Nov 18, 2008

RSF Tears Eurasia a New One


On the topic of journalism...Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently released its annual report and had very few positive things to say about our beloved region of the world. Actually, RSF had NO positive things to say. Some excerpts:

Death threats and harassment are still common in central Europe and the Balkans... The authoritarian regimes in the former USSR countries make every effort to crush press freedom. Elections in Russia and Uzbekistan in 2007 confirmed governments in power and gave no short or medium-term hope of more press freedom. Editorial independence exists but only for media outlets with little public impact. Building civil society to loosen the monolithic grip of the authorities is a hard job.

The country in the region with the worst record,Turkmenistan, has made a wide range of foreign alliances of unclear meaning since the death in December 2006 of President-for-life Saparmurad Niyazov. The direction of his successor, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, is also rather a mystery.

In the former Soviet Caucasus countries, Azerbaijan continued its crackdown on the media... Heavy penalties for those who wrote “undesirable” articles had a dissuasive effect and President Ilham Aliev ignored the many appeals from NGOs and international bodies such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

9 comments:

Pirates(and)Diplomats said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pirates(and)Diplomats said...

The only thing that's a mystery about Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is his view on flossing.

I'd bet he thinks the country does not do enough. (repost)

Ern said...

BTW, was this the 1000th entry?

Pirates(and)Diplomats said...

Yes it was!!!!!!!!

Nice.

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