RUSSIA: Media freedom in the former Soviet Union is under increasing pressure, with journalists facing the threat of censorship, torture and even murder across the region, international watchdogs said yesterday.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) included the presidents of Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan on its list of "predators" - leaders whose regimes were particularly hostile to independent media coverage last year.
"Seven journalists died in very mysterious circumstances in Ukraine, Russia and Kyrgyzstan," RSF said, adding, "journalists investigating political or financial corruption continued to be very frequent targets of physical attacks, including nearly 100 in Azerbaijan, mostly during the presidential election." The group criticised Russia, Georgia and Armenia for restricting coverage of elections, and said Ukraine used hostile tax laws to harass critical media, while Belarus suspended publication of a dozen newspapers.
RSF called Turkmenistan - where Mr Saparmurat Niyazov has created a bizarre personality cult and declared himself president for life - the most repressive country in Central Asia. Television and all print media are state-controlled and "defaming or insulting the president is punishable by up to 25 years in prison." In neighbouring Uzbekistan, a key US ally in the "war on terror", a 25-year-old reporter was convicted of homosexuality after criticising the authoritarian regime of Mr Islam Karimov.
The Committee to Protect Journalists marked World Press Freedom Day by naming its 10 worst places to be a journalist: Turkmenistan and Russia made the list.
"President Vladimir Putin's 'managed democracy' . . . is making the practice of independent journalism in Russia more and more tenuous," the New York-based group said.