Aztag Daily, Lebanon
Feb 27 2008
`Attacks on the Press in 2007′: A Survey That Needs To Be Corrected
By Vahram Emiyan
Translated from Armenian by Dikranouhi Kusbegian
The Committee to Protect Journalists published its annual worldwide
survey titled `Attacks on the Press in 2007′. The 351 page book
encloses all the killings, convictions, kidnappings and assaults of
or committed against journalists all around the world in the year
2007.
The Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981 by a group
of American journalists. It is an independent, non-profit
organization based in New York.
According to the CPJ survey, the number of journalists killed in
2007 has increased to 65 (it was 42 in 1992). Of those 72.9 percent
have been murdered and 17.3 percent have been killed in crossfire.
Between 1992 and 2007, the highest number of killings has occurred in
Iraq (125) followed by Algeria (60) and Russia (47). 30.3 percent of
the killings were committed by political groups, 18.5 percent by
government officials and 11.2 percent by criminal groups. 85.7
percent of the above mentioned killings have gone unpunished.
As for the imprisonment of reporters, in 2007 China has had the
highest ranking (29) followed by Cuba (24), Eritrea (14), Iran (12),
and Azerbaijan (9). 57 percent of the imprisoned reporters have been
accused of anti-state behavior. Of those 51 percent work in written
press, 39 percent in internet reporting, 6 percent for TV stations
and 4 percent for radio stations.
In the preface, CNN’s chief international correspondent and a CPJ
board member Christiane Amanpour states that crime is a horrific
reality facing independent reporters around the world. She says that
7 out of 10 reporters have been targeted, chased and then shot or
stabbed.
Mentioning Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist
who was shot in Russia on October 27, 2006, Amanpour stated that
sometimes killings aim to send a message. Amanpour quots from
Politkovskaya’s friend and family lawyer saying: `When you kill, when
you silence, the bravest journalist, it makes all the others think
twice’.
According to Amanpour, impunity is the biggest threat facing
reporters today: `Murder, after all, is the ultimate form of
censorship’, she added.
In the introduction of the book, CPJ’s executive director Joel Simon
writes that in repressive societies journalists suffer from `too much
government: smothering, self-serving, and intrusive governments’ that
try to limit the boundaries of dissent. On the other hand, Simon
added that the other threat that reporters face is `too little
government’ and mentions Iraq, Somalia, Gaza, and the tribal areas of
Pakistan, where the widespread lawlessness leaves journalists to face
the threat of the military factions there.
Speaking of Iraq, Simon mentions that since the March 2003 US
invasion, more than 170 journalists and media support workers have
been killed, making the country a killing field for reporters. She
explains that immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the
Iraqi press grew rapidly; however, due to the absence of a
functioning government to establish the rule of law, reporters were
targeted by the militants, who accused them of partisanship and
cooperation with Western media outlets.
Simon also stated that the governments are often indifferent to the
violence against the press, because they benefit from the
self-censorship it provides. Simon writes that journalists seem to be
trapped between `periods when powerful governments suppress the media
and periods when weak governments are unable to enforce the law’. `If
journalists are to work freely, we must confront with equal force
both categories of abusers: governments that do too much, and those
that do too little’, she concludes.
Nina Ognianova, the program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia,
talks of `extremism’ as an evolving and expanding term in Russian
law. She writes that in the past few years the Russian parliament has
extremely limited the `boundaries of acceptable reporting by
redefining the laws against extremism’. At present, criticizing state
officials and giving air to or reporting about dissenting views are
considered to be outside the limits of permissible journalism. `In
pursuing this tactic – rewriting laws to restrict critical commentary
– Russia has taken a regrettable lead in the region’, writes
Ognianova and explains that following Russia’s example Uzbekistan has
rewritten laws to limit the activities of foreign media, and
Tajikistan has made much of the internet commentary illegal.
Following Nina Ognianova’s introduction, the book uncovers the 2007
attacks against press in Eurasian countries like Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Georgia, Russia and Ukraine as well as related incidences that have
taken place in countries like France, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.
It was interesting to see that there was no mention of Armenia in
this section. Another interesting fact to note is that Turkey was
classified among the Middle Eastern countries and not as a European
country, as it generally is.
Azerbeijan
The CPJ survey states that `ignoring international
opinion, the authoritarian government of president Ilham Aliyev
clamped down on opposition and became the fifth-leading jailer of
journalists’; the CPJ ranks Azerbaijan as ` one of the worst
backsliders on press freedom’.
The survey explains that in the implementation of that repressive
policy, Aliyev and his government were driven by the empowerment that
country’s growing energy profits have provided as well as by the fear
of a `color’ revolution of the kind that toppled governments in the
region not so long ago. Following the example of Russia, the region’s
leading power, Azeri officials ignored the continuous criticism of
their systematic persecution of the media, being confident that the
West’s need for oil will eventually outweigh its worries concerning
human rights.
CPJ states that the use of the criminal defamation charges, the
government’s favorite method for silencing critics, has been widely
criticized. The survey reveals that 9 out of 5 reporters were
convicted of criminal defamation charges. In four of those cases the
criminal charges were pressed by government officials. The CPJ also
talks about the situation in Nakhichevan stating that official
harassment and lawlessness have made it very difficult for
independent journalists to work there.
Turkey
Speaking of the attacks made on Turkish journalists, the
CPJ’s survey talks in details about the `Agos’ Armenian bilingual
weekly’s chief editor Hrant Dink’s case; the prosecution and the
charges he faced before his murder, his murder and the court
processes following his death. The survey points that Dink’s murder
marked a difficult year for Turkey during which journalists were
often targeted for criminal prosecutions and government censorship.
Looking into the Turkish press freedom group’s (BIA) documentation,
the survey states that dozens of criminal cases were brought against
`print and broadcast journalists in 2007 under controversial penal
code provisions that criminalize expression deemed insulting to the
Turkish identity, that represent pro-Kurdish political sentiments, or
that criticize the military and state institutions’. There is also a
mention of Dink’s son, who was also imprisoned under the above
mentioned controversial article 301 for reprinting one of his
father’s interviews. `In effect, the son was prosecuted for the
father’s supposed offense’, states the survey.
According to `Attacks on the Press in 2007′ survey, the BIA
documents reveal that in the first half of the year 2007 100 cases
were filed against journalists under article 301.
The survey also talks of the recurrence of the violations committed
by the Turkish police against journalists in 2007. The courts
continued to close down newspapers for publishing pro-Kurdish titles
and articles of politically controversial issues.
While reading the Turkish section of the survey; however, we come
across a disturbing fact. Indeed, while talking about Hrant Dink’s
murder, the authors of the survey mention that he was killed for
writing about `the mass murder of the Armenians’. A few paragraphs
later we read about just `Armenian killings’. We rightfully ask: how
can an organization that advocates freedom of the press and
protection of journalists accomplish its founding goal in Turkey as
it avoids mentioning the Armenian Genocide, thus making a compromise
in favor of the Turkish government’s denialist policy. The whole
world knows that Hrant Dink was killed because he wrote about the
Armenian Genocide and the misrepresentation of that well known fact
not only raises questions about the seriousness of the survey and the
information it encloses, but also about the credibility of the
organization behind it.
Armenians all around the world should contact the Committee to
Protect Journalists and demand a correction of that absurd mistake.
The author of this article himself contacted the organization whose
address is: The Committee to Protect Journalists, 330 Seventh Avenue,
11th Fl., New York 10001. Tel.: (212) 465-1004. Fax: (212) 465-9568.
Email: [email protected]
For more information about the organization visit its official
website at
www.cpj.org