Source

Today, World Press Freedom Day 2012, Reporters Without Borders condemns the furious pace of physical attacks on news providers and reports that a total of 21 journalists, and 6 netizens and citizen journalists have been killed since the start of 2012, many of them in war zones such as Somalia and Syria. This is a rate of one news provider killed ever five days.

Reporters Without Borders is today also releasing an updated list of its “predators of the freedom to inform,” a list that has grown in size and now has 41 members.

Reporters Without Borders is dismayed by yesterday’s bombings targeting newspapers in the capital, Abuja, and the northern city of Kaduna and calls on the Nigerian authorities to reinforce security for news media, journalists and other media personnel.

Reacting to the two bombings, which killed at least nine people, President Goodluck Jonathan issued a statement stressing the government’s commitment “to uphold citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom of expression and press freedom in particular.”

Reporters Without Borders condemns the occupation of the headquarters of the state radio and TV broadcaster ORTM by renegade soldiers since yesterday and the interruption of broadcasting by many other radio and TV stations as a result of an apparent military coup against President Amadou Toumani Touré.

Reporters Without Borders and its partner organization, the Burma Media Association (BMA), condemn the criminal libel suit that a construction ministry engineer has brought against the Modern Weekly newspaper and one of its reporters, Thet Su Aung, over a report last November criticising the state of roads in the central region of Mandalay.

The two organizations are also concerned about other recent restrictions on media freedom reported by the exile media, which continue to demonstrate the importance of their role in covering developments inside Burma.

Joint NGO Statement

(New York) – Human Rights Watch joined more than 30 other organizations today in calling on Syrian authorities to release Mazen Darwish, a prominent human rights defender and and director of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), as well as seven of his colleagues and a visitor to SCM, all detained on February 16. The statement follows:

Syrian Authorities Must Immediately and Unconditionally Release Mazen Darwish and Other Detained Activists

The annual report of the National Union of Somali Journalists, a partner organization of Reporters Without Borders, paints a worrying picture of abuses suffered by the media in 2011 and condemns the silence and impunity that surround crimes against journalists.

The report on the state of press freedom, published yesterday, said 2011 was worse than 2010 and lists four journalists killed, seven wounded and 19 arbitrarily arrested, as well as seven attacks on media organizations and at least five prosecutions for criminal defamation.

Reporters Without borders is relieved to learn that the broadcast signal of the French public radio station Radio France Internationale, switched off on 31 December on the orders of the Congolese communications minister, Lambert Mende, was restored today.

The suspension of broadcasts by the station, which was criticised for its coverage of the events since the disputed presidential election last month, had aroused international protests, notably from France and the United States.

December was a particularly black month for media freedom violations in Yemen although President Ali Abdallah Saleh agreed to a plan proposed by Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh on 23 November under which he is to stand down as president in February.

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the continuing violations and urges the international community to intercede. December was above all marked by violence by government troops and Saleh supporters against journalists covering the “March for Life,” which set off from Taiz, a city 270 km south of the capital, on 20 December.