Taiwan dropped four places to 28th in this year’s World Press Freedom Index compared with a year earlier, as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that global press freedom conditions were at a record low.
Taiwan's ranking out of 180 countries and territories declined from 24th last year to 28th this year, with its global score falling from 77.04 to 75.44, according to the index, which was released today.
While Taiwan saw a decline in the index, the country's media environment remained "one of the safest" for journalists, even among democracies, Aleksandra Bielakowska, advocacy manager at RSF's Asia-Pacific Bureau, told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of Reporters Without Borders
There were no reports of harassment or detentions of journalists by authorities, she added.
Taiwan placed second in the Asia-Pacific region, trailing New Zealand (22nd) but ahead of neighboring countries such as Australia (33rd), South Korea (47th) and Japan (62nd), the index showed.
However, the lack of effective government action over the past decade to improve the quality of news coverage and ensure the public's right to reliable information had become "a major problem" detrimental to Taiwan's democratic system, RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau director Cedric Alviani said.
Taiwan's media outlets continued to face economic challenges, such as a slump in advertising revenue and government funding cuts for public media, Bielakowska said.
Across the Taiwan Strait, Hong Kong ranked 140th and China 178th, with both positions unchanged from last year.
Nevertheless, the gap between Hong Kong and China is "closing quickly," because Hong Kong’s National Security Law — imposed in 2020 by Beijing following mass anti-government protests — continued to erode the territory’s press freedom.
In February, Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai (黎智英) was sentenced to 20 years in prison — the harshest punishment to date under the law — after being found guilty of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and of publishing seditious articles.
At the same time, RSF also reported that at least 13 foreign journalists had been denied visas or were barred from entering Hong Kong after promulgation of the law.
While there were no new arrests of journalists or raids on newsrooms last year, RSF had learned of several cases of journalists being followed and harassed during their work, Bielakowska said.
Countries worldwide, including democracies, have increasingly used national security policies as "weapons" to target journalists and their reporting, she said.
More than half of the world's countries now fall into the "difficult" or "very serious" categories — the bottom two in the five-tier index, RSF said, adding that the press freedom situation was "at a 25-year low."
When the group first launched the index in 2002, 20 percent of the global population lived in countries where press freedom conditions were categorized as "good," but now less than 1 percent do, RSF said.
Norway ranked first in this year’s index based on surveys with journalists worldwide, for the 10th consecutive year, followed by the Netherlands and Estonia.
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