Comitee to Protect
Journalists. May 3, 2001.
New York, May 3, 2001 - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today
named the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001, focusing attention on
individual leaders who are responsible for the world's worst abuses against the
media. This year, repeat offenders Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran
and President Jiang Zemin of China are joined by Liberian president Charles
Taylor at the top of CPJ's annual accounting of press tyrants.
Khamenei, the religious leader who exercises enormous influence over key
institutions in Iran, is the instigator of a relentless campaign that has
shuttered the country's vibrant reformist press by closing dozens of newspapers
and jailing outspoken journalists. In Liberia, Taylor has used censorship,
prison, and threats of violence to silence virtually all independent media.
China's Jiang appears on CPJ's list for a fifth straight year, for maintaining
the Communist Party's obsessive control over information, enforced in part via
harsh prison sentences that have now made China the world's leading jailer of
journalists.
In addition to Taylor, three other press offenders, each using very
different methods to intimidate media in their countries, are also new to CPJ's
list this year: President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President Vladimir Putin of
Russia, and Colombian paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño. CPJ put
Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma back on the list (he last appeared in 1999),
and once more named perennial press freedom offenders President Fidel Castro of
Cuba (a seven-year veteran of the press enemies list), President Zine Al-Abdine
Ben Ali of Tunisia (listed for four years), and Malaysian prime minister
Mahathir Mohamad (listed for three years).
"Although three of last year's worst press enemies - Sierra Leonean
rebel leader Foday Sankoh, Peru's Alberto Fujimori, and Slobodan Milosevic of
Yugoslavia - were ousted from power in the past year, there was no shortage of
candidates to replace them," said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper. "Whether
they are sly or blatant, the goal of each of these leaders is to hold on to
political power by controlling information and muffling criticism," Cooper
said.
"President Putin, for example, pays lip service to press freedom in
Russia, but then maneuvers in the shadows to centralize control of the media,
stifle criticism, and destroy the independent press. Others, like Mahathir in
Malaysia, don't even bother to try to hide their abuses behind a screen of empty
rhetoric," said Cooper. "We hope that by naming these ten press
tyrants, we can focus world attention on their deeds and, by exposing them,
bring about change."
10 Enemies of the Press
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fiery April 2000 sermon against the press inspired an
unsparing campaign of repression against Iran's reformist media that continues
to this day. To date, the conservative courts have banned more than 30 papers
and jailed the country's best-known liberal journalists. When parliament debated
reversing harsh provisions of Iran's notorious press law, Khamenei stopped
things cold, declaring that any easing of the rules was not "in the
interests of the system and the revolution." Today, the press law remains
untouched, and at least nine journalists (including CPJ 2000 International Press
Freedom Award winner Mashallah Shamsolvaezin) languish in jail.
Charles Taylor, President of Liberia. Since he became president of this
war-plagued nation in 1997, Charles Taylor has been single-minded in clamping
down on the independent press. He has jailed outspoken journalists on trumped-up
charges, censored some media outfits at will, and forced others out of business
through abusive tax audits. The popular Star Radio was effectively banned in
March 2000. Since August, at least eight journalists have been jailed in Liberia
on baseless charges of espionage. In September, Taylor, known for his erratic
and bloody tactics, pledged to become "ferocious" with local media
that did not toe his line. Several papers immediately closed down and their
staffs fled the country en masse.
Jiang Zemin, President of The People's Republic of China. Jiang Zemin
presides over the world's most elaborate system of media control. Twenty-two
journalists were jailed for their work in China at the end of last year, more
than in any other country. Wary of the Internet's potential power to break the
state's information monopoly, Jiang has poured huge resources into policing
online content. His campaign to strengthen "ideological conformity"
has led to closings or reorganizations at several media outlets that had begun
operating with unacceptable editorial independence.
Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe's government has
launched an all-out war against independent media, using weapons that range from
lawsuits to physical violence. Since January 1999, two local journalists have
been tortured and two foreign correspondents expelled, while the secret service
screens e-mail and Internet communications to preserve "national security."
Bomb attacks twice damaged the premises of the independent Daily News; the
second bombing followed close on the heels of a call from Mugabe's information
minister to silence that paper "once and for all." Meanwhile, Mugabe
makes liberal use of his courts to prosecute independent journalists for
criminal defamation.
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. Since taking office last year, Vladimir
Putin has presided over an alarming assault on press freedom in Russia. The
Kremlin imposed censorship in Chechnya, orchestrated legal harassment against
private media outlets, and granted sweeping powers of surveillance to the
security services. Despite Putin's professed goal of imposing the rule of law,
numerous violent attacks on journalists have been carried out with impunity
across Russia. In an ominous and dramatic move this April, the
Kremlin-controlled Gazprom corporation took over NTV, the country's only
independent national television network. Within days, the Gazprom coup had shut
down a prominent Moscow daily and ousted the journalists in charge of the
country's most prestigious newsweekly. Despite Gazprom's insistence that the
changes were strictly business, the main beneficiary was Putin himself, whose
primary critics have now been silenced.
Carlos Castaño, Leader of The United Self Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC). Even against the violent backdrop of Colombia's escalating civil war, in
which all sides have targeted journalists, Carlos Castaño stands out as a
ruthless enemy of the press. The leader of the United Self Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC), the ultra-violent right-wing paramilitary organization, Castaño
has been formally charged with ordering the 1999 murder of commentator and
political satirist Jaime Garzón. His AUC has been implicated in the
murders of at least three other journalists. Castaño's vicious public
relations strategy is to grant frequent interviews to journalists who defend his
actions, while using violence and threats of violence to terrorize those whose
coverage he dislikes.
Leonid Kuchma, President of Ukraine. Leonid Kuchma's government has stepped
up its habitual censorship of opposition newspapers and increased attacks and
threats against independent journalists. The disappearance and presumed murder
of Internet editor Georgy Gongadze late last year brought the plight of
Ukrainian journalists into sharp focus. Allegations that Kuchma himself may have
directed the elimination of Gongadze sparked a political crisis that threatened
to bring down his government, and police security services made numerous
attempts to muzzle publications that carried coverage critical of the Gongadze
scandal.
Fidel Castro, President of Cuba. Fidel Castro's government continues its
scorched-earth assault on independent Cuban journalists by interrogating and
detaining reporters, monitoring and interrupting their telephone calls,
restricting their travel, and routinely putting them under house arrest to
prevent coverage of certain events. A new tactic of intimidation involves
arresting journalists and releasing them hundreds of miles from their homes.
Meanwhile, foreign journalists who write critically of Cuba are routinely denied
visas, and early this year Castro threatened some international news bureaus
with expulsion from Cuba for "transmitting insults and lies." Cuba is
the only country in the Western Hemisphere that currently holds a journalist in
jail for his work. Bernardo Arévalo Padrón continues to serve a
six year sentence for reporting critical of Castro and the Communist Party.
Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali, President of Tunisia. For more than a decade, Zine
al-Abdine Ben Ali has brought Tunisia's press to almost total submission through
censorship and crude intimidation. Newspapers were closed. Journalists have been
dismissed from their jobs, denied accreditation, put under police surveillance,
and prevented from leaving the country. Some have been subjected to physical
abuse. With the exception of a few courageous journalists, the totalitarian
tactics of Ben Ali's police state have produced one of the most heavily
self-censored presses in the region, while his propaganda machine churns out
endless paeans to the dictator's supposed achievements in democracy and human
rights. Last year, incredibly, Ben Ali chided local journalists for
self-censorship. "What are you afraid of?" the president asked.
Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia. Mahathir Mohamad is openly
contemptuous of press freedom. He has manipulated Malaysian media to cement his
hold on power and has signaled plans to introduce even more stringent controls
on a severely constricted media. Officials are now considering legislation to
regulate the Internet, a crucial venue for independent news and opinion in a
country where traditional media outlets are overwhelmingly controlled by
Mahathir's political allies. Notoriously thin-skinned, the prime minister
regularly demonizes the foreign media for reporting he considers unfair. This
past year he repeatedly blocked the circulation of international news magazines
that featured articles about Malaysia. |