Today, on the third of May, World Press Freedom Day is celebrated all around the world. Also in countries with established and emerging Human Rights Houses, Press Freedom Day helps us to be reminded of the fact that every day journalists are censored, harassed, threatened and even killed for exercising their profession. But the third of May is also a date to encourage and develop initiatives in favour of press freedom, and to assess the state of press freedom worldwide. (03-MAY-06)
This article is based on articles on the webpages of Reporters without Borders, IFEX and UNESCO. Text: HRH Oslo / Ralph Pluimert
This year the main theme of UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day is the correlation between media freedom and the eradication of poverty. More and more aid agencies, NGOs and state actors are recognizing the role independent media can play in fostering sustainable development and alleviating extreme poverty. Media freedom and access to information play a key role in facilitating local participation and empowerment of the poor. Nonetheless press freedom continues to be under large pressure in many parts of the world, which is proven by the many cases press freedom organisations like Reporters without Borders and IFEX present on a daily basis.
To give an idea of the freedom for journalists and news organisations on a worldwide scale, Reporters without Borders each year compiles the World Wide Press Freedom Index, which is based on the results of a survey under its partner organisations. The 2005 list shows that, of the countries with established and emerging Human Rights House, press freedom is especially limited in Belarus (ranked 152), Azerbaijan (141), the Russian Federation (138) and Colombia (128). It is also in these 4 four countries that journalists have been killed in the year 2005: 6 of the 65 assassinated journalists came from these countries. One of them was Colombian radio host Gustavo Rojas Gabalo who was shot by unidentified gunmen. Rojas, a radio journalist for more than 30 years, frequently reported on government corruption. In Azerbaijan, Elmar Huseynov, founder and editor of the Russian-language opposition weekly, Monitor, was gunned down in the stairwell of his apartment building in Baku. Huseynov, who had received numerous death threats, was known for his articles on government corruption.
But it is not only these murders that indicate the ongoing struggle by journalists for independent reporting. According to Reporters without Borders an alarming amount of more than 1,300 journalists were physically attacked or threatened and more than 800 were arrested in 2005. The Oslo-based independent journalist Sethurupan Nadarajah has for instance for the past six months been the target of serious death threats for his reporting on the Tamil Tigers. In Kenia, cameraman Eustace Kathurima was in March the latest victim of the on-going police harassment of Standard Group journalists.
Moreover, the number of cases of censorship increased by more than 50 % in 2005. Censorship thrives especially in Central Asian countries and other former Soviet states, like Belarus, where the freedom of the press in the course of 2005 has come under increasing pressure. Only last week, two journalists were detained while they were preparing to cover an opposition rally on the occasion of the Chernobyl disaster. Belarus is also one of the 15 countries on Reporter without Borders’ list ‘enemies of the Internet’.
