CHINA: Nineteen journalists were killed worldwide in 2002 and 136 jailed by the end of the year, with China remaining the leading jailer of journalists for the fourth successive year, according to the annual report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), writes Conor O'Clery
The non-profit organisation based in New York also accused the US government of taking agressive measures during 2002 to shield some of its activities from press scrutiny.
The report, Attacks on the Press in 2002, documents some 500 cases of media repression in more than 120 countries incuding assassination, beatings, imprisonment, censorship and legal harassment.
The number of journalists killed in 2002 was down from 37 in 2001 and is the lowest since the CPJ started keeping records in 1985. Most were murdered in direct reprisal for their reporting on topics such as crime and corruption in countries including Colombia, the Philippines, Russia and Pakistan. Three journalists were killed on the West Bank by Israeli gunfire.
Arrests and attacks by Israeli forces along with pressures from the Palestinian National Authority put the West Bank at the top of the CPJ's list of the "10 worst places to be a journalist" in 2002, said its executive director, Ms Ann Cooper.
For the second year in succession the number of journalists in prison rose sharply, to 136, a 15 per cent increase on 2001. At the end of the year China had 39 journalists behind bars.
In the United States aggressive measures by the Bush administration to avoid press scrutiny "had a global ripple effect, with autoctatic leaders citing US govenrment actions to justify repressive policies," the CPJ said.
Some journalists covering Afghanistan were treated in an unfriendly manner by US forces. Dough Struck of the Washington Post was detained at gunpoint and prevented from investigating reports of civilian casualties.
In Washington police detained five journalists covering demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, ignoring their press acreditation. The US government has ignored complaints from Al-Jazeera television that one of its cameramen is among the detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
In October 2002 the US Justice Department gave government agencies wide latitude to reject public requests made under the 1966 Freedom of Information Act. The Attorney General, Mr John Ashcroft, said the Bush administration would support withholding documents as long as a "sound legal basis" existed for doing so. Previously documents were only withheld if deemed "harmful".
The Homeland Security Bill passed in November imposed criminal penalties on government employees who disclose information about "critical infrastructure" including communications, transportation and health, voluntarily provided to the government by private companies.
The report noted that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington charged that this provision was inserted at the behest of businesses and could prevent the public from receiving timely information about threats to public health and welfare.
Journalists were also denied access to deportation hearings for hundreds of immigrants detained after September 11th.
There were other "troubling legal developments" in 2002 in the US said the CPJ, whose directors include leading US media figures such as Tom Brokaw of NBC, Walter Isaacson of CNN and Dan Rather of CBS News. In the most prominent case, free-lancer Vanessa Leggett was jailed for five months until January 2001 for refusing to turn over her research to federal prosecutors.