CJP's annual "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press" release
President Nazarbayev is listed as a freshman

NEW YORK, May 3 (Reuters) - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) advocacy group Wednesday named its annual "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press," including "repeat offenders" in the leaders of Cuba, China, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, Peru and Malaysia.

CPJ said Foday Sankoh, leader of Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front who is now part of the West African nation's government, was the worst offender. His rebel soldiers executed eight journalists during a three-week occupation of the capital, Freetown, in January 1999.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was no. 2 on the list, cited for influencing the judiciary to ban 16 pro-reform newspapers in the space of a week late last month. President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia at no. 3 was on the list for the second consecutive year for a crackdown on independent Serb newspapers and broadcasters in early 2000, said CPJ, which releases the names on World Press Freedom Day, May 3.

"These enemies of the press use methods that range from outright torture and murder to more subtle techniques aimed at keeping uncomfortable truths from being told," CPJ executive director Ann Cooper said in a statement. "In Yugoslavia and Iran, threats are so severe that independent media are in grave danger of becoming extinct in the near future."

The New York-based nonprofit organisation, which seeks to safeguard press freedom around the world, named Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos among its "enemies of the press."

Describing what it termed "repeat offenders," CPJ said Cuban President Fidel Castro was named for the sixth time on the annual list, China's President Jiang Zemin for a fourth year and Tunisia's President Zine Abdine Ben Ali for a third. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Peru's President Alberto Fujimori were each listed for a second year.

"In China and Cuba, opposition voices have used new technology to circumvent restrictions, prompting new reprisals from leaders determined to control information," Cooper said.

Last week, an annual survey for World Press Freedom Day by another New York-based group, Freedom House, said censorship of the Internet by governments was spreading and could become a threat to traditional media liberty.

NEW YORK: To mark World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual list of the 10 worst enemies of the press.

Topping the list of political leaders is Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh, the head of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel force that occupied Freetown for three bloody weeks in January 1999. The rebel force executed eight journalists before being ousted by a multinational peacekeeping force. In all, 10 journalists were killed in Sierra Leone in 1999 because of their work, according to CPJ.

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was next on the list, followed by the presidents of Yugoslavia, China, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Angola, and Peru, and Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir.

"These enemies of the press use methods that range from outright torture and murder to more subtle techniques aimed at keeping uncomfortable truths from being told," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "In Yugoslavia and Iran, threats are so severe that independent media are in grave danger of becoming extinct in the near future. Elsewhere, in China and Cuba, opposition voices have used new technology to circumvent restrictions, prompting new reprisals from leaders determined to control information."

Of the 10 countries on the list, journalists had only been killed in Sierra Leone in 1999, while prison sentences, intimidation and the closure of independent news outlets were the main violations cited in the nine other countries. In China at the end of the year, 18 journalists were in jail, six of whom were convicted in 1999 because of their use of the Internet, according to CPJ.

The press watchdog group said Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's "systematic campaign to destroy independent television" provided lopsided coverage of his reelection bid, which has resulted in the decimation of what was a "thriving and vigorous press" five years ago.

The annual list is compiled by the CPJ, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to monitor abuses against the press around the world. The criteria used for the list are "highly subjective," according to CPJ spokeswoman Judy Blank. "They're all equally bad. The biggest problem is coming up with just 10. We usually have about 20," she said

Todd Diamond, Special to The Daily Yomiuri

Today is World Press Freedom Day.

"So what?" many say to that news as they stifle a yawn.

Vladimir Lenin, were he alive, would be smiling at that. He posed similar questions, though passive indifference was not behind them. And he already knew the answers:

"Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed?" he wondered. "Why should a government, which is doing what it believes to be right, allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government?"

Lenin is dead, but a lot of people who share his ideas are not.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists named some of them in its annual list of the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press. Included are Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, Jiang Zemin of China, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan , Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia.

None is more bloodthirsty than Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. During civil strife that ravaged the country for eight years, his forces targeted journalists repeatedly. During a three-week occupation of the capital, Freetown, in January 1999, rebel forces summarily executed at least eight journalists, some together with their families.

Consider Cuba, which has been much in the news of late. More than 2 million Cubans, out of a population of about 6 million when Castro came to power, have had to flee the island nation. More than 20,000 have been executed by Castro's firing squads, and more than 300,000 have suffered in his dungeons.

We hear, see and read too little of this because Castro holds such dominant and brutal sway over the media, silencing any journalists who attempt to tell the truth.

Vietnam, which also has been in the news of late, has joined a growing number of nations, many in Latin America, that have attacked the press with insidious laws that force self-censorship by requiring journalists to pay "compensation" and publish retractions for stories that may be factually correct but that the government deems defamatory of its honor. Lenin would have loved that one.

Why does it matter?

It matters because events like the war in Bosnia, for example, are brought on in large part by the ultimate control of news and information by corrupt governments.

At some point those events have ripple effects that affect the freedom-loving world. Look at Iran and Iraq, two major repressors of freedoms in the vital Persian Gulf region.

World Press Freedom Day is observed to commemorate the 1991 signing of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of principles written by publishers, editors and journalists in Africa to preserve and extend press freedom around the globe.

The observance also serves to pressure governments that continue to ignore this basic human right. Lenin had no use for that kind of pressure. Enough said.

Osman Benk Sankoh

Freetown - RUF leader is leader of the world worst 10 human beings whose conducts have affected freedom of the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its annual list of the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press today. They are responsible for the abysmal press conditions of their countries, states CPJ release.

Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic head this year's list. Sankoh is leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) a rebel movement that targeted journalists for murder during his country's civil war.

"These enemies of the press use methods that range from outright torture and murder to more subtle techniques aimed at keeping uncomfortable truths from being told," said Ann Cooper, CPJ's executive director.

"Sankoh's rebel RUF force, along with allies from the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), targeted all journalists as 'enemies' during the civil strife that ravaged Sierra Leone for eight years," adds the release.

"During a bloody three-week occupation of the capital, Freetown, in January 1999, rebel forces executed at least eight journalists, some together with their families, before being ousted by the Nigerian-led West African peacekeeping force. In all, ten journalists were killed in Sierra Leone in1999 because of their work.

"Despite his faction's long record of human-rights violations and atrocities, Sankoh was made part of the government in last year's UN- brokered peace agreement.

"As chairman of the Management of Strategic Mineral Resources Committee, he answers only to President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah."

"Chances are slim that Sankoh and his organization will ever face charges for their deadly campaign against journalists."

This is the roll call Foday Sankoh Sierra Leone Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iran Slobodan Milosevic Yugoslavia Nursultan Nazarbayev Kazakhstan Jose Eduardo dos Santos Angolan Alberto K. Fujimori Peru Mahathir Mohamad Malaysia Zine al- Abdine Ben Ali Tunisia Jiang Zemin China Fidel Castrol Cuba