Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) yesterday named the world’s 40 worst “predators of the press” including politicians, religious leaders and militias to mark World Press Freedom Day.
“They are powerful, dangerous, violent and above the law,” the Paris-based watchdog group said. “These predators of press freedom have the power to censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and, in the worst cases, murder journalists.”
Seventeen presidents and several heads of state are on the list, including Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Cuba’s Raoul Castro and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
New entrants on the annually updated list of “predators” included Taliban chief Mullah Omar.
The Taliban leader, “whose influence extends to Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, has joined the list because the holy war he is waging is also directed at the press,” RSF said.
Mullah Omar’s “thugs threaten local reporters who do not relay his propaganda,” while about 40 Taliban attacks directly targeted journalists and news media last year, it said.
Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov was also added to the list.
Under Kadyrov, the watchdog said “anyone questioning [his] policies ... is exposed to deadly reprisals,” citing the murders of reporter Anna Politkovskaya and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova.
“Often referred to as ‘Putin’s guard dog,’ Ramzan Kadyrov shares the Russian prime minister’s taste for crude language and strong action,” RSF said.
Yemeni President Ali Abdulah Saleh was branded a “predator” after Sanaa set up a special court for press offences in what RSF said was a bid “to limit coverage of dirty wars being waged in the north and south of the country.”
The entry on Saleh read: “Eight independent newspapers are currently subject to a printing ban for ‘separatism.’”
Private militias in the Philippines were also added following the massacre of about 50 people, including 30 journalists, by “the local governor’s thugs” in Maguindanao province in November.
Figures whose names have been removed from the “predator” list included Nigeria’s State Security Service, which RSF said has “has been reined in.” The Nigeria police force, however, “has emerged as the leading source of abuses against the press,” it said, with poorly trained police “encouraged to use violence against journalists.”
RSF also removed several Iraqi Islamist groups, arguing that while levels of violence remained high, journalists were no longer being singled out.
An RSF tally shows nine journalists have been killed this year and 300 media professionals are in prison.
CHINESE CONTROL
In related news, China said yesterday that it would target online information from “overseas hostile forces” in its next crackdown to tighten Internet controls, Xinhua news agency reported.
The announcement gave no details about which groups might be targeted.
The move is part of efforts to step up a crackdown on online smut, gambling, fraud and other offenses, said Wang Chen (王晨), chief of the Cabinet’s Information Office.
“We will strengthen the blocking of harmful information from outside China to prevent harmful information from being disseminated in China and withstand online penetration by overseas hostile forces,” Xinhua quoted Wang as saying.
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