Freedom House, which monitors
the sate of freedom around the world every year, has placed
Pakistan among countries where the press is “Not
Free.”
According to Freedom House which released the survey this
week, “Pakistan dropped from Partly Free to Not
Free because of increased official harassment of journalists
and media outlets, in addition to passage of a bill that
increased penalties for defamation. The moves followed
other aggressive measures taken over the last two years
by military authorities to silence critical or investigative
voices in the media. A number of journalists have been
pressured to resign from prominent publications, charged
with sedition, or arrested and intimidated by intelligence
officials while in custody.” Only two countries
- Pakistan and Kenya - registered a negative category
shift in 2005, moving from Partly Free to Not Free. Pakistan
was also among countries where Freedom House said “notable
setbacks” had taken place. Others so listed were
Kenya, Mexico, Venezuela, and in the United States itself.
While press freedom registered important gains in some
key countries in 2005, notable setbacks occurred in the
United States and elsewhere in the Americas, according
to the study.
Increased restrictions were also detected in parts of
Asia, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. The study -
Freedom of the Press 2005: A Global Survey of Media Independence
- revealed that gains outnumbered setbacks, as measured
by shifts among the survey’s three main categories:
free, partly free and not free. Improvements took place
in countries where new democratic openings have been achieved
or are burgeoning, such as in Ukraine and Lebanon. Several
countries in the Middle East showed positive trends.
While the United States remained one of the strongest
performers in the survey, its numerical score declined
due to a number of legal cases in which prosecutors sought
to compel journalists to reveal sources or turn over notes
or other material they had gathered in the course of investigations.
Additionally, doubts concerning official influence over
media content emerged with the disclosures that several
political commentators received grants from federal agencies,
and that the Bush administration had significantly increased
the practice of distributing government-produced news
segments.
Out of the 194 countries and territories examined, 75
(39 percent) were rated Free, while 50 (26 percent) were
rated Partly Free and 69 (35 percent) were rated Not Free.
According to the survey, five countries improved in category
while two declined. In addition to Ukraine and Lebanon,
Guatemala and Guinea-Bissau moved from Not Free to Partly
Free, while Namibia moved from Partly Free to Free. The
five worst rated countries in 2005 were Burma, Cuba, Libya,
North Korea, and Turkmenistan. In these states, independent
media are either non-existent or barely able to operate,
the role of the press is reduced to serving as a mouthpiece
for the ruling regime, and citizens’ access to unbiased
information is severely limited, Freedom House said.
