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Cuba and Colombia : a nightmare
for journalists
Reporters
Without Borders,
France, November 17, 2004.
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 organisation 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.
Reporters Without Borders
defends imprisoned journalists and press
freedom throughout the world, as well as
the right to inform the public and to be
informed, in accordance with Article 19
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Reporters Without Borders has nine national
sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the
United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan,
Bangkok, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New
York, Tokyo and Washington and more than
a hundred correspondents worldwide.
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