Reporters Without Borders

31 December 2006

PRESS FREEDOM IN 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:
ß 63 journalists and 5 media assistants were killed
ß at least 807 were arrested
ß 1,308 physically attacked or threatened
ß 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.

-- 
Leonard VINCENT
Bureau Afrique / Africa desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 84
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask]
Web : www.rsf.org

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