3 may 2003 : 13th World Press Freedom Day

3 may 2003 : 13th World Press Freedom Day

Reporters Without Borders publishes its Annual Report on press freedom violations during 2002 in 156 countries and issues a new list of 42 predators of press freedom. These are dark times for press freedom as the events of the past few weeks - nine journalists killed in Iraq and 26 journalists arrested and sentenced to prison terms in Cuba - have confirmed. Never before have there been so many journalists in prison around the world. All the indicators - including the numbers of journalists threatened and news media censored - show that things are getting worse.

25 journalists were killed because of their opinions or while doing their work in 2002.
- 121 journalists were in prison at the end of 2002.
- Nearly 400 news media were censored in 2002.
- 700 journalists and media workers were detained for periods of varying length.
- There were twice as many physical attacks and threats as the year before.
- 1,420 reporters were beaten, threatened with death, kidnapped, charged or harassed.
Update : 1 January to 30 April 2003
17 journalists have been killed because of their opinions or while doing their work since the start of 2003.
128 journalists were in prison because of their opinions on 30 April 2003.
The world's biggest prisons for journalists are Cuba (30 detained), Eritrea (18), Burma (15), China (11) and Iran (10).
136 journalists and media workers have been detained since the start of 2003, 246 have been threatened or physically attacked and 120 news media have been censored.

Maldieves

Editors of an electronic newsletter sentenced to life in prison

Since July 2002, Mohamed Zaki, Ibrahim Luthfee and Ahmed Didi, editors of the electronic newsletter Sandhaanu, have been serving a life term in prison. Fathimath Nisreen, Ibrahim Luthfee's assistant, received a 10-year prison term. They were found guilty of "insulting the President" and of "committing acts hostile to the government (…) by creating a newsletter known as Sandhaanu." Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) called upon the Maldivian President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, to demand the immediate release of those four people, whose only crime was to exercise their right to freedom of speech. Indeed, Article 25 of the Maldives Constitution guarantees that "Every citizen shall have the freedom to express his conscience and thoughts orally or in writing or by other means…"

In January 2002, businessmen Mohamed Zaki, Ibrahim Luthfee and Ahmed Didi, as well as Fathimath Nisreen, Ibrahim Luthfee's assistant, were arrested by the police for having circulated articles critical of the government on their electronic newsletter Sandhaanu. According to Amnesty International, this Internet publication, written in Dhivehi (the language of the Maldives), had not advocated violent political opposition. After being held in solitary confinement for two weeks by the police force in Malé (the capital city), they were transferred to the detention centre on the island of Dhoonidhoo.
In May, they were charged with "defamation" and "committing acts hostile to the government" by publishing critical information on Sandhaanu. The authorities denied them the right to legal representation and refused to allow visits from their families.

In June, they were transferred to the island of Mafushi, where they are being held in small cells. On 7 July 2002, Mohamed Zaki, Ibrahim Luthfee and Ahmed Didi were sentenced to life in prison. Fathimath Nisreen, 21, was given a 10-year prison term for having expressed her "dissatisfaction with government policy" and having sided with the authors of the Sandhaanu articles. The authorities have denied their request to file an appeal.

During the trial, Ibrahim Luthfee, 37, and Ahmed Didi, 50, admitted that they were the authors of this electronic newsletter, while 50-year-old Mohammed Zaki, a resident of Malaysia, was responsible for sending it to Internet users who requested it. Before the judges, Ibrahim Luthfee claimed that he was prepared to prove, point-by-point, every accusation that he had made against President Gayoom.
They are all still behind bars on the island of Mafushi, under harsh prison conditions. The authorities have placed them in Block C, usually reserved for drug addicts and thieves. Their cells are not ventilated and they only receive five litres of water a day for drinking and washing. Their families are not permitted to visit them more than once a month.

Reporters Death - US Army to Conduct Inquiry

Iraq 05.2.2003

In welcome but belated move, US army orders enquiry into shooting on ITN crew
Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the US army's belated decision to investigate the 22 March shooting incident in southern Iraq in which ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was killed and two members of Lloyd's crew went missing. But the organisation deplored the fact that enquiry was not ordered sooner. The decision to hold the enquiry was reported to ITN by Col. Ray Sheperd of Centcom in Qatar on 28 April.

"It was high time the US army decided to investigate this tragic incident," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "It is a safe bet that it was ITN's independent enquiry in the field rather than Colin Powell's promises that forced the US military to end their silence on the incident and offer an explanation."

While on an official visit to Brussels on 3 April, US secretary of state Colin Powell gave a "personal" undertaking to Fabienne Nerac, the wife of one of the two missing ITN crew members, to obtain information about the fate of her husband. She has so far not received any information from the Americans.

"ITN and my family have been asking the Americans to launch an investigation for the past 40 days," Fabienne Nerac said. "Now they finally have, and I hope we are going to receive information quickly. The Americans have promised to question their marines, locate the videotape recording they made at the site of the incident, and to give us a report on the progress of the investigation each week," she said.

In the 22 March incident, a four-member crew from Britain's Independent Television News (ITN) came under fire near the southern city of Basra. The gunfire probably came from a group of US marines. ITN reporter Terry Lloyd, 51, was killed and Belgian cameraman Daniel Demoustier was wounded. The two other members of the crew, French cameraman Frédéric Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Othman, have been missing ever since.

Journalist sentenced to four years in prison and 253 lashes

Reporters Without Borders strongly deplored new attacks on journalists by the Iranian authorities, including the sentencing of one to four years in prison and 253 lashes, as well as further prosecution of two others already in jail and suspected bogus confessions of a fourth.
"These new moves by the hardliners cannot be tolerated," said the organisation's secretary-general, Robert Ménard. "The reformers in the regime are clearly unable to defend the journalists. The situation is disgraceful."

Alireza Jabari, a translator and freelance contributor to several independent newspapers, including Adineh, was sentenced on 19 April to four years in prison, 253 lashes and a fine of six million rials (1,000 euros) for "consuming and distributing alcoholic drinks" and for "adultery and incitement to immoral acts." Such charges are routine against non-religious people. In fact, he was being punished for belonging to the Writers' Association and sending material to foreign-based news websites, especially articles defending a jailed lawyer, Nasser Zarafshan. Jabari's lawyer said he was arrested illegally and that he himself had not been allowed to attend Jabari's trial. He was arrested at his office in Teheran last 28 December and freed on 6 February this year. He was arrested again on 17 March.

An interview with him had appeared on 25 December in a Persian-language newspaper in Canada, Charvand, in which he said the country's hardline spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Guide of the Islamic Revolution, wanted the crisis in Iran to get worse. His latest arrest came soon after he told the press about his conditions of detention and the pressure exerted on him to make confessions.
Journalists Hossein Ghazian (arrested last October) and Abbas Abdi (arrested in November) are being tried in secret and without their lawyers present for "possessing secret documents belong to the intelligence ministry." Early this month they were each sentenced on appeal to four years and six months in prison - four years for "passing information to enemy countries," and six months for "making propaganda against the Islamic regime."

Ghazian, a director of the Ayandeh public opinion firm and a journalist on the daily paper Nowrooz, and Abdi, another Ayandeh director, ex-editor of the daily Salam who has worked on many reformist papers, were accused of "receiving money from the US polling firm Gallup or from a foreign embassy." They were arrested after the official news agency IRNA, published last 22 September an Ayandeh poll that showed 74.4 per cent of Iranians favoured a resumption of ties with the United States.
Sina Motallebi, editor of the news website www.rooznegar.com and formerly on the staff of the banned reformist daily Hayat-é-No, has been in preventive detention since 20 April. His lawyer was barred from the start of his trial on 26 April because the judge, Saberi Zafargandi, said it was "pointless at this stage of the case." Motallebi agreed with the judge, leading his family to fear he had been subjected to psychological pressure in jail. The judge has tried several other journalists, including Siamak Pourzand, Kambiz Kaheh and Said Mostaghasi, all of whom made alleged confessions.

After Hayat-é-No was shut down in January, Motallebi revived the Rooznegar.com website on which he had defended one of the paper's journalists, Alireza Eshragi, who was arrested on 11 January, and other imprisoned journalists. This angered the country's hardline judiciary but also some reformers, who he criticised for remaining silent about the arrests. He was accused of undermining national security through "cultural activity" and had been summoned several times in the past four months by legal officials and the Adareh Amaken branch of the Teheran police.

04.23.2003

Reporters without Borders not satisfied with replies from the Pentagon and the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission

Reporters Without Borders today accused the US Defense Department and the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission of not taking seriously requests for a proper search to be made for two journalists missing in Iraq for the past month - French cameraman Fred Nerac and Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman, both of the British TV network Independent Television News (ITN).
Replies from the two bodies were very inadequate and even dismissive about the journalists, it said, and showed no interest in investigating the case, much less punishing those responsible.
"The Pentagon's reply is couched in such generalities and platitudes that one can easily conclude that the US Army has no intention of making any serious enquiry into the various incidents that led to the death of at least four journalists," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard.
"The word 'investigation' or the names of the journalists killed did not figure anywhere in the letter. This indifference and clear lack of intent to punish those responsible for the errors that led to their deaths - if indeed they were errors - gives an appalling image of the US-British forces, who supposedly waged this war in the name of freedom and democracy."

US assistant secretary of defense for public affairs Victoria Clarke deplored the death of journalists in a 14 April letter. She said warnings to journalists to be careful did not absolve US forces of their "obligation to exercise caution. Indeed we have gone to extraordinary lengths in Iraq to avoid civilian casualties. But unfortunately, even our best efforts will not prevent some innocents from getting caught in the crossfire. I can assure you that journalists and other innocent civilians are never targeted intentionally."

The letter concludes by saying that "war is by its very nature tragic and sad. A compassionate country has an obligation to wage it as humanely as possible, and that is exactly what we are doing."
Sir Kenneth Keith, president of the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, whose job is to monitor violations of the Geneva Conventions, sent one reply to two letters from Reporters Without Borders. This was no more satisfactory than the one from the Pentagon.

"The Commission has not failed to notice," he said, "that some actions of the parties to the conflict have reached a degree of gravity that would justify an investigation" by the Commission. However, he could do nothing because "despite the appeals of some international organisations to the parties to the conflict to permit a body to monitor the respect for international humanitarian law during the armed conflict or to resort to the services of the Commission, I have not been made aware of any interest on the part of the parties to the conflict in this respect."

The Commission was set up in 1991 under the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions but has never carried out any investigations because as well as being petitioned, it requires the parties complained of to accept its jurisdiction. These conditions have never been met. Reporters Without Borders urged Sir Keith in a letter today to "ask the United States directly and indeed publicly about its intentions towards the Commission." The Commission is not authorised to investigate complaints on its own initiative, but it can approach the accused parties to ask them to discuss the charges.

UN calls for action against hate media on World Press Freedom Day

UNITED NATIONS, May 2 -- The United Nations on Friday marked the World Press Freedom Day with a call for action against hate media and stressed its cooperation with the media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in pursuit of objective and free-flowing information.
Freedom of the press must be safeguarded as a "lifeblood" and "lifeline" for peace, democracy and development, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette told a meeting at the UN headquarters in New York marking the Day, observed on May 3.

She called for an end to impunity for those who killed journalists, noting that most of those who died while performing their work were not killed in war but murdered by vested interests. According to UN statistics, of the 523 journalists killed between 1992 and 2002, 374 were intentionally murdered, 128 of themurdered were killed for their political opinions, 67 for having exposed corruption, and 179 because they were in conflict areas but were killed despite having identified themselves as reporters.

The observance, which was organized by the UN Department of Public information (DPI), took place in the context of the meetings of the Committee on Information, a standing body of the UN General Assembly responsible for a broad range of issues related to communications.

GENEVA, May 1-- A cumulative total of 5,865 probable SARS cases with 391 deaths had been reported from 27 countries andregions as of Thursday, according to latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). The Geneva-based WHO said it represents an increase of 212 additional cases and 19 deaths compared with figures released on Wednesday. Poland reported its first case of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

With the last instance of local transmission occurring more than 20 days ago, Britain and the United States have been removed from the list of areas with recent local transmission. Tianjin of China and Mongolia's Ulan Bator were added to the list. WHO said the number of new SARS cases continues to increase steadily in China, particularly in capital Beijing. WHO officials in China believe the development of a central database of operational SARS data would greatly aid in combating the disease. The next few months will be proved to be crucial in the efforts to contain SARS worldwide.
WHO is studying how best to support hospitals in some of China's poorer western and northern provinces. WHO experts fear these resource-poor regions may not have the necessary facilities to properly isolate and treat SARS patients, adding that more front-line hospital staff with expertise in dealing with infectious diseases may be required. Guidelines are also needed for China's national health care system on the kinds of infection control measures needed to prevent continuing transmission of the disease, said WHO.