Press Freedom Rankings

Thomas Seay entheogens at yahoo.com
Thu Oct 24 15:04:47 PDT 2002


Press freedom: Suomi is Yksi. US ranks 17th. Sorry, Yoshie and Carrol, your teams, China and North Korea, came in last.

--------------------------------------------------- Survey shows that press freedom is not the privilege of

the rich nations

Wed Oct 23, 4:58 PM ET

PARIS - Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands enjoy more press

freedom than other countries, while China and North Korea (news - web sites)

have the least, according to a survey of 139 countries issued Wednesday by

Reporters Without Borders.

The survey by the press watchdog group shows that press freedom is

threatened in all corners of the globe, and rich nations do not necessarily

guarantee liberty of the press better than poor nations.

Slovenia and Costa Rica, for instance, placed 14th and 15th, respectively, in

the survey — ahead of the United States which placed 17th. Switzerland shared

15th place with Costa Rica.

France, where Reporters Without Borders is based, placed 11th — in 8th

position among members of the 15-member European Union (news - web sites).

Italy ranked 40th.

The first non-European country on the list is Canada — in 5th place.

The survey reflects the degree of liberty that journalists and the media benefit

from in the countries listed, as well as the policies put in place by each state to

ensure press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders. The survey

concerns the period from September 2001 to October 2002.

The list was compiled based on responses to questionnaires filled out by

"several independent sources" in each country — journalists, researchers and

specialists of the law, Reporters Without Borders said. Complete responses

were obtained from 139 countries.

"Paradoxically, some democratically elected governments have a poor score," a

statement by Reporters Without Borders said, noting Colombia ranked 114 and

Bangladesh ranked 118. In both cases, armed movements, militias or political

parties "constantly put in peril the security of journalists."

More surprising, perhaps, is that "respect for freedom of the press is not the

privilege of rich nations," Reporters Without Borders said.

The small African nation of Benin held 21st place in the survey even though it is

ranked by the United Nations (news - web sites) as one of the world's 15

poorest countries, Reporters Without Borders said.

The United States' 17th ranking is linked mainly to the number of journalists

detained or jailed, with arrests often motivated by journalists' refusal to reveal

their sources, the organization said. It added that since the Sept. 11 terror

attacks, a number of journalists have been detained for violating security

perimeters of official buildings. No details were provided.

No country in the Middle East placed among the top 50 nations in the survey.

Tailing the list was China, followed by North Korea.

===== "A question is always the desire to know, and to preserve simple human truths, we need secrets. The secrets of happiness, death, love."


>From the movie "Solaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky

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