Institute, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists in Brussels, and the World Association of Newspapers in Paris, all decried the crackdown on freedom of expression, especially in the developing world. Burma, China, Iran, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Russia, and Malaysia were among those listed as rogue nations when it comes to press freedom.

In Brussels, the International Federation of Journalists said more than 1,000 journalists and media staff has been killed while working in the past 10 years. It called for more pressure on governments to prosecute and punish those responsible for violence against journalists more vigorously. It said it would publish a 10-year review of killings next month at its congress in South Korea.

"The occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2001 highlights the fact that in many countries silence is preferred to the truth," said a message from the IPI in Vienna.

With 56 journalists killed last year and 14 killed thus far in 2001, journalism, it added, remains one of the most hazardous professions.

Amnesty International said: "When journalists are silenced, it is not only they who are victims of repressive laws and practices, but also ordinary citizens who are deprived of their right to full and objective information."

The somber atmosphere of the gathering in Windhoek, was heightened by the fact that President Sam Nujoma declined an invitation to deliver the opening address, colleagues in Namibia told The Earth Times. There was even confusion on Thursday as to whether he would even meet the Unesco director general.

Windhoek is the headquarters of MISA, the watchdog Media Institute of Southern Africa. It is where 10 years ago, African journalists adopted the historic Windhoek Declaration promoting an independent and pluralistic African press.

"It was the Windhoek Declaration which prompted the United Nations General Assembly to designate this day as World Press Freedom Day," said The Namibian. "It is a significant day for media around the globe, but in particular it has a special place in the hearts of many African journalists."

Namibia's leading independent daily, it reported that the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Information and Broadcasting, Theo-Ben Gurirab, would address the gathering in Nujoma’s place. Nujoma’s government has clashed frequently with the country's press in the past two years over coverage of the low-key northern border war which started when he invited Angolan government forces to use Namibian territory as a springboard for attacks against UNITA rebels in southern Angola.

But these issues, and the fact that Unesco insisted it did not feel it was being "snubbed" by the government, served merely to illustrate the sort of problems that heighten tensions between media and governments in many developing countries.

George Ngwa, an Amnesty International spokesman in London said the "relative" success of press freedom in nations like Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Benin, Mauritius and South Africa, were overshadowed by attempts by governments and corporate bodies who hound journalists. In a statement Amnesty added:

"Across Africa, independent journalists are arrested, ill-treated, exiled, threatened with death and even killed, as a result of their legitimate work in promoting human rights, especially freedom of expression."

It cited Zimbabwe, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burundi, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as some of the worst cases. Journalists were also under attack in Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia, Central African Republic and Kenya.

The Amnesty statement singled out President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe for attacks by his government and supporters on the independent Daily News. Amnesty also singled out threats to the media in Liberia, a west African nation founded nearly two centuries ago by freed American slaves. It recalled the forced closure of the country's only independent broadcasting station, Star Radio, for reports on human rights abuses by the government of President Charles Taylor. The Catholic station, Radio Veritas, was allowed back on the air two months ago after public protests.

In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday said President Taylor, China's President Jiang Zemin, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were among the world's 10 worst enemies of the press. Jiang was named on its annual list for the fifth consecutive year "for maintaining the Communist Party's obsessive control over information, enforced in part via harsh prison sentences that have now made China the world's leading jailer of journalists," the committee said. It noted that 22 journalists were jailed in China at the end of last year.

Presiding over what CPJ called "the world's most elaborate system of media control," Jiang has also poured huge resources into policing online content, fearing the Internet's potential to "break the state's information monopoly".

CPJ also singled out Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader. It said his "fiery April 2000 sermon against the press inspired an unsparing campaign of repression against Iran's reformist media that continues to this day." More than 30 newspapers have been banned in Iran and the country's best-known liberal journalists have been jailed, it said. Others included on its list of shame were the Colombian paramilitary leader Carlos Castano and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Putin, who took office last year, has "presided over an alarming assault on press freedom in Russia," it said. "The Kremlin imposed censorship in Chechnya, orchestrated legal harassment against private media outlets and granted sweeping powers of surveillance to the security services," it said. "President Putin pays lip service to press freedom but then maneuvers in the shadows to centralize control of the media, stifle criticism and destroy the independent press," said Anne Cooper, CPJ executive. She recalled the takeover last month of NTV, the country's only independent television network, by the state-owned Gazprom corporation.

Further afield, in Sri Lanka, the IPI reported the case of two editors given suspended sentences of five and seven years in criminal defamation hearings last year. Moreover, countries such as Cuba, Indonesia and Vietnam, it said, continued to restrict the free movement of journalists under the pretext of enforcing laws that require visas and special permits for media correspondents.

"Although the annual World Press Freedom Day is highly successful at focusing attention on the plight of journalists and media outlets, further work needs to be done by governments and inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) to improve the situation," it said. "IPI invites all governments to honor their international human rights commitments and encourages IGOs to censure members who fail to do so. Without such commitments, journalists will continue to be harassed, assaulted, murdered with impunity and prevented from reporting the news."