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Press
Freedom in 2006
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
December 31, 2006
81 journalists
killed - the deadliest year since 1994
56 kidnapped, mostly in Iraq and the Gaza Strip
In 2006
- 81 journalists
and 32 media assistants were killed
- at least
871 were arrested
- 1,472 physically
attacked or threatened
- 56 kidnapped
- and 912
media outlets censored
In 2005:
- 63 journalists
and 5 media assistants were killed
- at least
807 were arrested
- 1,308 physically
attacked or threatened
- and 1,006
media outlets censored
The
deadliest year since 1994
At least 81 journalists were killed in 2006 in 21 countries while
doing their job or for expressing their opinion, the highest annual
toll since 1994, when 103 died (half of them in the Rwanda genocide,
about 20 in the Algerian civil war and a dozen in former Yugoslavia).
32 media assistants (fixers, drivers, translators, technicians,
security staff) were also killed 2006 (only five in 2005).
Iraq was the
world's most dangerous country for the media for the fourth year
running, with 64 journalists and media assistants killed. Since
fighting began in 2003, 139 journalists have been killed there,
more than twice the number in the 20-year Vietnam War (63 killed
between 1955 and 1975). About 90% of the victims were Iraqis. Investigations
were very rare and none were completed.
Unlike other
organisations, Reporters Without Borders includes journalists in
its death count only when it is certain that their deaths are linked
to their work as journalists. Dozens of other cases have not been
included because investigators have not yet determined the motives
or because it is clear that they were not related to the issue of
press freedom.
The second most
dangerous country was Mexico, which also moved ahead of Colombia
as Latin America's deadliest place for the media. Nine journalists
were killed there in 2006 because they were investigating drug trafficking
or reporting on violent social unrest. US cameraman Brad Will was
shot dead in late October in turbulent Oaxaca state, where strikes
often degenerated into armed clashes, and other journalists were
injured there.
The body of
journalist Enrique Pera Quintanilla, editor of the monthly Dos Caras,
una verdad, was found by a roadside in the northern state of Chihuahua
in August. The paper specialised in reporting on unsolved murders
and drug trafficking.
The situation
in The Philippines was grim too, with six journalists killed (compared
with seven in 2005). Fernando Batul, a commentator with the radio
station dyPR, was shot dead in late May as he was going to work
on Palawan Island, southwest of Manila. The authorities said he
was killed because he had criticised a brutal policeman, who was
subsequently arrested and will shortly be tried. The March 2005
killers of anti-corruption columnist Marlene Esperat were jailed
for life. But those punished were only triggermen and those who
ordered the killings are still walking free. However, in a country
where impunity is the rule, the trial and sentences were a good
precedent.
Three journalists
were killed in Russia, making 21 since President Vladimir Putin
came to power in March 2000. The murder in October of reporter Anna
Politkovskaya, of the weekly Novaya Gazeta and a Chechnya expert,
was a reminder that even the best-known journalists with major international
support do not escape such deadly violence. Pressed by democratic
countries to find and punish the culprits, the government has assigned
a team of 150 detectives to the case.
Press freedom
shrank further in neighbouring Turkmenistan, with the crackdown
on independent media reaching a peak in September when the family
of Radio Free Europe correspondent Ogulsapar Muradova announced
she had died in prison, three months after being jailed. Despite
repeated demands by the European Union, the authorities did not
investigate her death.
In Lebanon,
a photographer and a TV technician were killed by Israeli bombing
during the war with Israel. A dozen journalists were injured or
wounded during the fighting in the summer.
Violent election
clashes
Over 1,400 physical attacks or threats were recorded by Reporters
Without Borders in 2006, which was another record. Many of them
were during election campaigns in various countries.
Attacks on journalists
in Bangladesh, already routine, became daily at the end of the year,
a few weeks before key parliamentary elections, and were carried
out by security forces and political party supporters.
A dozen countries
in the Americas held important national elections during the year.
Reporters Without Borders had registered more than a dozen physical
attacks on journalists and another dozen threats to them in Peru
by early March, a month before presidential elections,. In Brazil,
a daily paper's offices were ransacked on election day by supporters
of a local politician in the southern town of Marilia.
Supporters of
the two main presidential candidates in the Democratic Republic
of Congo - outgoing President Joseph Kabila and his rival Jean-Pierre
Bemba - regularly attacked journalists they accused of sympathising
with the "enemy camp." A visiting foreign reporter was
deported in both Uganda and Ethiopia at election time.
Belarus cracked
down on journalists and regime opponents a few days after President
Alexander Lukashenko's reelection in March, and a dozen local and
foreign reporters were physically attacked, including Olga Ulevich,
Russian correspondent of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, whose
nose was broken when plainclothes police beat her up.
Censorship
and arrests still very common
Cases of censorship were slightly down - 912 against 1,006 in 2005,
when Nepal had the worst record. The ceasefire there in mid-2006
gave the media a break, with the release of imprisoned journalists
and many local radio stations able to freely broadcast again.
Thailand recorded
the most cases of censorship. After a military coup in September,
more than 300 community radio stations were shut down along with
several Internet websites. Things returned to normal after a few
weeks.
It was impossible
to get exact information on censorship in China, Burma and North
Korea, countries where blanket measures were taken against the media,
affecting dozens and even hundreds of outlets at the same time.
The Internet
was tightly controlled in some countries. Reporters Without Borders
issued a list in November of 13 "enemies of the Internet"
(Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia,
Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam).
Bloggers and
cyber-dissidents in these countries were regularly thrown into prison
for expressing their opinions online. Websites were closed down,
made inaccessible or filtered and discussion forums had especially
critical messages deleted.
About 30 bloggers
were arrested during the year and held for several weeks, notably
in China, Iran and Syria. Egypt appeared for the first time on the
"enemies of the Internet" list for its growing crackdown
on bloggers who criticised Islam or President Hosni Mubarak.
At least 871
media workers were detained around the world in 2006, some for just
a few hours and others sentenced to many years in prison.
The jailing
in China of Zhao Yan (for three years) and Ching Cheong (for five),
both of them working for foreign media, drew strong international
protests. The appeals against their sentences were not even heard
by a court, depriving them of a chance to defend themselves.
The death of Turkmenistan's "President-for-Life" Separmurad
Nyazov in December could end the repression of journalists and human
rights activists. Two of them, Annakurban Amanklychev and Sapardurdy
Khajiev, were given prison sentences of six and seven years in June
for helping a foreign journalist doing a report on the country.
Burma's famous journalist and pro-democracy activist, Win Tin, began
his 18th year in prison. He was awarded the 2006 Reporters Without
Borders - Fondation de France prize for his fight for freedom of
expression.
An extra
worry: journalists being kidnapped
For the first time, Reporters Without Borders recorded in detail
the number of journalists kidnapped around the world.
At least 56
were kidnapped in 2006 in a dozen countries. The two riskiest places
were Iraq, where 17 were seized, and the Gaza Strip, where six were
kidnapped. All those seized in the Palestinian Territories were
freed, but six in Iraq were executed by their captors.
Reporters Without
Borders met Iraqi President Jalal Talabani at the end of the year
and urged him to put a stop to such incidents. A mission also went
to Gaza to ask Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and leaders of
the main Palestinian factions to see that their supporters and the
general population did not interfere with media workers
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