Free Press? US & Israel are some of the worst!

"Reporters Without Borders today publishes its second world press freedom ranking. Like last year, the most catastrophic situation is to found in Asia, with eight countries in the bottom ten : North Korea, Burma, Laos, China, Iran, Vietnam, Turkmenistan and Bhutan. Independent news media are either non-existent in these countries, or are constantly repressed by the authorities. Journalists there work in extremely difficult conditions, with no freedom and no security. A number of them are imprisoned in Burma, China and Iran"
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"To compile this ranking, Reporters Without Borders asked journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists to fill out a questionnaire evaluating respect for press freedom in a particular country. A total of 166 countries are included in the ranking (as against 139 last year). The other countries were left out because of a lack of reliable, well-supported data. "
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"Special situation of the United States and Israel The ranking distinguishes behaviour at home and abroad in the cases of the United States and Israel. They are ranked in 31st and 44th positions respectively as regards respect for freedom of expression on their own territory, but they fall to the 135th and 146th positions as regards behaviour beyond their borders.

The Israeli army's repeated abuses against journalists in the occupied territories and the US army's responsibility in the death of several reporters during the war in Iraq constitute unacceptable behaviour by two nations that never stop stressing their commitment to freedom of expression.

www.rsf.org...

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Rumsfeld stated at the start of the Afgani corporate war that reporters should not look for the US military for any support if they happened to be in harms way. The result? A journalist death talley like no other in history, including the boys who used to film those movie reels of the BIG ONE that our grandparents watched at the Sunday Picture Show.

My gut feel of the Journalists being an inpedement to the actual corporate wars initiative - Gas & Oil pipeline ownership through to critical seaports, with Afganistan & Iraq owned, Iran a sandwiched target - has been strengthened by this paper.

www.clingendael.nl...

It's a long read, but an excellent piece of research & map 1.1 of the multiple pipeline proposition speaks volumes.
Relevant to journalists deaths, how? Why, the US camps in Afganistan are on the pipeline route, me thinks!

It's quite sad, when a country that is based on the ideals of freedom seems to be betraying those ideals .

Good to see that Finland is #1

[Edited on 23-10-2003 by Paradigm]

God Bless Finland...as it appears it does.



There is no enemy anywhere - Lao Tse