PARIS, May 3: Rights groups marked World Press Freedom Day on Tuesday with appeals for an end to violence, censorship and government interference after the number of journalists killed, injured and jailed rose to near-record levels in much of the world. While many journalists died while covering armed conflicts, most were brutally murdered by killers who walked free. “In most cases, journalists were murdered in retaliation for reporting on government corruption, crime, drug trafficking or the activities of rebel groups,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York.

It said 190 journalists have been killed on duty worldwide since 2000, of whom 121 “were hunted down” and murdered in cold blood by hit men for governments, guerilla groups and crime syndicates.

In Paris, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) focused on impunity in its 2005 press freedom campaign.

“Today the general public is becoming more aware of the risks journalists take while doing their job, and that it can sometimes be fatal to be a reporter or a cameraman. However, few are aware that the vast majority of crimes against journalists go unpunished,” WAN said.

In fact, the CPJ estimated that 85 per cent of crimes against journalists went unpunished and that killers in the five most murderous countries — the Philippines, Iraq, Colombia, Bangladesh and Russia — acted with total impunity.

“In all the regions of the world, governments are intent on hindering the media’s work,” said the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI).

With the free flow of information menaced by violence and oppression, “press freedom is having a hard time,” said Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF - Reporters Without Borders), a Paris-based media rights group. “It’s being attacked, trampled on, disdained or ignored everywhere.”

In addition to those killed behind a nearly “solid wall of impunity,” RSF said more than 900 journalists were arrested last year, and more than 1,100 physically attacked or threatened in the course of their work.

Exactly how many journalists were killed in the line of duty varied with the organization and its criteria. RSF said 58 were killed last year, WAN listed 72, the IPI said 78 and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said 129.

LAHORE, NAIROBI: The daily reality of violence for many newsmen and women was illustrated in Lahore on Tuesday, when police baton-charged journalists marching to mark World Press Freedom Day, injuring nine of them.

Another incident occurred in Nairobi, where the wife of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki barged into the newsroom of the Nation newspaper with a police commander and six bodyguards and held journalists hostage for several hours to protest against an unfavourable story about her.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) on Tuesday awarded its Guillermo Cano press freedom prize to Chinese editor Cheng Yizhong, 40, who incurred a five-month spell in jail and a ban on practicing his profession for publishing stories that displeased China’s Communist authorities, including one on the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic and another on a death at a Guangzhou police station.

While press freedom can hardly be said to exist in countries like Bangladesh — which RSF described as a “kind of hell” for journalists — it is under serious attack “even in states with a reputation for tolerance and pluralism,” according to Aidan White, head of the Brussels-based IFJ.

He said a disproportionate response to the threat of terrorism was creating “an atmosphere of paranoia” that amounted to “a devastating challenge to the global culture of human rights and civil liberties”.—AFP