CPJ Releases Attacks on the Press in 2000 :

Annual Report on State of Press Freedoms Worldwide Documents 24 Journalists Killed; 81 Imprisoned at Year's End; China World's Leading Jailer of Journalists


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New York, March 19, 2000 ­ In its annual accounting of press freedom conditions around the world, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported today that 24 journalists were killed because of their work in 2000. Another 81 were in prison at year's end.

The 550-page report, Attacks on the Press in 2000, documents more than 600 cases of media repression in 131 countries, including assassination, assault, imprisonment, censorship, and bureaucratic harassment. In documenting these attacks, CPJ's report notes several disturbing trends:

  • Of the 24 journalists killed for their work in 2000, at least 16 were murdered. In all but two instances, those who ordered the murders remain at large. Worldwide, the assassinations of journalists are seldom vigorously investigated and the killers rarely convicted, but the pattern of impunity is particularly acute in several countries, notably Colombia and Russia. Three journalists were murdered in Colombia in 2000, bringing the 10-year death toll in that country to 34. Another three journalists also died in Russia, and three more were killed in Sierra Leone.

  • The number of journalists in prison at the end of 2000 showed a welcome decline from a year earlier (from 87 to 81), further evidence that international protests have made it diplomatically costly for governments to jail journalists for their work. In Eastern Europe and Latin America, particularly, many countries have turned to more subtle methods to control the press—punitive tax laws, expensive libel suits, and advertising boycotts. However, many of the dozens of journalists still in prison are jailed in pariah states that are often impervious to international criticism. At the top of the list was China, which held 22 journalists at year's end, several of them for using the Internet to disseminate information.

  • Journalists working under repressive conditions are increasingly using the Internet and other technologies in an attempt to bypass restrictions, but the consequences can include more repression, violent attack, and even death. In Ukraine, the killing of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze triggered an international political scandal. In Mozambique last year, gunmen assassinated investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, who distributed his hard-hitting reports by fax machine. Throughout the Middle East, governments sought to restrict the sale and use of satellite dishes, in a desperate attempt to prevent their citizens from tuning in to the lively, often critical political programming of the Qatar-based satellite station Al-Jazeera

Key statistics in Attacks on the Press indicate clear progress in the struggle to defend press freedom worldwide. Twenty-four journalists killed for their work in 2000 "is 24 too many," notes one essay in Attacks. But that number was significantly below the total of 34 killed a year earlier, and down from the annual rates of journalists killed during the first half of the 1990s.

The small decline in the number of journalists imprisoned at year's end also marked a positive trend. After reaching a record high in 1996, of 185 in prison, CPJ's census, which notes the number of journalists jailed on the last day of the year, has shown a steady decline each year.

"These welcome changes are evidence that CPJ's 20 years of documenting and exposing abuses of the press have made a real difference in protecting journalists and press freedom," said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper. "At the same time, outrageous abuses of the media continue, as governments achieve their repressive goals with more sophisticated techniques of harassment," said Cooper


Working for Change for 20 Years
CPJ marks its 20th anniversary in 2001. One of its founding board members, Peter Arnett, notes in his preface to Attacks on the Press that "Over its 20-year history, CPJ has become an important champion of press freedom, discomfiting authoritarian regimes around the world with detailed accounts of their abuses and challenging them to show more respect for their media." Arnett, who participated in several CPJ missions during 2000, said, "Any doubts I might have about the value of continuing the struggle for press freedom in war-wracked areas of the world are resolved when I touch down in a troubled country and commiserate with journalists desperate for recognition and assistance."


China, Russia, Venezuela: Three Special Reports
Three special reports in Attacks on the Press look in-depth at press conditions in China, Russia and Venezuela. "The Great Firewall" focuses on the Internet struggle in China, where new regulations turn Internet providers into de facto government spies, but where some citizens are finding creative ways to reach blocked Internet sites. "Managing the Messengers" reports on Russian president Vladimir Putin's efforts to centralize control of the news media in a country where much of the population distrusts independent journalism. And "Radio Chávez" shows how Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez Frías uses radio and television to marginalize and verbally attack the news media, causing concern for the future of his country's free press.

The annual Attacks series is widely recognized as the most authoritative and comprehensive source of information on press freedom conditions worldwide.