The new predators of press freedom
Read the ****traits of the predators of press freedom.
For the past seven years Re****ters Without Borders has exposed the
world's "predators of press freedom" - men and women who directly attack
journalists or order others to. Most are top-level politicians
(including presidents, prime ministers and kings) but they also include
militia chiefs, leaders of armed groups and drug-traffickers. They
usually answer to no-one for their serious attacks on freedom of
expression. Failure to punish them is one of the greatest threats to the
media today.
There are 39 "predators of press freedom" this year. Five have
disappeared from the previous list. Fidel Castro is one of them, as the
"lider maximo" has definitively transferred power to his brother Raúl.
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf lost February's parliamentary
elections and, in the process, his ability to harm press freedom. In
Ethiopia, the situation seems to have stabilised and imprisoned
journalists have been released, so Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been
taken off the list. The same goes for Swaziland's King Mswati III, who
has not committed any serious press freedom violation for several years.
Finally, Young Patriots leader Charles Blé Goudé in Côte d'Ivoire has
stopped calling for violence against foreign journalists or opposition
journalists.
But 10 new predators have entered the list. In the Palestinian
Territories, the armed wing of Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian
Authority's security forces in the West Bank were guilty of serious
press freedom violations. Each faction systematically hounded
journalists suspecting of siding with the other camp.
The Israel Defence Forces were added to the list after they began again
to target journalists covering their incursions into the Palestinian
Territories. A Palestinian cameraman working for Reuters was killed in
April by a shell fired from an Israeli tank. In July 2007, a cameraman
lost the use of both legs after being fired on by an Israeli soldier as
he lay on the ground.
Gurbangouly Berdymukhammedov, who has been president of Turkmenistan for
more than a year, did not keep his promise to carry out democratic
reforms. The media continue to be under the government's absolute
control and prisoners of conscience have not been released.
Press freedom has many enemies in Somalia. The armed group Al-Shabaab,
Mogadishu governor and mayor Mohamed Dhere and national security agency
director Mohamed Warsame Darwish are among those who are particularly
brutal in the way they treat journalists.
In Sri Lanka, the president's brother, secretary of State for defence
Gotabhaya Rajapakse, often voices virulent attacks on the press,
contributing to the appalling climate that prevails there. In the north
of the country, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the long-time leader of the
Tamil Tiger rebels, continues to intimidate journalists who criticise
his movement.
Finally, political calm has returned in Nepal, but a few radical armed
groups make life hell for the press, especially in the south. At least
90 journalists were physically attacked, threatened or force to flee
their town as a result of threat from armed militants.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26790
|
