Despite an increase in the number of journalists killed throughout the world in 2005, the number of journalists from Commonwealth countries who were killed because of their work actually decreased to 7 from 10 in 2005.

Sadly, continuing instances of violence, intimidation, and legal threats against journalists, editors and publishers counterbalanced the slight drop in deaths, making some areas of the Commonwealth still a very dangerous place to work as a journalist.

Activities such as these are a clear signal some Commonwealth member nations that claim to be democratic have a long way to go to remedy injustices against the press.

MURDERS
South Asia continued to be a trouble spot for Commonwealth's press in 2005, with six of the seven journalists killed for their work hailing from the region.

Although Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan each saw two journalists killed, the situation in Bangladesh appears to be the worst. Threats against the press - from student wings of the ruling Bangladesh National Party, various opposition parties and Islamic militants - were a common occurrence.

On Feb. 11, 2005, Sheikh Belaluddin of the daily Sangram died of injuries sustained six days earlier in a bomb attack outside the press club in the south-western city of Khulna. Three other journalists were hurt in the blast.

In July 2005, a former leader of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the Islamic fundamentalist political party Jamaat-i-Islami's student wing, confessed to taking part in the deadly bombing. Three weeks later the suspect was freed on bail.

On Nov. 17, Gautam Das of the daily Samakal, was found strangled in his office in Faridpur, just west of the capital, Dhaka. Das's legs and hand had been fractured and a rope was found around his neck.

His colleagues told police Das had recently written about the activities of Islamic militant groups. Sumi Khan, a reporter for Samakal, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Das was known for his reporting on crime and corruption, including coverage of illegal activities by members of the BNP. The Associated Press reported that Das had recently written about local government officials accused of taking bribes in exchange for construction contract awards.

On Nov. 19, police arrested Tamjid Hossain Babu, the son of a local MP, in connection with Das' murder, according to The Daily Star.

Although its press is vibrant and largely free Sri Lanka continues to be beset by ethnic strife, and journalists continued to get caught in the crossfire of various factions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2005.

Dharmeratnam Sivaram, a Tamil journalist who wrote for the TamilNet website and the Daily Mirror, was the first of these in 2005. Sivaram was abducted on April 28 and found dead a day later from a gunshot wound to the head.

A founding member and contributor to TamilNet and a military and political columnist for the English language Daily Mirror, Sivaram wrote sympathetically about the rebel group the LTTE.

The LTTE split into two warring factions in 2004 after a rebel leader known as Colonel Karuna broke away to form his own rival army in eastern Sri Lanka. A cycle of violence has escalated from the east throughout the country, with the warring Tamil factions going on killing sprees that target each other's alleged supporters, including journalists.

A pro-LTTE Tamil lawmaker, Amirthanathan Adaikkalanathan, told the Associated Press that Sivaram's last article for the Tamil-language daily Virekasari criticized the rebel leader Colonel Karuna.

No more journalists were killed in Sri Lanka for another four months until Relangi Selvarajah, a popular Tamil broadcaster, was murdered on August 12 in Colombo.

Unidentified gunmen in Colombo killed Selvarajah and her husband, a political activist, on the same day that Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's foreign minister, was assassinated. Political leaders blamed the LTTE for all three killings, charges the LTTE denied.

Local newspapers reported Selvarajah produced the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation programme Ithaya Veenai, a program known for criticising the LTTE, and allegedly funded by the opposition Tamil political party, the Eelam People's Democratic Party.

Political and ethnic factions began a series of revenge killings across the country last year when a Tamil rebel leader known as Colonel Karuna split from the LTTE.

Journalists in Pakistan also faced difficulties, mainly reporting from the often lawless and extremely dangerous tribal regions that border Afghanistan.

Gunmen in the capital of the remote South Waziristan tribal area fatally shot Amir Nowab, a freelance cameraman for Associated Press Television News and a reporter for the Frontier Post newspaper, and Allah Noor, who was working for Peshawar-based Khyber TV.

The journalists were on their way back from the town of Sararogha, where they were covering the surrender of a suspected tribal militant.

Days later, an unknown group calling itself "Sipah-e-Islam" (Soldiers of Islam) took responsibility for the killings in a letter faxed to newspapers. It accused some journalists of "working for Christians" and of "being used as tools in negative propaganda...against the Muslim mujahedeen" said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The only other journalist from a Commonwealth country to die in 2005 was Harry Yansaneh, an acting editor with For Di People, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Yansaneh, who was acting as editor while Paul Kamara was imprisoned on charges of seditious libel, died from kidney failure on July 28. He had been attacked and beaten in May and maintained MP Fatamata Hassan ordered the attack, a charge she denied.

A judicial inquest found the attack contributed to Yansaneh's death. The inquest found his death was "accelerated by the beating" and called it a case of involuntary manslaughter.

Prior to the attack, Hassan had sought to evict For Di People and five other independent newspapers from the offices they had rented from her late husband for many years. For Di People's offices were also vandalised.

UNDER PRESSURE
Journalists from around the Commonwealth continued to come under pressure from their governments, the courts and, in some cases, business and industry, in 2005.

Cases of the business community harassing and intimidating journalists seemed most common in the South Asia region. Bangladesh and India had several cases where reporters were either beaten or intimidated after reporting on corrupt business practices or businesses linked with criminal activity.

The assailants in these cases often operate with impunity and go unpunished because of their ties with politicians in the area.

Corrupt businessmen and criminals aside, government retribution was also a key factor in the region in 2005, perhaps most noticeably in the Maldives where prolonged harassment against the free press continued unabated.

Under long-serving President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the Maldivian government has arrested and imprisoned a number of journalists with the independent Minivan News newspaper, which was granted a printing license in July.

Most notably among these are Jenny Latheef, a journalist and human rights activist who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism after allegedly throwing a stone at a police officer during a demonstration, and Mohamed Nasheed, also a journalist and the chairperson of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party.

Although a number of African countries moved up the Reporters Sans Frontieres Press Freedom Index, many Commonwealth governments on the continent flexed their legislative muscle and used criminal defamation and seditious libel laws, now considered outdated by most modern democracies, to try and silence the press.

In April, Guibai Gatama, the editor of the Cameroon regional weekly L'Oeil du Sahel, and his colleague Abdoulaye Oumate were sentenced to five months in prison and fined €7600 for criminal defamation. The sentencing stems from a January 2005 article Oumate wrote which focused on the alleged abuse and extortion of citizens by Cameroon's security forces.

In May, two journalists in Sierra Leone were charged with seditious libel after an article about a corrupt government minister apparently angered President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Sydney Pratt and reporter Dennis Jones of the private weekly Trumpet newspaper in Freetown later had the charges against them dropped after printing a front page retraction.

The good news continued in Sierra Leone in November when Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People, was released after more than a year in prison. He was facing a two-year sentence under the seditious libel law for writing the president was allegedly a convict and unfit to hold office until an appeals court overturned his conviction.

In June, The Gambia amended libel and sedition laws that critics said could be used to levy crippling fines against newspapers and result in longer prison terms for journalists convicted under the laws. Fines were raised to €7,300 from €1,460 and the minimum prison term increased to one year from six months.

In Nigeria, Uganda, Swaziland and Malawi, journalists were regularly harassed and imprisoned for short periods of time, often by state security forces. Newspapers were threatened with closure or government monitoring if reports were deemed harmful to the government's reputation. It was not uncommon for authorities to cite "national security" as a reason to try and shutter the free press in the name of political expediency.

Journalists in western democracies also faced difficulties in 2005. In Australia, a pitched battle took place between the media and the government over protection of sources and proposed new anti-terror legislation.

Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus of the Melbourne Herald Sun were charged with contempt in Oct. after refusing to reveal the source of a leaked document used in a benefits cuts story widely acknowledged to have embarrassed the government. Their case has yet to be resolved and both men could still face prison.

Meanwhile, the media community in Australia continues to battle against and lobby for changes in new anti-terror legislation that could seriously cripple the free press if approved.

The Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) says broadly defined sedition provisions within the proposed legislation will unreasonably erode freedom of speech and artistic expression. Any person or organisation could be charged with sedition without, as the existing law requires, having urged force or violence.

The legislation also places restrictions on reporting details about a person in preventative detention. A journalist who reveals that a person has been detained, the length of the detention or any other information relating to the order, faces five years' imprisonment.

The media's ability to do their job is further crippled by the police's increased power to obtain documents, which may relate to a serious terrorism offence. Notice to produce provisions will allow the AFP to force journalists to hand over information, including the identity of confidential sources, if those documents will help in the investigation of a serious terrorism offence.

All of these proposals have severe repercussions on the press in other Commonwealth nations - especially those with emerging democracies - that may look to Australia as an example and for precedent.

While difficulties in the Commonwealth have dominated our attention at the CPU, it is impossible to overlook worldwide problems that have had a knock on effect as Commonwealth correspondents travel to cover conflicts zones such as Iraq, Israel and Palestine. This year 24 journalists were killed in Iraq. That number continues to rise month after month as the conflict ensues.

The CPU remains vigilant of its colleagues and friends throughout the Commonwealth who are tenaciously working day after day under such volatile circumstances. We welcome information and suggestions from our members on how we can help to better monitor and alleviate their struggles. Should you wish to contact the CPU with information or comments on how we can be of aid please contact Harry Wilson, Press Freedom Officer harry@cpu.org.uk.

Read the 2004 Press Freedom Brief