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SPECIAL REPORTS
- Thursday
17 November 2004
Cuba and
Colombia: A Nightmare for
Journalists
Reporters Without Borders
ranks participating countries on
press freedom
Reporters Without Borders
appealed today to heads of
government attending the Ibero-American
Summit meeting in San José
(Costa Rica) from 18-19 November
to press Cuban President Fidel
Castro to release 26 journalists
he has imprisoned. It also
called on Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe to urgently ensure
that people who killed
journalists were punished.
"The summit must uphold the
principles it swears by," the
worldwide press freedom
organization said. The 21
government heads at the last
summit, in Santa Cruz (Bolivia)
last November, said they would
encourage the promotion and
protection of human rights.
Since then, 11 journalists have
been killed in the 21
participant countries, 24
arrested and 336 threatened or
physically attacked. Twenty-six
journalists are in prison, all
of them in Cuba, where Castro's
regime has a monopoly of all
news. Castro is attending the
summit.
Cuba comes second from last
(166th place), just ahead of
North Korea, in the
recently-announced Reporters
Without Borders annual Worldwide
Press Freedom Index (26
October). Colombia is 134th.
Peru (123rd), Mexico (96th) and
Venezuela (90th) are also ranked
in the bottom half of the index.
The 16 other countries attending
the summit are in the upper
half. Portugal is best placed,
at 25th.
Cuba and Colombia : a nightmare
for journalists All criticism of
President Castro is considered a
criminal offence in Cuba, where
26 journalists were arrested in
March last year along with about
50 political dissidents. They
have been accused of
"anti-government" activities and
given prison sentences ranging
from 14 to 27 years. Typewriters
and pens confiscated from their
homes were presented as evidence
of guilt at their trials.
Their sentences further
tightened the state's grip on
the flow of all news and
information and sparked strong
international protests. Two of
the group were freed in June
this year but Cuba remains
second only to China as the
world's biggest prison for
journalists.
Colombia has genuine media
diversity but journalists pay
for it with their lives and two
have been murdered since the
last Ibero-American summit.
Exposing the abuses of
paramilitary and leftist
guerrilla forces and the
corruption of politicians is
still more dangerous than
anywhere else in the Americas.
The murder of journalist Oscar
Polanco on 4 February this year
after he reported links between
a politician and drug barons is
typical of the increasingly
tough conditions the media has
to work in. Corrupt politicians,
armed groups and drug
traffickers often unite to
silence journalists. Since
President Alvaro Uribe took
office, they have also faced
greater obstacles to doing their
job from the police and army.
Fragile and violent democracies
Mexico, Peru and to a lesser
extent Brazil have mixed press
freedom, with a largely
confident national press but
with serious problems for
provincial media, where
journalists are murdered by
gangs or local politicians. In
Argentina, no journalists were
killed but those in the
provinces were threatened,
harassed by police and courts
and blackmailed by withdrawal of
local government advertising..
Bombings, physical attacks and
threats to journalists and media
hostile to Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez were fewer than last
year but remained frequent. A
law currently being debated
about the broadcast media's
"social responsibility" is also
worrying. But tension has eased
since Chávez won a 15 August
referendum confirming him in
office.
The murder of journalists and
media assistants in Ecuador,
Nicaragua and the Dominican
Republic (where the media has
traditionally been spared
violence) is a reminder that the
situation in some countries is
still fragile. This also applies
to Spain, where a dozen
journalists have been threatened
by the ETA Basque terrorist
group.
This has been extracted from the
Reporters Without Borders annual
Worldwide Press Freedom Index
issued on 26 October.
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