Report on Media Freedom Under Flak

Kalinga Seneviratne

MALE, May 7 (IPS) - A report on press freedom in South Asia produced by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has been criticised by media experts following its launch in this far-flung Indian Ocean island country that itself scores badly on the issue.

The report, titled 'The Fight Goes On', was officially released here on Wednesday during a two-day seminar organised by the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in association with UNESCO and the Maldives government.

In a forward to the report, IFJ director for Asia-Pacific Jacqueline Park describes South Asia as one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work in the world. "Those who threaten them (the journalists) are too often protected from prosecution by a culture of immunity and indifference," she says.

The IFJ report documents murder and harassment of journalists in almost all countries in South Asia, with Bangladesh having the worst record with at least 462 journalists reported attacked or harassed in 238 separate incidents. Nepal is the only bright spot where press freedom has improved since the signing of the peace accord between the government and the Maoist communists in November last year. In Pakistan, the report said, government officials, the police and military intelligence were often behind "systematic and frequently brutal, attacks on journalists."

"There is a tendency throughout this report to focus only on tragic, negative consequences of the exercise of freedom," noted Javed Jabbar, a former Pakistan information minister. "There is no adequate acknowledgement of the enormous growth in freedom of expression in the media (in Pakistan) by which most people who use that freedom are not subjected to persecution or harassment," he told IPS.

"To see it in only one perspective is to deny the readers of this report that essential requirement of fairness and balance," added Jabbar.

Kanak Dixit, publisher of Nepal's Himal magazine, agrees with IFJ's assessment that press freedom has improved in the Himalayan country since the signing of the peace accord last year. "Media is now free, but its challenges have become much more complex," he said in an interview.

"Grassroots democracy requires grassroots journalism in the language of the mass public," argues Dixit. "Nepal was able to bring change because the Nepal media is primarily in the Nepali language. Thus, we can take information to the masses at the grassroots in their own language so that they could fight for their freedoms."

This is a point endorsed by one of India's well-known investigative journalists Aniruddha Bahal. "There is a need to address threats faced by local journalists in small towns and provinces," he told IPS. "There is this tendency by district level administrations who are all powerful to intimidate journalists. That intimidation rarely filters to the national media nor is it reported upon."

The IFJ report did point out a number of attacks on journalists in districts, especially in the conflict-prone Indian states such as Kashmir, Assam and Manipur.

The report is scathing on Sri Lanka's press freedom record in the past year, saying it "has severely worsened." IFJ says that Tamil journalists in particular have been targets of murder, kidnapping and harassment; and the president and a number of government leaders have labelled journalists who are critical of government policy as traitors to the country working in collusion with the Tamil separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Sugeeswara Senadhira, media advisor to the government of Sri Lanka, after reading the report told IPS that the biggest violator of press freedom in Sri Lanka is the LTTE and there is only a passing reference to it in the IFJ report. He explained that the LTTE does not allow any Tamil newspaper to function in the areas it controls in the north and the east of the country. Even the three Tamil newspapers published in Colombo are not allowed to be distributed in their areas without subjecting to censorship.

"Every day LTTE cadres check the contents of the newspapers at their checkpoint before allowing it to pass through. So suppression of the media is in LTTE areas," he argues.

Senadhira also added that the report has exaggerated comments made by the environment minister Champika Ranawaka of the Buddhist nationalist Jatika Hela Urumaya party. "He has been misquoted and he has not made any death threats at all," he noted, adding that the said comments were made three months before he became a minister, not after, as indicated in the report.

For foreign participants at the Male event, a reality check was offered by the public confrontation between a small group of local journalists and the young, articulate Information Minister of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed after he expatiated on media reform moves in the Malidves .

Though the IFJ report, which was written by one of the dissident journalists present there, claimed that Maldives press freedom record was dismal with constant harassment of journalists, the minister said he had six bills in parliament designed to liberalise the media environment in this archipelago of 300,000 people.

"What has changed today is the media policy of the government,'' said Nasheed. "People should not expect us to achieve in one year, what took many countries 100 years to achieve.''

When one of the local journalists told the minister that he should take steps to stop police harassment of journalists on the beat, the minister fired back saying that the problem is with what he called "multi-task journalists" -- that is activists who masquerade as journalists.

"We have offered to have an accreditation scheme for journalists so that they could be protected but you people refused to accept it," he told the accuser. "How can we identify activists from journalists without an accreditation scheme?" asked the minister. (END/2007)

Source: IPS News

Journalists’ work difficult and dangerous in Asia

by Qaiser Felix
On Press Freedom Day journalists remember the censorship, attacks, prison and murder they frequently face in many Asian countries. The ‘democratic’ West is indifferent. China represses its cyber-dissident. The bishop of Lahore speaks out on the issue.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – Press Freedom Day was celebrated yesterday around the world. In Asia the focus was on problems too many journalists face such as widespread censorship, death and jail in a context where liberal democracies are largely indifferent to their plight.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 24 journalists have been killed in the world since the beginning of the year—18 in Asia alone, including Turkish editor Hrant Dink who was killed on January 19 as he left his office because of his writings on the Armenian genocide—as well as five media workers. About 125 journalists (half in Asia, 31 in China) and 65 cyber-dissidents (50 in China alone) are in prison.

Countries like China, Syria, Iran, Vietnam and Turkmenistan stand accused of systematically persecuting journalists, but in addition there is an “alarming lack of interest (and sometimes even failure) by democratic countries in defending the values they are supposed to incarnate” as shown by their silence and lack of action towards the killing and imprisonment of journalists.

In March, the International News Safety Institute (INSI), a coalition of media organisations and human rights groups, released a study indicating that a thousand journalists have been killed around the world in the past ten years, 138 in Iraq and 88 in Russia.

“In many countries, murder has become the easiest, cheapest and most effective way of silencing troublesome reporting,” INSI’s director Rodney Pinder said.

But short of murder there are other ways of silencing journalists.

In North Korea Dictator Kim Jong-il has imposed total control on news content. Journalists have no choice but to relay grotesque official propaganda.

In 2006 Myanmar’s military junta censored more than a third of the articles and illustrations in privately-owned publications.

In Thailand the military has closed hundreds of local radios.

In Singapore and Malaysia the authorities only award licences to press groups of whose loyalty they are assured.

In China media is tightly controlled. Although murders have taken place like that of Lan Chegnzhang who was beaten to death in January because he was collecting information on working conditions in a coal mine, repression takes other forms. For example, Bingdian Weekly editor in chief, Li Datong, and his deputy, Lu Yuegang, were relieved of their duties in early 2006 after they published an account of the Boxer Revolt different from the official version.

Furthermore, not only does China’s Communist Party control traditional media, now it wants to do the same to internet. More specifically, cyber-dissidents have been arrested and sent to jail. Cyber-cafés have to put up with tight controls, and foreign internet service companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are required to supply the authorities of names and addresses of those who publish online.

In the Middle East political instability has favoured murders and abductions, especially in Iraq and Palestine.

In Saudi Arabia, women journalists face traditional social discriminations and are vulnerable in their work, this according to Sabriya Jawhar, head of the women’s department at the Saudi Gazette. They face working without any rights and privileges, poor salaries, often with no contract protection and must put up with humiliation, fear of job loss as well as segregation from their male colleagues.

Religion is a source of censorship. In Afghanistan and Pakistan criticising religious authorities can lead to blasphemy charges and jail.

In Iran religious authorities have issued ‘death decrees’ against a French journalist and two journalists from Azerbaijan for what they wrote on Islam.

In Pakistan journalists are often the target of threats and violence, especially in the north-western corner of the country where a radical Islamic guerrilla operates. Government authorities however have done nothing to find and punish the culprits.

For US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Pakistan ranks sixth on its list of worse offenders in terms of journalists’ protection and wages. In July 2006, the CPJ interviewed tens of local journalists after the body of journalist Hayatullah Khan was found in June.

Since 2002 seven journalists have been killed. Nothing is known about six others whilst the investigations into their disappearance have gone nowhere.

In Pakistan there are also fears that the government might adopt a law that would impose a monopoly on the press.

Mgr Lawrence John Saldanha, archbishop of Lahore and chairman of the Catholic Commission on Media and Communication in Pakistan, told AsiaNews that “today media play an important role in uncovering the truth and circulating correct information”. This work, he insisted, should “not be unnecessarily restricted by governments.”

“The country,” he added, “has few Christian publications . . . and they do a good job despite the limited means at their disposal.”

Source: Asia News

Media experts criticise “one-sided” Media Freedom Report on South Asia

Kalinga SENEVIRATNE in Male

The latest report on press freedoms in South Asia produced by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) released on Wednesday was criticised by some media experts who participated in the first South Asian World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) event held in the Maldivian capital from 2-3 May.

The report on press freedom in South Asia 2006-2007 titled “The fight goes on” was officially released here during a two-day WPFD seminar organised by the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) in association with UNESCO and the Government of the Maldives.

This is the first time a South Asian version of the WPFD commemoration was held and AMIC’s secretary general Dr. Indrajit Banerjee indicated that this would be an annual event from here on to be held in a different South Asian country each year.

The seminar brought together media practitioners - from both mainstream and alternative media - and experts or analysts from the region.

In a foreword to the report released in Male, IFJ’s director for Asia-Pacific Jacqueline Park describes South Asia as being one of the most dangerous places for journalists to work in the world.

“Those who threaten them (the journalists) are too often protected from prosecution by a culture of immunity and indifference” she says.

The IFJ report document murder and harassment of journalists in almost all countries in South Asia with Bangladesh having the worst record with at least 462 journalists reported attacked or harassed in 238 separate incidents.

Nepal is the only bright spark where press freedoms have improved since the signing of the peace accord between the government and the Maoist communists in November last year.

Meanwhile in Pakistan the report said that government officials, the police and military intelligence are often behind “systematic and frequently brutal, attacks on journalists”.

“There is a tendency throughout this report to focus only on tragic negative consequences of the exercise of freedom” noted Javed Jabbar, a former Information Minister of Pakistan, a keynote speaker at the WPFD event in Male.

“There is no adequate acknowledgement of the enormous growth in freedom of expression in the media (in Pakistan) by which most people who use that freedom are not subjected to persecution or harassment” he noted, adding that there is now a thriving private broadcast and newspaper industry in Pakistan, even though the country is ruled by a military regime.

“To see it in only one perspective is to deny the readers of this report that essential requirement of fairness and balance,” added Jabbar.

Sugeeswara Senadhira of Sri Lanka also found the report biased and one-sided. The IFJ report is very scathing on Sri Lanka’s press freedom record in the past year, which it says “has severely worsened”.

IFJ says that Tamil journalists in particular have been targets of murder, kidnapping and harassment; and the president and a number of government leaders have labelled journalists who are critical of government policy as traitors to the country working in collusion with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Senadhira, after reading the report released here pointed out in an interview that the biggest violator of press freedom in Sri Lanka is the LTTE and there is only passing reference to them in the IFJ report.

He explained that the LTTE does not allow any Tamil newspaper to function in the areas they control in the north and the east of the country, even the three Tamil newspapers published in Colombo are not allowed to be distributed in their areas without subjecting to censorship.

“Every day LTTE cadres check the contents of the newspapers at their checkpoint before allowing it to pass through. So suppression of the media is in LTTE areas,” he argues.

Senadhira also added that the report has exaggerated comments made by the environment minister Champika Ranawaka of the JHU. “He has been misquoted and he has not made any death threats at all,” he noted, adding that the said comments were made some three months before he became a minister, not after, as indicated in the report.

One of the participants who agreed with IFJ’s assessment of his country’s press freedom index was Kanak Dixit, publisher of Nepal’s Himal magazine. He said that the “media (in Nepal) is now free, but its challenges have become much more complex”.

“Grassroots democracy requires grassroots journalism in the language of the mass public” argues Dixit.

“Nepal was able to bring change because the Nepal media is primarily in the Nepali language. Thus, we can take information to the masses at the grassroots in their own language so that they could fight for their freedoms”.

This is a point endorsed by one of India’s well-known investigative journalists, Aniruddha Bahal, who was also a speaker at the WPFD seminar here. “There is a need to address threats faced by local journalists in small towns and provinces,” he said in an interview.

“There is this tendency by district level administrations who are all powerful to intimidate journalists. That intimidation rarely filter to the national media nor reported upon”.

The IFJ report did point out a number of attacks on journalists in districts, especially in the conflict driven states such as Kashmir, Assam and Manipur.

Amanullah Khan, chairman of United News of Bangladesh said that although the figures of media repression in Bangladesh given in the report seem to be accurate there needs to be a distinction made on the type of people who indulge in this harassment, otherwise the government as a whole could be seen as taking direct part in these activities.

“The cases of assault on press freedom were perpetuated mostly by corrupt politicians, by criminals and mafia elements under the patronage of their powerful godfathers” he said. “All these activities occur in retaliation for reports by journalists that expose the perpetuators’ corruption and abuses of authority”.

For foreign participants at the Male WPFD event, a reality check was offered by the public confrontation between a small group of local journalists and the young articulate Information Minister of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed.

Those who were most vocal in their attempts to paint the Maldivian government as a repressive regime as far as press freedom was concerned came from the local alternative media network MinivanNews.com, a Maldivian version of a free media movement which, in addition to its locally-operated website, has recently started broadcasting a local radio programme via SW believed to be originating from the UK.

The author of IFJ’s Maldivian chapter was its British expat managing editor Paul Roberts.

The network seems to be heavily funded by overseas donors and they even spearheaded a banner-carrying protest demonstration outside the conference hall when the President of the Maldives arrived to address the gathering on WPFD.

They (including Roberts) had a lively confrontation after an impromptus lunch-time speech was given by the minister to both local and international participants about his media reform moves in the Maldives.

Though the IFJ report, claimed that the Maldives press freedom record was dismal with constant harassment of journalists, the minister said that he has 6 bills in parliament designed to liberalise the media environment in this far-stretched archipelago of 240,000 people.

“What has changed today is policy. Media policy of the government has changed” said Nasheed. “People should not expect us to achieve in one year, what took many countries 100 years to achieve”.

When one of the journalists told the minister that he should take steps to stop police harassment of journalists on the beat, the minister fired back saying that the problem is with what he calls “multitask journalists” - that is NGO activists who claim to be journalists.

“We have offered to have an accreditation scheme for journalists so that they could be protected but you people refused to accept it” he told the accuser.

“How can we identify activists from journalists without an accreditation scheme?” asked the minister. Many media experts attending the seminar here tend to agree with that point.

Source: Sri Lank Daily News