War threatens press freedom in 2008, says rights group

PARIS – Press freedom fell dramatically in Georgia and Niger this year as new armed conflicts flared up, while China continued to jail dissidents even as it hosted the world’s press for the Olympics, a media rights group said yesterday.

War, not poverty, was the single biggest threat to press freedom worldwide, according to the annual World Press Freedom Index published by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. Iceland, Luxembourg and Norway tied for the best score in the index, which compiles data for the year ended September 1.Eritrea held on to the bottom spot for the second year running, with many journalists held incommunicado since 2001 by President Isayas Afeworki, according to the media group.Georgia slipped 54 places to 120th in the survey after Russia invaded the country in August, blocking journalists from entering the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under its control.Dutch television cameraman Stan Storimans (39) was killed while filming the fighting in Gori, Georgia, during the brief war.A Dutch government investigation later found he was killed by a Russian cluster bomb.Niger fell to the 130th spot from 87th in 2007 as a result of government attempts to suppress coverage of the Tuareg rebellion in the north.”Although they have democratic political systems, these countries are embroiled in low or high intensity conflicts and their journalists, exposed to the dangers of combat or repression, are easy prey,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.By contrast, emerging economies Jamaica and Costa Rica scored much better than France, showing that prosperity was not a guarantee of better rights for the media.Reporters Without Borders noted that China continued to jail dissidents during the Olympic Games, although some pro-reform journalists were gradually trying to free themselves from pervasive police control.The situation remained critical in the world’s most repressive countries, including North Korea and Turkmenistan, which Reporters Without Borders described as “unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age”.Nampa-AP – On the Net: Reporters Without Borders: http://www.rsf.orgIceland, Luxembourg and Norway tied for the best score in the index, which compiles data for the year ended September 1.Eritrea held on to the bottom spot for the second year running, with many journalists held incommunicado since 2001 by President Isayas Afeworki, according to the media group.Georgia slipped 54 places to 120th in the survey after Russia invaded the country in August, blocking journalists from entering the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia under its control.Dutch television cameraman Stan Storimans (39) was killed while filming the fighting in Gori, Georgia, during the brief war.A Dutch government investigation later found he was killed by a Russian cluster bomb.Niger fell to the 130th spot from 87th in 2007 as a result of government attempts to suppress coverage of the Tuareg rebellion in the north.”Although they have democratic political systems, these countries are embroiled in low or high intensity conflicts and their journalists, exposed to the dangers of combat or repression, are easy prey,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.By contrast, emerging economies Jamaica and Costa Rica scored much better than France, showing that prosperity was not a guarantee of better rights for the media.Reporters Without Borders noted that China continued to jail dissidents during the Olympic Games, although some pro-reform journalists were gradually trying to free themselves from pervasive police control.The situation remained critical in the world’s most repressive countries, including North Korea and Turkmenistan, which Reporters Without Borders described as “unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age”.Nampa-AP – On the Net: Reporters Without Borders: http://www.rsf.org