Johannesburg | Tuesday
PRESS freedom has come under attack in virtually every region of the world this year, with an alarming number of journalists killed or imprisoned, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said on Monday.
The Paris-based organisation said in a statement that 56 journalists have been killed worldwide this year — 41 of them since June — and seven in Afghanistan during the past two weeks.
“The global press freedom situation has deteriorated in several countries over the last six months: the number of murdered journalists particularly is rising dramatically,” WAN said in a report to its board, which met at the Sun City resort, 180 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg.
It said Latin America remained the most dangerous place for journalists to work, with nine journalists killed in Colombia alone, and journalists dying violently in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica.
It also castigated countries for locking up journalists, saying 19 were in jail in Iran, 18 in Burma, and 15 in China.
“In Syria despite the release of prominent journalist Nizar Nayouf in May, the press has been reduced to silence. The family of Nizar Nayouf is systematically harassed and the reporter himself — in France for medical treatment — still faces several charges,” the statement said.
The report mentioned the Basque region in Spain and Northern Ireland, emphasising the necessity of a “serious defence of the right to expression in countries where such freedoms are taken for granted.”
The statement said freedom of speech has also deteriorated in Central Europe, Russia, Central Asia, South Korea and the Philippines.
The statement said Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his government intensified crackdowns on the independent press ahead of next year’s presidential elections, expelling foreign correspondents, censoring the press and arresting local journalists.
WAN represents some 17 000 newspapers and has some 70 national newspaper associations in 93 countries and 17 news agencies amongst its membership.
Meanwhile, the International Press Institute (IPI) on Monday vehemently criticised the Zimbabwe government for accusing journalists based in the country of helping terrorists.
In a strongly-worded statement, the IPI strenuously denied that correspondents for Britain’s Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, and The Independent newspapers distorted truth and assisted terrorists through their reports.
A Zimbabwean government representative made the allegations about the British journalists in an article published in the state-run newspaper the Heraldon Friday. The spokesman said journalists working for South Africa’s Star, The Zimbabwe Independent and The Associated Press (AP) were also guilty.
In a letter to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, IPI director Johann Fritz condemned “the government’s overwhelming desire to control the free flow of information”.
He added that the “spurious claim” that Zimbabwe correspondents were aiding terrorists was laying “the foundations for the application of the proposed Public Order and Security Bill (POSB) against the media”.
The POSB carries the death penalty for acts of “insurgency, banditry, sabotage and terrorism”, as well as the threat of jail and fines for anyone who “undermines the authority of the president” or “engenders hostility” towards him. – AFP