More than two dozen journalists have been killed in Iraq since last year’s launch of the U.S.-led invasion, making the Middle Eastern nation the world’s most dangerous journalist assignment by far, according to the New York-based watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Iraq thus ranked number one among the Ten World’s Worst Places to Be a Journalist, an annual listing by CPJ in honor of World Press Freedom Day, May 3.
The war-torn Middle Eastern country, where more U.S. troops were killed in April than in any one-month period since the waning days of Washington’s direct military involvement in the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago, was followed on this year’s list by Cuba, Zimbabwe, Turkmenistan, and Bangladesh in the top five.
China, Eritrea, Haiti, the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and Russia rounded out the list, although CPJ noted just last Thursday that two radio journalists who had covered corruption and crime in remote areas of Brazil were killed by unknown assailants in just the past week.
“In all of these places, reporting the news is an act of courage and conviction,” said CPJ’s executive director, Ann Cooper. “Journalism is essential in helping all of us understand the events that shape our lives, and our need and desire for information cannot be eliminated by violence and repression.”
World Press Freedom Day is not only being marked by the release of the “Worst Places” list. In Paris, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) will release its global review of the persecution of the press for 2003.
It found that 42 journalists – mainly in Asia and the Middle East – were killed in connection with the professional work during the year, the highest total since 1995. About one third died in connection with the Iraq War, according to the report.
In its 2003 annual report released two months ago, CPJ found that 36 journalists were killed last year as a direct result of their work. But a number of other cases reporters being killed were still under investigation by the group to determine the likely motivation and circumstances at the time of the report’s release.
Of the 25 journalists killed in action in Iraq since March 2003, 12 have been killed in 2004 alone – all of them Iraqis, according to CPJ.
Post-war Iraq, the group said, is filled with risks for reporters, beginning with common banditry, gunfire, and bombings in which they are not specifically targeted. The growing insurgency, however, has created a new threat by systematically targeting foreigners, including journalists and the Iraqis who work for them.
At least six Iraqi media workers have been murdered, and several more have received death threats, according to the report, which also noted that armed groups have so far abducted eight journalists this year, although all were subsequently released.
At least seven – and possibly nine – journalists have been killed by gunfire from U.S. forces who have also detained and mistreated mostly Arab or Iraqi journalists, according to CPJ. In recent weeks, senior U.S. officials have complained bitterly about the coverage of two Arab television stations, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, which they said is inciting anti-U.S. sentiment in the Arab world.
Cuba rated the number two slot this past year for its and arrest and long-term imprisonment last year of 29 journalists and the ongoing harassment of their families. Conditions of their imprisonment in maximum-security facilities, according to CPJ, amount to “psychological torture” that has spurred several hunger strikes.
Independent reporters who were not imprisoned, CPJ said, also continue to face intimidation by the police and constant warnings that they could be subject to a crackdown.
Zimbabwe’s four-year campaign against the non-government press reached a high point last year, according to CPJ with the closure of the Daily News, the country’s only independent and most popular daily newspaper.
The country’s Media and Information Commission (MIC), all of whose members are appointed by the government, declined to register the newspaper in defiance of two court orders, while in February, the Zimbabwean Supreme Court upheld legislation requiring media outlets and journalists to be licensed by the MIC. Last year, the government deported the last foreign reporter based in Zimbabwe, Andrew Meldrum of Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan, the last of the totalitarian regimes that survived the Soviet Union’s collapse, earned a high spot on this year’s list as a result of it maintenance of strict control over all media and its systematic harassment of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), one of the only independent sources of news that penetrates the control of President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov. Stringers and free-lancers associated with RFE/RL have been detained, threatened with lengthy imprisonment, and in one case last September, was injected multiple times with an unknown substance by domestic security agents.
Bangladesh’s fifth position was due to the chronic violence – probably more than any other country in Asia – to which reporters have been subject from a variety of sources. In the past eight years, seven journalists have been murdered, but CPJ has also documented literally dozens of violent attacks against journalists who have exposed corruption or crime by local politicians and businesses. “Despite promises from government officials to apprehend those responsible for assaults, the majority of attacks on journalists go unpunished,” according to CPJ.
With 41 journalists currently in prison, China remains the world’s leading jailer of journalists, now for the fifth year in a row. While the newly installed government of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao has cultivated a more liberal image, in reality it has escalated an assault on the growing independent media in China with a series of arrests of high-profile editors and closures of several publications.
The crackdown reached its height earlier this year with the arrest of three popular editors from ‘Southern Metropolis News’ for alleged corruption. The motive, however, appears to have been their hard-hitting reporting on the resurgence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS ).
If China is the world’s top journalist jailer, however, Eritrea has held that distinction in Africa the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, when the authorities rounded up a number of prominent independent reporters and imprisoned them in still-undisclosed locations. A total of 17 journalists are now in secret jails across the country, although no charges have been formally filed against them.
Meanwhile, Haiti has become a growing concern to press watchdogs, particularly since the uprising that eventually led to the exile in late February of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A Spanish television correspondent was killed during the uprising, several radio stations have been burned down, and threats against journalists are common.
At least three journalists have been killed by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank and Gaza since April 2003, according to the report, which noted that Israeli troops often harass or attack Palestinian journalists and restrict their freedom of movement. Palestinian armed groups have also threatened and assaulted reporters, CPJ said.
The group said Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘s “managed democracy” is also making independent journalism increasingly difficult. Politicized lawsuits and hostile corporate takeovers by businessmen with close ties to the Kremlin has permitted it to reduce coverage of corruption and human rights abuses in Chechnya.
(One World)
