[icernet] Press freedom down in India: Watchdog

[Arul Selvan]

India's actions to curb press freedom in 2002 indicate the political 
leadership's growing intolerance, a media watchdog said. In its annual 
report, the Committee to Protect Journalists said quoting unnamed Indian 
journalists that the Bharatiya Janata party-led government seems to 
target its critics in the media as a matter of policy and largely gets 
away with it. The report said that in Gujarat, police and political 
activists were responsible for assaulting journalists covering the 
riots. The journalists were vulnerable not only to the rage of mobs, but 
also to harassment and assault by the police, who did not want their 
complicity in the attacks publicised.

The CPJ report noted that journalists working in Jammu and Kashmir 
continued to endure physical assault, threats and harassment and the 
number of attacks against the press increased there last year. It said 
that a spate of attacks against local journalists in Kashmir highlighted 
the dangers of reporting on the conflict there.

Worldwide, the report said, the number of journalists behind bars rose 
sharply last year. In all 19 journalists were killed in 2002, down from 
37 in 2001 while 136 were imprisoned, an increase of 15 per cent. China 
continued to be the leader in jailing journalists. Last year it 
imprisoned 39 journalists, it added.

Source:
http://www.rediff.com/us/2003/apr/01suman.htm

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Rise in number of journalists behind bars in 2002: report

The number of journalists behind bars rose sharply in 2002, while 
heightened awareness of journalist safety and a decline in the number of 
global conflicts last year contributed to a decrease in the number of 
journalists killed for their work, according to the Committee to Protect 
Journalists' (CPJ) annual survey of press freedom conditions around the 
world.

"The coverage of the Gulf War, in which two journalists have been killed 
and many injured, has increased public awareness of the risks that 
journalists take to report the news,'' said the CPJ acting director, 
Joel Simon. "But we must also remember that journalists in places like 
Colombia, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Russia, and China confront violence and 
government repression every day in order to do their jobs."

Source:
http://hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/03/31/stories/2003033101701200.htm