Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006

[to see the complete list click here]

Not much as change in the last positions in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2006.
Facts like the torture death of Turkmenistan journalist Ogulsapar Muradova, a number of Eritrean journalists imprisoned in recent past and the total control of the media from North Korean leader gave this three countries the last place in this index.

The US continues to fall (from 17th in 2002 to 53rd this year), mainly because of Bush administration use of "national security" reason to consider suspicious any journalist who question his politics. The following facts also helped this drop:

"Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year" (taken from here at RSF site).

Congratulations to the two new comer's at Top 20, Bolivia (16th) (being in the same place of Canada and Austria) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (19th) placed above some European Union member-state neighbours like Greece and Italy.

On top, Denmark lost its place because of the "cartoons incidents" so the in the first place is
Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands.


["Reporters Without Borders compiled the Index by asking the 14 freedom of expression organisations that are its partners worldwide, its network of 130 correspondents, as well as journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists, to answer 50 questions about press freedom in their countries. The Index covers 168 nations. Others were not included for lack of data about them." (Taken from this article at RSF site)]