The first and the last” “” “

A questionnaire of 52 questions aimed at evaluating the situation of a country’s press freedom, has been distributed by the association ‘Reporters without Frontiers’ to its partner organizations – 14 associations in defence of press freedom in five continents -, and to its network of 130 correspondents and other journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The aim was to compile the third world classification of press freedom, published in recent days. The classification comprises 167 nations, while information is not available for the rest. South-East Asia (North Korea, 167th place; Myanmar, 165th ; China, 162nd ; Vietnam, 161st ; Laos, 153rd ) is confirmed for the second year running as the area where press freedom is most lacking and most at threat, while the war in course in Iraq since March 2003 is revealed, as far as information is concerned, as the most lethal conflict of modern times: 44 reporters killed since the outbreak of the war. Of the 20 countries classified at the top of the league table, only 3 are non-European (New Zealand, 9th place; Trinidad and Tobago, 11th ; Canada, 18th ). All the member states of the European Union are among the first 40 in the league table. NORTHERN EUROPE TOPS THE LEAGUE TABLE. The countries of northern Europe are placed at the head of the third classification of press freedom in general and of the European Union in particular: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and the Netherlands. Italy and Spain, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the table, equal in 39th place. If Spain owes its position “to the resumption of the terrorist campaign of ETA against journalists who don’t share its view about the Basque country or about international policy and the manipulation of information following the terror attacks of 11 March 2004”, the position of Italy derives from “the conflict of interest of Silvio Berlusconi, simultaneously Prime Minister and owner of a media empire”, which “continues to have a negative effect on the independence of the radio and television sector”, and also from the proliferation of “violations of the confidentiality of journalists’ sources”. The tensions between Republicans and Loyalists in Northern Ireland, where journalists continue to be threatened by paramilitary groups, have resulted in the United Kingdom occupying 28th place in the classification of press freedom, while the recent Olympic Games, with the multiplication of obstacles placed on journalists covering the Games, have led to Greece slipping to 33rd place. Belgium, in turn, has slipped to 22nd place in the classification due to a serious case of violation of the protection of the sources of a foreign correspondent in the country. NEW ENTRIES AND ASPIRANTS. The 10 new countries of the EU have generally been judged positively in terms of their respect for press freedom, but some of their legislation still retains sentences of imprisonment for so-called press crimes. Poland, which occupies 32nd place, sentenced one journalist to 3 months in prison without suspension for the crime of defamation in the press; the sentence was only lifted thanks to a national and international outcry. Romania, a candidate country for EU membership, registers a poor classification in 70th place and the same goes for Serbia-Montenegro (77th) where a journalist, who was investigating alleged cases of corruption in which the Prime Minister of Montenegro was implicated, was assassinated. The efforts of adjustment at the legislative level being made by Turkey (113th place), in view of its bid for EU membership, had no significant repercussions on press freedom: “the number of violations registered in the compilation of this world classification has not significantly decreased in the course of the year taken into consideration”. BEYOND THE FRONTIERS. According to the monitors of Reporters without Frontiers, with regard to press freedom in Russia (140th place), “the total control exercised by the Kremlin on national television channels was graphically revealed by the journalistic coverage, partial and non-objective, of the tragic episode of the hostages of Beslan, in Northern Ossetia. On that occasion numerous Russian and foreign journalists were in fact prevented from working, and the censorship on Chechnya has now been extended to the neighbouring republics”. In the Ukraine (138th place), the prospect of presidential elections in October 2004 led to censorship being imposed on journalists sympathetic to the opposition and on foreign media, with a considerable number of cases of aggression being reported against journalists themselves. The grave violation of press freedom in Belarus (144th place) has also been confirmed: with the continuing regime of President Alexandre Loukachenko, and in view of the legislative elections and referendum of 17 October, the Minister of Information ordered the closure or suspension of a dozen or so independent newspapers.