Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007

by Reporters Without Borders, www.rsf.org

On October 16, 2007 the group Reporters Without Borders released its sixth annual worldwide ranking of press freedom. There were few surprises in this year's ranking, with Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan rating as the worst violators. Every European country, with the exception of Bulgaria and Poland, ranked in the 50 freest countries. The United States rated 48th.

Excerpts from the RWB's report and a link to the list follow:

Eritrea has replaced North Korea in last place in an index measuring the level of press freedom in 169 countries throughout the world that is published today by Reporters Without Borders for the sixth year running.

“There is nothing surprising about this,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Even if we are not aware of all the press freedom violations in North Korea and Turkmenistan, which are second and third from last, Eritrea deserves to be at the bottom. The privately-owned press has been banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki and the few journalists who dare to criticise the regime are thrown in prison. We know that four of them have died in detention and we have every reason to fear that others will suffer the same fate.”

Outside Europe - in which the top 14 countries are located - no region of the world has been spared censorship or violence towards journalists...

...The Internet is occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations. Several countries fell in the ranking this year because of serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information.

In Malaysia (124th), Thailand (135th), Vietnam (162nd) and Egypt (146th), for example, bloggers were arrested and news websites were closed or made inaccessible. “We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship,” Reporters Without Borders said. “More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media...”

Click here for RWB's analysis of its 2007 Press Freedom Index report.

Click here for a pdf of the 2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index report.