Publishers and editors in many nations daily put their own lives or those of their staff at risk, by simply printing the next issue. Some worry they will be prevented from going to press at all, or that the issue will be confiscated from newsstands. The financial burden is so high for others that they wonder whether the paper will even have the resources to continue publishing.

Although the number of slain journalists has decreased in the past six months, the figures are still too high. Twenty-two journalists have been murdered since June 2005, bringing the annual death toll to 51. Hundreds more have been assaulted, arrested and threatened. WAN estimates that more than 500 journalists have been imprisoned this year.

Iraq remains a deadly place to practice journalism. Eight journalists have been murdered in the past six months, bringing the total number for this year to nineteen.

The suffocation of independent media continues unabated in countries around the world. The governments of China, Cuba, Nepal, Belarus and Zimbabwe persist in their relentless onslaught against the media. Silence from North Korea, Eritrea, Libya and Turkmenistan sends an explicit message concerning the state of the media behind their fortified walls.

Asia remains the worst region in the world for practising journalism, for the sheer number of persecuted journalists, lack of independent media outlets, and government repression of press freedom.

THE AMERICAS

From the murder of journalists in Brazil and Haiti, the jailing of two more journalists in Cuba, and the imprisonment of Judith Miller in the United States, the Americas have faced a number of press freedom challenges in the past six months.

Journalists are at the greatest risk in rural areas of Brazil, as demonstrated yet again by the 1 July murder of investigative reporter José Cândido Amorim Pinto, who was ambushed outside his radio station by two unidentified gunmen in the city of Carpina, northeastern Brazil. Despite this, progress has been made to combat Brazil’s culture of impunity over the past few months. In September, a sixth person accused of taking part in the horrific June 2002 murder of Tim Lopes of the network TV Globo, was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Five others, including the suspected drug lord Elias Pereira da Silva, were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 23 to 28 years earlier this year. Also in September, three people were convicted of the 2001 murder of radio journalist Jorge Veira da Costa.

No journalists have been murdered in Colombia in recent months, after two killings in the first six months of the year. Despite this, instances of intimidation and harassment, particularly in the form of death threats, are not uncommon, An August grenade attack on the newspaper offices of the daily newspaper El Informador, in the northern city of Santa Mata, and the July non-fatal shooting of cameraman Luis Fernando Granados in the port city of Buenaventura, are a clear reminder that journalists in Colombia remained threatened by violent attacks.

Cuba remains the hemisphere’s largest jailer, with 25 journalists in prison. Twenty-three of the journalists currently in prison were victims of the 2003 crackdown on the press and have now spent over two years behind bars. Many have developed serious health problems, creating cause for increased concern over their general well being. Several journalists have begun hunger strikes to protest their conditions. In August, Adolfo Fernández Saínz began such a strike to protest the mistreatment of another imprisoned dissident after learning he had been beaten by a prison officer, and in September, journalist Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona carried out a 25-day hunger strike, which landed him in hospital. Two other independent journalists joined their colleagues in prison over the summer. In August, Albert Santiago Du Bouchet Hernández, director of the independent news agency Havana Press, was handed a one-year jail term without the knowledge of his family, who found out about his detention only after he smuggled a note out of prison. Oscar Mario González, of Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, was arrested on a reporting trip in July. Both journalists had covered the congress of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (APSC) in May. The two-day gathering, unprecedented in Cuba, brought together 200 opposition activists to discuss ways to create a democracy in Cuba.

Haiti remains a dangerous location for journalists. On 14 June, the body of Haitian journalist Jacques Roche was found bound to a chair in the middle of a street in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Roche, cultural editor with the daily Le Matin, had been kidnapped some days prior. Three journalists have been murdered in Haiti since the start of 2005.

In Mexico, president Vicente Fox has sent four cases of murdered journalists to federal jurisdiction, while regional watchdog groups claim that little progress has actually been made in the investigations. Journalists are subject to threats and harassment, particularly in violence and drug prone areas, such as the city of Tijuana and the states of Tamaulipas and Veracruz.

Press freedom in the United States was dealt a blow in July when reporter Judith Miller of The New York Times, who refused to testify on the origin of a source of information, was sent to prison for contempt of court on 6 July. Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper had been ordered by a U.S. District Court judge to testify by this date or face jail sentences of up to 18 months. Miller was released from prison in September after agreeing to testify.

ASIA

With China leading the group of the world’s worst press freedoms offenders alongside North Korea and Burma, Asia can be classified as the world’s worst region for media. Worsening conditions for journalists in Nepal further tarnish the region’s reputation. A small glimmer of improvement can be noted in the Philippines, however, where one journalist has been killed in the past six months, the lowest death toll in a long time.

China, which still holds the world record of the highest number of jailed journalists, continues to persecute courageous media, and access to information remains strictly controlled. In the past six months, conditions for the media have stagnated, and the government’s seemingly more tolerant stance toward print media has been counterbalanced by a tighter-than-ever grip on all Internet communications. In July, a five-year prison sentence, followed by four years of deprivation of political rights, was handed to freelance Internet journalist Zhang Lin on charges of inciting subversion. In September, a seven-year-prison sentence was imposed on journalist Zheng Yichun based on similar charges.

The June decision of the Hunan Supreme People’s Court to uphold the conviction of journalist Shi Tao on charges of "illegally leaking state secrets abroad", serves as a reminder of the government’s zero tolerance policy when it comes to freedom of expression on the Internet. In May 2004, Shi sent an email to a news website from his personal Yahoo account about propaganda officials’ instructions to his newspaper in the lead up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Authorities traced the mail with the acquiescence of the service provider. As a result of the email, Shi was handed a ten-year prison sentence.

Although one of the biggest enemies of free flow of information within its frontiers, China has inadvertently contributed to press freedom and access to information in neighbouring countries through the manufacturing of cheap radios and satellite dishes, allowing poor, rural populations greater access to news sources.

Little has improved in Nepal over the past six months, despite an official end to the state of emergency that paralysed the country in the first few months of 2005. Media outside the Kathmandu valley are still caught in the middle of clashes between Maoist rebels and security forces. This is compounded by the emerging threat of vigilantes; gangs of renowned criminals are believed to have been hired by security forces, and are known to attack, harass and intimidate rural journalists. Dozens of journalists have been beaten and arrested by security forces while reporting on or joining pro-democracy demonstrations in recent months. A continued ban on all FM news reporting prevents the predominately rural population from access to independent news sources. Financial strangulation of the private press, including directives to restrict government advertising exclusively to friendly media, continues to negatively affect private newspapers. The introduction of further legal measures in October concerning fines for defamation will serve to further chip away at Nepal’s already beleaguered press.

Working conditions for journalists in Afghanistan remain a challenge. Attacks on the media are common, infrastructure is weak, and journalists lack training and resources in parts of the country. Security remains an issue in rural areas where warlords exert de-facto control. In September, two journalists were kidnapped by a group of individuals believed to be followers of local warlords. The journalists managed to escape after six days in captivity while their abductors were sleeping. Censorship and government reprisals are not uncommon. In July, two Radio Free Europe journalists were arrested and detained for a week while covering the aftermath of the crash of a U.S. military helicopter that was shot down the month before. In Pakistan, censorship and occasional attacks on the press restrict progress in media development. In August, officials in Sindh province withdrew the publication permits of the weeklies Zarb-i-Islam, Friday Special, and Wajood, allegedly because they published “objectionable material” that caused danger to public order. A month earlier, police raided their offices, shutting down the publications and arresting several journalists.

Simmering ethnic and political tensions in Sri Lanka continue to destabilise the country and put the media at risk. On 12 August, popular Tamil broadcaster Relangi Selvarajah was gunned down in Colombo. Her husband, a political activist, was also killed in the attack. Also in August, two reporters from the Tamil-language Sudaroli newspaper were assaulted in the capital. Some weeks earlier, two grenades were thrown at the newspaper’s advertising office, killing a security guard and injuring a few other employees. In June, a hand grenade attack damaged a TV station in northern Sri Lanka.

In Burma, one of the world’s most notorious jailers of journalists, press freedom won a slight victory following a general amnesty in early July that saw the release of documentary filmmaker Aung Pwint and freelance journalist Sein Hla Oo. Despite this positive development, new publishing rules introduced in August will empower the Burmese Ministry of Information’s Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRD) to block the transfer of a publishing licence from one publisher to another. The new rules are thought to be an attempt to further tighten control over authorised publications’ editorial teams.

Little or no information on the state of the media trickles out of North Korea, which is a clear enough indicator that press freedom is non-existent in this police state. A number of journalists are believed to be held in prison or labour camps, however it is impossible to confirm this information.

Although far from being the worst press freedom offender in the region, certain events in Thailand in the past six months give cause for concern. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s October filing of lawsuits against two journalists who allegedly accused him of disloyalty to the King, and the resumption of the criminal defamation trial brought by Shin Corporation - owned by the Prime Minister’s family - against media reform activist Supinya Klangnarong and the Thai Post, give cause for concern. Parliament’s introduction of an emergency rule that will empower the Prime Minister to censor the media in the country’s three Muslim-dominated, insurgency-hit southern provinces, as well as giving the authorities a wide range of other powers that violate freedom of expression and protection of sources, could lead to potential abuse.

As Indonesia slowly rebuilds in the wake of the December tsunami and tensions between separatists in Aceh province and the government have tempered, the August disappearance of an investigative journalist has cast a blemish on the country’s otherwise improving press freedom record. A group of men on motorcycles reportedly abducted Elyuddin Telaumbanua, a journalist with the daily Berita Sore, as he was travelling home from an assignment with a colleague. Nothing has been heard from the journalist since.

The murder of only one journalist in the Philippines in the past six months is a positive development within the country, however, this almost unprecedented record underlines the normally perilous conditions for journalists. On 3 July, radio commentator Rolando "Dodong" Morales, was ambushed and shot at least 15 times by a gang of motorcycle-riding assailants while driving home on the southern island of Mindanao. The attempted murder of Danilo Aguirre, a business and features writer for the weekly Mindanao Bulletin in October, underscores the continued threats faced by practicing journalists, despite a drop in the numbers of those actually slain. Five journalists have been murdered in the Philippines this year: Eleven were killed in 2004.

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

The same Central Asian countries appear again and again on the radar for press freedom violations, and the past six months have been no different. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan remain inhospitable environments for media of any kind, and conditions are worsening for journalists in Kazakhstan. The government in Belarus continues to persecute what remains of the country’s independent press, and journalists in Russia sometimes fall victim to gang-style violence.

Conditions for media in Kazakhstan are becoming increasingly difficult as the country gears up for its presidential elections in December. Currently, the print media is the only remaining independent source for information, which has meant that they bear the brunt of government reprisals.

In September, seven newspapers simultaneously saw their printing contracts terminated. In response, the newspaper editors immediately launched a hunger strike in protest until a printer agreed to take them back on. The country’s most popular opposition newspaper Respuklika remains closed, despite repeated attempts on the part of the newspaper to circumvent the more and more audacious measures on the part of the authorities to prevent the newspaper from re-opening its doors. President Nazarbayev’s main challengers receive little to no air-time in the run-up to the elections as all radio and television is state-controlled, and there are fears that the government will do its utmost to ensure that the print media is similarly handicapped.

Civil unrest and political instability in Uzbekistan have prompted the authorities to clamp down further on the country’s media. Six months after the May crackdown in Andijan, which saw hundreds of protesters fired upon by government forces, the press is still feeling the reverberations. In September, one of the few remaining international media organisations, Internews, which provides training to local journalists, was shut down permanently. The possibility of being shipped off to a mental institution for challenging the status quo is another threat that journalists and human rights activists contend with.

Turkmenistan remains completely isolated from the outside world; very few foreign media travel to the country, and there is no independent media to speak of.

In Belarus, President Lukashenko’s campaign to stifle any independent media continues unabated, and in the past six months, the courts have attacked the media with further closures and exorbitant fines. Systematic harassment of the minority press is also on the rise. In August, the courts shut down two independent publishing houses.

In September, the courts seized the assets and blocked the bank accounts of Narodnaya Volya, the country’s main independent newspaper, due to its inability to pay a crippling fine 38,000 Euros in libel damages for defaming a politician. The country’s diplomatic squabbling with Poland led to an increase in harassment of the Polish minority press over the summer months. A number of ethnic Polish journalists working and living in Belarus have been arrested and harassed, and in August, a Polish journalist travelling to the country was arrested and expelled for five years.

In Azerbaijan, unchecked police aggression and tensions in the lead up to the November parliamentary elections have led to occasional problems for the media over the past six months. In September, police assaulted four journalists at a banned opposition demonstration. This incident follows the June death of Alim Kazimli, a photographer who was severely beaten six months earlier while in detention.

In Russia, gang-style attacks on journalists, a tendency to resort to Soviet-style punishment in the form of forced labour and the use of criminal defamation as a means of curtailing the media, separates the country from many of its European counterparts. On 28 June, Magomedzagid Varisov, a journalist and political analyst, was gunned down in the city of Makhachkala, the republic of Dagestan. Assailants opened fire on Varisov’s vehicle as he was returning home with his wife and driver. Also in June, two unidentified assailants violently assaulted Nikolai Kochurov, editor-in-chief of the independent Severodvinsky Rabochy. The incident landed the editor in hospital.

According to one international watchdog, a total of twelve journalists have been slain in contract-style killings in Russia during the Putin administration, and not a single individual has been brought to justice in any of the cases. In June, journalist Eduard Abrosimov was convicted of criminal defamation and sentenced to seven months in a prison colony for defaming public officials in two articles published in 2004. On an encouraging note, in August, courts reversed an earlier decision to sentence journalist Nikolai Goshko to five years in criminal labour camp on charges of defamation.

Despite relative stability returning to Serbia and Montenegro, sporadic violence and simmering ethnic tensions have had their consequences. On 25 June, Bardhyl Ajeti, a reporter for the Albanian-language daily Bota Sot (World Today), succumbed to his injuries three weeks after being shot in Kosovo.

Although the initial euphoria following the “Orange revolution” in Ukraine has diminished somewhat, a significant step was made in the investigation into the 2000 murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze, when in September, a parliamentary commission of enquiry confirmed the involvement of former president Kuchma in the journalist’s murder. The current president of parliament, Volodymyr Litvin, who headed Kuchma’s office at the time, was also named by the commission to have been involved.

Many of the eastern European countries that aim to join the European Union in 2007 have hurdles to overcome when it comes to media plurality. In particular, an ingrained mistrust between the government and the media, as well as a lack of organisation within the media themselves, impede media development. New EU member Poland’s pluralistic media led by example in the run up to the country’s September parliamentary and October presidential elections.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

The Middle East and North Africa is one of the most troubling regions in the world for press freedom, and events in recent months have proved no exception. The continued slaughter of journalists in Iraq, intolerance and incarceration in Iran, and murders in both Lebanon and Libya have made this region the bloodiest in the world for journalists in the past six months.

Ongoing violence and instability in Iraq have made the country the most dangerous place in the world for media. At least eight journalists have been murdered in the past six months, bringing the yearly total thus far to nineteen. Most of the victims were local journalists, many falling victim to attacks by insurgents.

In September alone, three journalists were killed, two in the northern city of Mosul, and one in Basra. On 16 September, Hind Ismail, a reporter for the daily newspaper As-Saffir, was abducted by unidentified assailants in Mosul. Her body was found the next morning with a single bullet wound in the head. On 20 September, Firas Maadidi, the Mosul bureau chief for the same daily, was gunned down in front of his home. In the southern city of Basra, Fakher Haydar Al-Tamimi, an Iraqi journalist who worked for several foreign news media including the New York Times, was kidnapped and shot in execution style on 19 September.

The replacement of reformist president Mohammad Khatami by the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s presidential elections in June has done little to give hope to the country’s struggling independent media. Iran’s most prominent political prisoner, investigative journalist Akbar Ganji, remains in jail. There has been no word of his condition since he was returned to prison on 3 September following a two-month hunger strike that landed him in hospital.

A few other journalists have been more fortunate. Cyber-dissidents Mojtaba Lotfi andi Mohamad Reza Nasab Abdolah were released from prison at the end of August after spending over six months in prison. In June, Yosef Azizi Banitrouf, a prominent journalist and human rights activist, was released on bail. The journalist had been detained without charge since his arrest in April for participating in a press conference.

Social agitation in the tiny kingdom of Bahrain has brought out the less tolerant side of the normally accommodating government. In the past six months, at least three bloggers and Internet users affiliated with the website Bahrain Online (http://www.bahrainonline.org) have been detained and released.

Similarly in Yemen, social unrest appears to have led to direct reprisals from the government in recent months. Premeditated attacks on the press have also been recorded. In July, following a fuel price hike that sparked riots, security forces arrested a number of journalists covering the events and attacked others, confiscating their cameras and film.

Also in July, Yemeni correspondents for foreign media were barred from sending news reports using Yemeni TV satellite stations, despite agreements to the contrary. In the same month, Hajei Al-Jehafi, managing editor of the independent daily An-Nahar, narrowly escaped injury when a booby-trapped letter exploded in his face.

Initial high hopes concerning the political future of Lebanon in the wake of the withdrawal of Syrian troops and the June parliamentary elections were dampened by the 2 June murder of popular political columnist Samir Kassir.

The An-Nahar journalist was killed by a car bomb. In a similar attack, May Chidiac, an anchorwoman with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, was seriously wounded in a car bomb attack in September. The journalist, one of Lebanon’s most outspoken during Syria’s occupation, lost two limbs and suffers from serious burns from the attack.

Egypt’s first democratic presidential elections in September put the country’s predominately state-controlled media to the test. As expected, coverage was found to be biased in favour of President Mubarak, although opposition candidates were given print space and airtime. Aside from a few independent newspapers, including the Arab-language Al Masri Al Youm, the government owns and operates all broadcast television stations, radio is restricted to entertainment, and the country’s three leading dailies are state controlled, with their editors appointed by the president.

In Algeria, the government has continued to employ defamation laws to crack down on opposition journalists over the past six months, rounding off a thoroughly disappointing year for press freedom in the country. Algeria’s most prestigious editor, Mohamed Benchicou, remains behind bars after more than a year in jail on trumped up charges. Threats, censorship, denial of press accreditation, arrests and prison sentences have become the daily lot of many journalists in the country.

The gruesome murder of a journalist in Libya in June shone rare light into a country that is normally shrouded in darkness due the lack of any independent media. On 2 June, the body of Daif al-Ghazal al-Shuhaibi was found in the eastern city of Benghazi. His fingers had been severed and his body had multiple bruises and stab wounds. He had also been shot. For the past year, the journalist had written for the UK-based web newspaper Libya, in which he had published articles criticising Libya’s governing party, the Movement of Revolutionary Committees (MRC).

With the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) set to take place in Tunis in November, Tunisia’s attempt to prove to the world its suitability to hold a UN meeting, that among other subjects, discusses issues of access to information and freedom of expression, remains as absurd as ever. The blocking of websites, consistent harassment of journalists, and banning of meetings of prominent civil society organisations over the past six months is consistent with President Ben Ali’s hostile stance toward freedom of expression. According to reports, there are more than 600 prisoners of opinion currently in jail in the country.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Press freedom problems in Africa are punctuated by severe economic constraints, endemic problems of weak infrastructure, and a lack of resources, inadequate training facilities and the continued use of restrictive press laws. TDespite these challenges, a vibrant press exists in Nigeria, Uganda and a number of southern African states.

Press freedom in Chad suffered a blow over the summer months with the handing of prison sentences to four journalists on charges of defamation and inciting hatred. One of the journalists incarcerated was Sy Koumbo Singa Gali, publisher of the popular independent weekly L’Observateur, who spent a number of weeks in prison after publishing an interview with an imprisoned colleague. An appeals court overturned three of the convictions; a fourth was allowed to stand, but the journalist was freed based on the prison time he already served. Although all have now been released, the spate of jailings sends a clear message to independent media regarding President Idriss Deby’s intolerance to criticism.

The famine that has gripped Niger over the past year shows no signs of abating, and journalists are feeling the backlash as criticism of the government’s actions during the crisis increases. Two journalists faced jail in September for reporting on the corrupted practices in the distribution of food-aid by a state governor.

Journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo contend with an almost constant threat of imprisonment and assault for their professional activities. Ongoing political instability and virtual lawlessness in outlying regions of the country mean hazardous conditions for journalists. Radio stations are regularly suspended, and journalists are harassed and assaulted by both soldiers and rebel forces. Journalists working in the capital are often arrested and detained for questioning over articles, and criminal defamation is liberally used in attempts to tether the country’s feisty print media community. The 3 November murder of Franck Kangundu, political editor of the Kinshasa-based daily newspaper La Reference Plus, is a sober reminder that the welfare of journalists in the capital, much like their counterparts in the provinces, cannot be assured.

Day-to-day survival is the biggest challenge for media companies in Togo, which not only suffer from lack of training, resources and infrastructure, but also contend with a virtually non-existent advertising market and a government that remains relatively hostile to the private press.

Ethiopia became a particularly unaccommodating country for journalists in June and July, as harassment and detention of the press rose significantly following the May parliamentary elections. In June, five local journalists working for foreign news agencies had their accreditation revoked, and six editors from the Amharic-language press were detained and questioned over articles they had published during the election period. A prominent newspaper distributor was arrested and detained twice over the summer months.

Eritrea remains one of the world’s largest jailors and the continent’s worst press freedom offender. Currently no independent media exist in the country, and a total of 15 journalists are believed to remain in prison. More than four years after they were detained and placed in state custody, the fate of these journalists is still not known.

The murder of a journalist in Somalia in June brings the country’s total this year to two. Radio journalist Duniya Muhiyadin Nur, was shot and killed on 5 June while covering a protest. A BBC correspondent was shot and killed in the capital earlier this year.

The independent media in Gambia limp along as President Jammeh continues to systematically stamp out criticism in the country. The killers of Deyda Hydara remain free and his newspaper, The Point, is under serious financial duress. The only other private newspaper, The Independent, still cannot find a printing company to replace the printing press that was torched last year in an arson attack.

Despite relative stability since 2002, press freedom in Sierra Leone has two serious blemishes on its record. 4 October marked the one-year anniversary of the incarceration of veteran editor and publisher Paul Kamara, who was sentenced in 2004 to two concurrent years in prison for seditious libel. The editor, who founded For Di People, one of the country’s longest standing newspapers, is the only journalist in jail in the country. The media community suffered another blow when, in July, acting editor Harry Yansaneh succumbed to injuries sustained during an assault a few months previously.

In Sudan, President Al Bashir’s decision to lift the state of emergency on 10 July led to cautious optimism within the media community. An August raid on the printing press that produces the Al Watan and Al Wan newspapers in Khartoum during which security forces ordered the presses stopped and confiscated all available copies of the papers, however, dampened hopes for changes in conditions for private media. Promises by leaders in both the southern and northern parts of the country to cease interfering with the independent press must be followed up by actions for any concrete improvements in press freedom to be felt.

In Zimbabwe, the August acquittal of Daily News journalist Kelvin Jakachira on charges of violating the country’s press laws by working without accreditation from the government-controlled Media and Information Commission was a small, but significant victory for press freedom in the country. The victory, however, did little to counter disappointment over the fact that The Daily News’ two-year legal battle to resume publishing continues. The Daily News is Zimbabwe’s only privately owned independent newspaper. In June, President Mugabe signed into law the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Bill, which introduces stiffer penalties against the publication of falsehoods. Zimbabwean journalists now risk spending 20 years in jail under the new law.