Cambodia Ranked 117 in Press Freedom, a Slight Improvement

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
26 October 2009

Reporters Without Borders said in an annual report last week that Cambodia had moved up in press freedom, but concerns over threats to journalists remain.

Cambodia was ranked No. 117 of 175 countries, an improvement from its No. 126 position last year, which came from the murder of an opposition journalist and his son ahead of a national election.

However, at least one opposition journalist was jailed in 2009, following reporting on corruption within the powerful Council of Ministers.

Journalists worldwide suffer from murder, imprisonment and the threat of revoked license, Reporters Without Borders said. In countries like Burma, China, North Korea and Vietnam, still restrict access to the Internet, the group said.

The report confirms a statement made by Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of the Washington Post, earlier this month.

“Some governments inevitably attempt to the unnatural and try to suppress the growth of journalism,” he said. “The Russian government has forced most of its news agency operations into the government’s hand, and many, far too many, good journalists have been assassinated with impunity.

“Until recently, Zimbabwe intimidated, imprisoned and induced to leave the country both foreign and local journalists and may still up to date,” he continued. “In Cambodia, a journalist and his son were murdered after writing critical articles of the government and a publisher was imprisoned and fined for disinformation and for dishonoring public officials.”

However, Pen Samithy, president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists, said journalists in the country are still able to do their work.

“According to my observation, the overall concern that journalists have does not prevent them from reflecting the truth,” he told VOA Khmer. “This means that every day journalists work with a higher responsibility to making improvements in the quality of journalism in Cambodia.”

Meanwhile, journalists who perform their jobs in the face of oppression have not gone unrecognized.

Peter Mackler, a former journalist for Agence France-Presse, died in June 2008 at 58, suffering an apparent heart attack after working in journalism for more than 30 years. As a reporter and editor, Mackler covered the Gulf War in 1991; conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan; the Palestinian intifada; the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York; and George W. Bush’s presidency.

He trained journalists in some developing countries like Lebanon, Iran, Malaysia and Cyprus. He also trained VOA Khmer staff.

In memory of Mackler’s work, his family and friends set up the “Peter Mackler Award” to honor courageous and ethical journalists. The first winner was a Sri Lankan journalist sentenced to 20 years in jail for inciting “communal disharmony.”

“I am delighted to hear that you are honoring Peter’s legacy by recognizing courageous and ethical journalists with the Peter Mackler Award,” former US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice said in a letter to organizers. “Throughout his distinguished thirty-three year career in journalism, Peter was a champion of the freedom of the press who fought tirelessly to defend the rights of reporters to publish stories without fear of retribution.”

In Cambodia, Hang Chakra, publisher of the opposition Khmer Machas Srok newspaper, remains in jail for an article dishonoring a senior government official.

Reporters Without Borders has also appealed for his release.

This year’s ranking puts Cambodia above neighboring Thailand, which was ranked No. 130.

Kingdom creeps up in press ranking

Hun Sen furious at reporters

Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Sebastian Strangio and Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

THE state of the Cambodian media improved slightly in the past year, despite a legal crackdown on government critics, according to a report released on Tuesday.

In its Press Freedom Ranking, covering the period from September 2008 to August this year, international press watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranked Cambodia 117th, up from 126th among 174 countries, well ahead of neighbours Myanmar (171), Laos (169), China (168), Vietnam (166), Thailand (130).

Critics said the ranking ignored the spate of prosecutions against government critics in 2009, which saw one opposition-aligned newspaper editor sentenced to a year in prison on disinformation charges.

“Look at the reality. Evaluations are one thing, but the reality is that some journalists were put in jail for their opinions,” said Yim Sovann, spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party.

Sam Rithy Doung Hak, deputy director of the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists, said certain press freedom articles in the new Penal Code were an incremental improvement over old laws mandating jail terms for defamation and disinformation charges, but that not much had changed in the past year. “In general, I think it’s still bleak,” he said.

Mao Ayuth, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Information, said he had not seen the report but was not surprised by its findings. “I think the people are free to express their opinions,” he said.

Press Freedom Index drops to 126: Cambodia wavers between repression and liberalization

22 October 2008
Reporters Without Borders
Press Release

INTERNATIONAL - PRESS FREEDOM INDEX 2008

Only peace protects freedoms in post-9/11 world

Democracies embroiled in wars outside their own territory, such as the United States or Israel, fall further in the ranking every year while several emerging countries, especially in Africa and the Caribbean, give better and better guarantees for media freedom.

It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders compiles every year and from the 2008 edition, released today. Another conclusion from the index – in which the bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) – is that the international community’s conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.

“The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Destabilised and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms. The economically most powerful dictatorships arrogantly proclaim their authoritarianism, exploiting the international community’s divisions and the ravages of the wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism. Religious and political taboos are taking greater hold by the year in countries that used to be advancing down the road of freedom.”

“The world’s closed countries, governed by the worst press freedom predators, continue to muzzle their media at will, with complete impunity, while organisations such as the UN lose all authority over their members,” Reporters Without Borders added. “In contrast with this generalised decline, there are economically weak countries that nonetheless guarantee their population the right to disagree with the government and to say so publicly.”

War and peace

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Costa Rica are in 21st and 22nd positions, rubbing shoulders with Hungary (23rd). Just a few position below them are Surinam (26th) and Trinidad and Tobago (27th). These small Caribbean countries have done much better than France (35th), which has fallen again this year, this time by four places, and Spain (36th) and Italy (44th), countries held back again by political or mafia violence. Namibia (23rd), a large and now peaceful southern African country that came first in Africa, ahead of Ghana (31st), was just one point short of joining the top 20.

The economic disparities among the top 20 are immense. Iceland’s per capita GDP is 10 times Jamaica’s. What they have in common is a parliamentary democratic system, and not being involved in any war.

This is not the case with the United States (36th domestically and 119th outside its own territory) and Israel (46th domestically and 149th outside its own territory), whose armed forces killed a Palestinian journalist for the first time since 2003. A resumption of fighting also affected Georgia (120th) and Niger, which fell sharply from 95th in 2007 to 130th this year. 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. The recent provisional release of Moussa Kaka, the Niger correspondent of RFI and Reporters Without Borders, after 384 days in prison in Niamey and cameraman Sami al-Haj’s release after six years in the hell of Guantanamo serve as reminders that wars sweep away not only lives but also, and above all, freedom.

Under fire from belligerents or intrusive governments

Countries that have become embroiled in very violent conflicts after failing to resolve serious political problems, such as Iraq (158th), Pakistan (152nd), Afghanistan (156th) and Somalia (153rd), continue to be highly dangerous “black zones” for the press, places where journalists are targets for murder, kidnapping, arbitrary arrest or death threats every day. They may come under fire from the parties at war. They may be accused of taking sides. Any excuse will do to get rid of “trouble-makers” and “spies.” Such is the case in the Palestinian Territories (163rd), especially the Gaza Strip, where the situation got much worse after Hamas seized power. At the same time, in Sri Lanka (165th), where there is an elected government, the press has to face violence that is only too often organised by the state.

Bringing up the rear are the dictatorships – some disguised, some not – where dissidents and pro-reform journalists manage to open cracks in the walls that enclose them. The year of the Olympics in the new Asian power, China (167th), was the year that Hu Jia and many other dissidents and journalists were jailed. But it also provided opportunities to those liberal media that are trying gradually to free themselves of the country’s still pervasive police control. Being a journalist in Beijing or Shanghai – or in Iran (166th), Uzbekistan (162nd) and Zimbabwe (151st) – is a high risk exercise involving endless frustration and constant police and judicial harassment. In Burma (170th), run by a xenophobic and inflexible junta, journalists and intellectuals, even foreign ones, have for years been viewed as enemies by the regime, and they pay the price.

Unchanging hells

In Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia (143rd), Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya (160rd), Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus (154th), Bashar el-Assad’s Syria (159e) and Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s Equatorial Guinea (156th), the leader’s ubiquitous portrait on the streets and front pages of the newspapers is enough to dispel any doubt about the lack of press freedom. Other dictatorships do without a personality cult but are just as suffocating. Nothing is possible in Laos (164th) or
Saudi Arabia (161st) if it does not accord with government policy.

Finally, North Korea and Turkmenistan are unchanging hells in which the population is cut off from the world and is subjected to propaganda worthy of a bygone age. And in Eritrea (173rd), which has come last for the second year running, President Issaias Afeworki and his small clan of paranoid nationalists continue to run Africa’s youngest country like a vast open prison.

The international community, including the European Union, endlessly repeats that the only solution continues to be “dialogue.” But dialogue has clearly had little success and even the most authoritarian governments are still able to ignore remonstrations without risking any repercussions other than the inconsequential displeasure of the occasional diplomat.

Dangers of corruption and political hatred

The other disease that eats away at democracies and makes them lose ground in the ranking is corruption. The bad example of Bulgaria (59th), still last in Europe, serves as a reminder that universal suffrage, media pluralism and some constitutional guarantees are not enough to ensure effective press freedom. The climate must also favour the flow of information and expression of opinions. The social and political tensions in Peru (108th) and Kenya (97th), the media politicisation in Madagascar (94th) and Bolivia (115th) and the violence against investigative journalists in Brazil (82nd) are all examples of the kinds of poison that blight emerging democracies. And the existence of people who break the law to get rich and who punish inquisitive journalists with impunity is a scourge that keeps several “great countries” – such as Nigeria (131st), Mexico (140th) and India (118th) – in shameful positions.

Certain would-be “great countries” deliberately behave in a manner that is brutal, unfair or just disturbing. The examples include Venezuela (113th), where President Hugo Chávez’s personality and decrees are often crushing, and the Putin-Medvedev duo’s Russia (141st), where state and opposition media are strictly controlled and journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya are killed each year by “unidentified” gunmen who often turn out to have close links with the Kremlin’s security services.

Resisting the taboos

The ranking’s “soft underbelly” also includes countries that waver between repression and liberalisation, where the taboos are still inviolable and the press laws hark back to another era. In Gabon (110th), Cameroon (129th), Morocco (122nd), Oman (123rd), Cambodia (126th), Jordan (128th) and Malaysia (132nd), for example, it is strictly forbidden to report anything that reflects badly on the president or monarch, or their family and close associates. Journalists are routinely sent to prison in Senegal (86th) and Algeria (121st) under repressive legislation that violates the democratic standards advocated by the UN.

Online repression also exposes these tenacious taboos. In Egypt (146th), demonstrations launched online shook the capital and alarmed the government, which now regards every Internet user as a potential danger. The use of Internet filtering is growing by the year and the most repressive governments do not hesitate to jail bloggers. While China still leads the “Internet black hole” ranking worldwide, deploying considerable technical resources to control Internet users, Syria (159th) is the Middle-East champion in cyber-repression. Internet surveillance is so thorough there that even the least criticism posted online is sooner or later followed by arrest.

Only a few countries have risen significantly in the ranking. Lebanon (66th), for example, has climbed back to a more logical position after the end of the bomb attacks on influential journalists of recent years. Haiti (73rd) continues its slow rise, as do Argentina (68th) and Maldives (104th). But the democratic transition has halted in Mauritania (105th), preventing it from continuing its rise, while the slender gains of the past few years in Chad (133rd) and Sudan (135th) were swept away by the overnight introduction of censorship.

Close-up on... Africa

Some African leaders have understood the advantages their countries could derive from press freedom. Others have behaved like despots again this year. The continent’s best-placed countries continue by and large to be the same, with Namibia (23rd), Mali (31st), Cape Verde (36th) and Mauritius (47th) coming in the top 50. Some countries that were sorely tried by years of war or dictatorship are emerging from the depths to which they were plunged by violence. They include Liberia (51st), where some police officers still behave with deplorable brutality, and Togo (53rd), which is managing to adhere to acceptable democratic standards.

In democracies such as Botswana (66th) and Benin (70th), the climate between the government and the press often deteriorates, preventing these countries from attaining the positions they would otherwise deserve, given their overall political situation.

Senegal (86th) has fallen again in the ranking because of the government’s stubborn refusal to amend the press law and the often outrageous behaviour of some of Dakar’s newspapers. Senegalese journalists were imprisoned again this year. The bad surprise came from Mauritania (105th), where legislative reforms were clearly inadequate and the political culture continues to be marked by former President Ould Taya’s police-state practices.

There is no point in having a diverse and often insolent press unless you tolerate it without resorting to the security forces or an easily influenced legal system. In Central African Republic (85th), Burundi (94th) and Guinea (99th), for example, the least political unrest can send journalists to prison or at least the police station.

This year’s black spots in Africa were Kenya (97th), which fell 19 places as a result of post-electoral violence, and above all Niger (130th), which fell 41 places after a very trying year for journalists in Niamey and elsewhere. Reporting on the Tuareg uprising in the north of the country has become an absolute taboo for the government, especially in the run-up to the 2009 presidential election.

The African countries near the bottom of the ranking are also the same ones as usual. They include Gambia (137th), Democratic Republic of Congo (148th) and Zimbabwe (151st), where independent journalism requires courage, determination and an ability to put up with violence and injustice.

Finally, the gigantic posters to the glory of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema throughout “Africa’s Kuwait” say it all about the media situation in Equatorial Guinea (156th). But the continent’s most abused country is yet again Eritrea (173rd), last in the ranking for the second year running. President Issaias Afeworki clings to his deliberate choice of cruelty to the many journalists held incommunicado since 2001, and despotism as his method of governing a country whose citizens continue to flee into exile.

7 Asian Countries at Bottom of Press Freedom Index

Seven Asian countries including junta-ruled Burma are at the bottom of a Press Freedom Index released last week by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF or Reporters Without Borders).

BY ACE ALEGRE
Contributed to Bulatlat (Philippines)
Vol. VII, No. 37, October 21-27, 2007

Seven Asian countries including junta-ruled Burma are at the bottom of a Press Freedom Index released last week by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF or Reporters Without Borders).

The Philippines (at 128th), earlier tagged as the second most dangerous place for journalists next to war-torn Iraq, is not among the seven though. It had fewer murders than in previous years, said RSF Asia Pacific desk chief Vincent Brossels. “And President Gloria-Arroyo's associates brought fewer defamation actions against journalists and news media,” he explained.

Aside from Burma, the other Asian countries at the bottom 20 are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, China and North Korea.

RSF said they are particularly disturbed by the situation in Burma (ranked 164th). “The military junta's crackdown on demonstrations bodes ill for the future of basic freedoms in this country,” Brossels said. Journalists in Burma continue to work “under the yoke of harsh censorship from which nothing escapes, not even small ads,” Brossels also said.

The Paris-based press freedom watchdog has been measuring the level of press freedom in 169 countries throughout the world for six years already.

Of the 20 countries also at the bottom of the index, five are African (Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea), four are in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Palestinian Territories and Iran), three are former Soviet republics (Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and one is in the Americas (Cuba).

Brossels added they regret that China (placing 163rd) stagnates near the bottom of the index. With less than a year to go to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the RSF official said, “the reforms and the releases of imprisoned journalists so often promised by the authorities seem to be a vain hope."

North Korea displaced

Eritrea, Brossels csaid, has replaced North Korea at last place in the index.

"There is nothing surprising about this," Brossels said though."Even if we are not aware of all the press freedom violations in North Korea and Turkmenistan, which are second and third from last, Eritrea deserves to be at the bottom.”

He reported that the privately-owned press in that country had been reportedly banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki and the few journalists who dare to criticize the regime are reportedly thrown in prison. “We know that four of them have died in detention and we have every reason to fear that others will suffer the same fate," Brossels said.

Outside Europe – in which the top 14 countries are located – no region of the world has been free of censorship or violence towards journalists, the RSF said.

Press freedom affected by military coups

Brossels said that military coups that were supposed to restore democratic order in Thailand (135th) and Fiji (107th) in fact led to a deterioration in the situation of the news media.

Based on RSF’s documentation, the Bangkok-based media continue to be relatively free, but the military prevented the deposed prime minister's supporters from launching a TV station, and several website editors and bloggers were arrested.

In Fiji, there were several weeks of tension between the army and journalists, and a foreign reporter was expelled. Thereafter, the pressure focused on those voicing criticism online, the RSF report also said.

Brossels said Pakistan (ranked 152nd) continues to get a low ranking. Authority is allegedly concentrated in the Army in that country led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999.

War as major stumbling block

The RSF said that war is largely responsible for the bad showing of countries like Somalia (159th) and Sri Lanka (156th). In these countries, said Brossels, journalists have a hard time working while killings continue and censorship was stepped up. Journalists there are accused of bipartisanism and their rights are not recognized, said the RSF official.

Meanwhile, the Taliban and their allies keep threatening journalists in Afghanistan (142nd). Brossels said an Italian reporter's driver and fixer were beheaded while several radio stations were attacked by armed groups.

Interestingly, the RSF reported, Nepal (137th) has surged more than 20 places in the ranking. The end of the war and the return to democratic rule resulted in a revival of basic freedoms and created new space for the media there. However, ethnic violence in the south of the country exposed journalists to new dangers.

Other countries including the Philippines climbed too. Cambodia (85th) climbed a few notches because of the government's decision to decriminalize press offenses, said Brossels. No journalist was imprisoned, although some journalists were targeted by death threats, especially when they covered corruption.