FY 2001-2002 Annual Report
Advocacy for a Free Press

Press Freedom in Jeopardy Around the World

The IWMF believes in the absolute right of journalists to witness, report on and write about events, no matter where they occur and no matter who might disagree.

When the liberties and lives of journalists are threatened, press freedom is in jeopardy. The IWMF believes in the absolute right of journalists to witness, report on and write about events, no matter where they occur and no matter who might disagree. For that reason, when a journalist known to the IWMF faces danger, the IWMF advocates on her or his behalf. In the last year, the IWMF supported two journalists and one newspaper as they faced censorship and death threats.

Zamira Sydykova

Zamira Sydykova, the crusading, independent editor of Res Publica, a newspaper in Kyrgystan, won the IWMF's 2000 Courage in Journalism Award in recognition for her determination to publish stories that her government wanted killed. When she returned to her country following the awards, she faced even further harassment. That harassment peaked in 2001 -- Res Publica's 10th anniversary -- when Sydykova and her newspaper faced possible shutdown by the government. Sydykova's problems stemmed from two libel suits. Because she was unable to pay a huge judgment from one of the suits, the state-owned printing plant refused to print her newspaper. According to non-governmental organizations working on free press issues in Kyrgyzstan, the attacks on Sydykova and Res Publica were part of a larger crack-down on independent media in Kyrgyzstan.

The IWMF wrote a letter to Kyrgyz President Oskar Akaev to express concern about the continued harassment of Res Publica: "Recent actions taken in the Kyrgyz courts suggest that Sydykova is again being punished for being critical of …the government and for pursuing stories as a journalist. …And the recent court action freezing Res Publica's assets and ordering the state-owned publishing firm - the only printing press available to all media in Kyrgyzstan - to stop printing Res Publica sends a chilling message to supporters of a worldwide free press."

Daniel Pearl

When a fundamentalist group in Pakistan calling itself The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty kidnapped and later murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, the IWMF expressed "alarm that this organization has accused Pearl of working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Such accusations are not only false, but they are flimsy self-justifications that can only serve to inflame opinion in an already volatile area of the world. …Pearl's treatment is an omninous message to all international journalists whose job it is to cover this and other conflicts fairly and accurately. If journalists are not free to report on events in all corners of the globe, then who will bring the world news of what is happening on the ground during conflicts?"

Novaya Gazeta

In June, Novaya Gazeta, an independent Moscow-based newspaper known for its investigations of high-level corruption in Russia, faced imminent closure after it lost a libel suit brought by Mezhprombank. Only a few months before, the IWMF had chosen Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the newspaper who has an international reputation for her balanced coverage of the war in Chechnya, as a 2002 Courage in Journalism Award winner. The newspaper received an excessive fine of 15 million rubles ($476,000), an amount that it could not afford to pay. Advocates of a worldwide free press, including the IWMF, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene to insure that the newspaper received a free and open hearing.

The IWMF co-chairs, speaking for the IWMF network in more than 130 countries, wrote: "We believe that the excessive fine imposed on Novaya Gazeta could threaten the newspaper's existence. We recognize that the courts are the proper place to resolve libel disputes. At the same time, we hope that the Russian courts will not use excessive and punishing means to silence the independent voices of newspapers like Novaya Gazeta. This would threaten not only Novaya Gazeta, but also a worldwide free press."

On June 21, Novaya Gazeta's problems were resolved when Mezhprombank announced that it was canceling its efforts to collect the fine imposed against the newspaper. Mezhprombank issued a statement, saying that it did not want to create "a dangerous precedent" that could endanger free speech, although by law it felt it was within its rights in collecting the damage award.