DUSHANBE, April 20, 2016, Asia-Plus — A leading journalism advocacy group, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), says media freedom experienced a sharp decline around the world over the past year, citing increasing government restrictions in places like Turkey, Poland, Tajikistan, and Egypt.
In
its 2016 World Press Freedom Index
released on April 20, RSF said that there has been a deep and disturbing decline in respect for media freedom at both the global and regional levels. Ever since the 2013 index, RSF has been calculating indicators of the overall level of media freedom violations in each of the world’s regions and worldwide. The higher the figure, the worse the situation. The global indicator has reportedly gone from 3719 points last year to 3857 points this year, a 3.71% deterioration. The decline since 2013 is 13.6%.
All of the Index’s indicators show a decline from 2013 to 2016. This is especially the case for infrastructure. Some governments do not hesitate to suspend access to the Internet or even to destroy the premises, broadcast equipment or printing presses of media outlets they dislike. The infrastructure indicator fell 16% from 2013 to 2016.
The legislative framework has registered an equally marked decline. Many laws have been adopted penalizing journalists on such spurious charges as “insulting the president,” “blasphemy” or “supporting terrorism.” Growing self-censorship is the knock-on effect of this alarming situation. The “media environment and self-censorship” indicator has fallen by more than 10% from 2013 to 2016.
The Central Asia/Eastern Europe region’s already bad score deteriorated by 5% as a result of the increasingly glacial environment for media freedom and free speech in countries with authoritarian regimes.
The organization put Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand at the top of its annual ranking of press freedom around the world.
China, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea are at the bottom of the ranking
Tajikistan is one of the countries that fell the most since 2015. Tajikistan reportedly fell 34 places. RSF said President Emomali Rahmon used counterterrorism measures to silence dissent in Tajikistan.
President Emomali Rahmon’s authoritarian tendencies are threatening the fragile national consensus constructed over the ashes of the civil war that ravaged the country from 1992 to 1997, the Paris-based group said.
The organization notes that on the pretext of combatting terrorism, the government has eliminated the political opposition and is stepping up pressure on the remaining independent media. Interrogation by intelligence officers, intimidation and blackmail have become part of the daily fare of independent journalists. Surveillance of communications is now routine, while the blocking of the main news websites and social networks is virtually permanent.
Published by RSF annually since 2002, the
World Press Freedom
Index measures the level of freedom available to journalists in 180 countries using the following criteria – pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative environment, transparency, infrastructure, and abuses.
