Press freedom around the world deteriorated last year because of coups and attempts to stifle political opposition and regulate use of the Internet, a leading watchdog said in a report yesterday.
US-based Freedom House outlined what it said were particularly troubling trends in Asia, the former Soviet Union and Latin America, in a report that warned that democracy as a whole would likely suffer.
"Press freedom is like the canary in the coal mine," executive director Jennifer Windsor said in a statement. "Assaults on the media are inevitably followed by assaults on other democratic institutions. The fact that press freedom is in retreat is a deeply troubling sign that democracy itself will come under further assault."
The report, released ahead of World Press Freedom Day tomorrow, said that coups, insurgency and states of emergency in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Philippines and Fiji had taken their toll on press freedom.
The study said Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, and Turkmenistan were the worst countries for press freedom. In North Korea, for example, radios must be registered with police and all foreign Web sites are blocked.
Freedom House pointed to recent improvements in Nepal, Cambodia and Indonesia.
China, Vietnam and Iran were continuing to jail journalists and cyber-dissidents, while Russia was aggressively trying to marginalize independent media and planning to regulate use of the Internet, it said.
In Iran YouTube and the English version of Wikipedia were banned in December.
The study, entitled Freedom of the Press 2007, also noted a deterioration in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil either because of state action or deteriorating security environments.
"The records of Venezuela and Russia are appalling, all the more so because of those countries' impact on their regions," Karin Karlekar, managing editor of the survey, said.
The group blamed the decline on coups, drives to neutralize political opposition, violence against journalists and laws brought in to enable governments to punish the press for critical reports.
The group also expressed alarm about the situation in the Middle East, where recent progress had stagnated, it said. Libya, Syria, Tunisia and the Palestinian Authority were singled out for their "extremely restricted" media.
But the organization also noted improvements in Italy, Nepal, Colombia, Haiti, and other countries, because of greater political openness and an improved security environment.
Not even the US, called "one of the better performers," escaped criticism for cases in which journalists face legal pressure, including imprisonment, to reveal confidential sources.
The survey gives countries a score out of 100 to reflect restrictions on their media. Iceland and Finland shared the top spot.
The survey gave 74 countries out of the 195 included the "free" rating and 63 the "not free" label. The remainder were "partly free."
"We are also disturbed by the level of press freedom decline in what we had assumed were established democracies," Karlekar said.
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