When Governments Put Journalists in Jail
Across Asia, press freedom and economic prosperity don’t mix
When Governments Put Journalists in Jail
By Nathan Lee and Don Gil K. Carreon
WHILE JOURNALISTS in Iraq and the Philippines struggle to dodge bullets, scores of other media practitioners across Asia continue to languish behind prison bars.
Despite the economic and technological leaps that Asia has taken in recent times, press freedom in the region continues to languish in the backwaters.
“We would have expected that journalists would be freer as the region became wealthier,” Bob Dietz, coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists’s (CPJ) Asia Program, said. “But the growth in media freedom has not kept pace with Asia’s economic growth.”
“Charges of criminalized defamation and libel brought by disgruntled political figures who have been criticized, financially crushing penalties handed down to journalists, or vague charges of threatening state security are just some of the measures we see all too often in Asia,” he added.
Indeed, Dietz is not alone in saying that Asia has enjoyed a period of strong and steady economic growth for decades but that the region’s leadership has not matured along with it.
Kulachada Chaipipat, alerts officer of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), said crackdowns on and censorship of media in restrictive countries continue.
“Despite the pledges of press freedom written into their constitutions, too many countries still have political leaderships that harass the media, should it dare to criticize them,” Dietz observed.
According to CPJ’s 2005 annual report, “anti-state” allegations, including subversion, divulging state secrets, and acting against the interests of the state, were the most common charges used to imprison journalists worldwide.
Latest statistics posted by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) show that a total of 119 journalists around the world are detained as of April 2006. Of this figure, 59 or nearly half are in Asia, with China leading with 32.
Surprisingly, diplomats in China are less critical of that country’s media restrictions. This is so because of the country’s status as an economic powerhouse from which other nations, including the West, hope to benefit. While economic development has given rise to more liberal institutions in other countries, such has resulted in the opposite for China where media and dissenters have been the target of clampdowns.
Crackdown on cyberspace
In 2005, China jailed 32 journalists, thus keeping the notorious position of being the top jailer of journalists, a dubious distinction it has held for seven years. Fifteen of those journalists were Internet writers, most of who were imprisoned by virtue of the national security legislation (for criticizing the government) or “state secrets” laws.
As China’s economy continues to grow dramatically and its people exposed to information from other countries, its citizens expect more accurate news reports from the media, Dietz said, in referring to the influx of Internet journalists.
Despite this, Liu Zhengrong, China’s deputy chief for Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council, told reporters in February that no one was jailed in the country for expressing views online.
China has made a significant gain in its crackdown against dissenters when it convinced American Internet giant Yahoo! to cooperate in tracking down dissidents.
With the help of Yahoo! Holdings, three online dissenters were reported to have been prosecuted by Chinese authorities, according to RSF, which publishes Internet Under Surveillance, a yearly report on cyber dissidents and threats against Internet writers.
One of those prosecuted was journalist Shi Tao, who was sen-tenced to 10 years of imprisonment on charges of leaking state secrets.
Shi, a former writer of the daily Dangdai Shang Bao, was convicted in April 2005 for sending to foreign-based websites the text of an internal message sent by authorities to his newspaper. The message apparently warned journalists of the dangers of social destabilization and risks resulting from the return of certain dissidents who observed the Tiananmen Square massacre’s 15th anniversary, according to an RSF report.
Yahoo! Holdings complied with requests from the Chinese authorities to provide the government with the IP address that linked Shi to materials posted online.
In two other cases, Yahoo! confirmed the email accounts used by the cyber dissident, which enabled Chinese authorities to strengthen its case against dissenters.
In its defense, Yahoo! has maintained that it was just conforming to the laws of the country in which it operates.
Social stability
According to Dietz, press censorship is not new in China, yet the government of President Hu Jintao is pursuing a very hard line against dissent and possible social disruption.
Dietz described the current situation in China as the toughest crackdown on journalists since the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations.
“The government is doing it in the name of social stability, but it seems like a rear-guard action,” he said.
According to Vincent Brossel, RSF’s Asia-Pacific coordinator, “Normally, the propaganda department manages to control the content of the media, but when a newspaper crosses the boundaries, they fire the journalist and sometimes put him in jail.”
Journalists have been jailed for leaking state secrets because the central government hates to see foreign media publishing sensitive information about the party and its policy. Brossel cited the example of Zhao Yan and the New York Times, one of the more prominent cases of jailed journalists in China.
Zhao was arrested on Sept. 19, 2004, allegedly for leaking state secrets to the New York Times. The accusation stemmed from a New York Times story on former president Jiang Zemin’s relinquishment of his position in the Central Military Commission, his last leadership position in the Chinese Communist Party. The information for the story was said to have been provided by Zhao, an allegation denied by both the New York Times and Zhao.
On March 17, 2006, the criminal charges against Zhao were dropped by Chinese judicial authorities. But he remains in state custody while fraud charges against him are being investigated.
Another journalist detained by the Chinese government is Li Jianping, who criticized the Communist Party and China’s political leaders in online publications such as ChinaEWeekly, Democracy Forum, Epoch Times, and other overseas websites that are banned in China, according to the CPJ.
With his arrest on May 27, 2005, Li was initially charged with “inciting to subversion.” The charge was later upgraded to “inciting to subversion of state authority,” which usually results in a prison term of several years. Li is still awaiting the court’s verdict.
His case is similar to that of Zheng Yichun, who was given a seven-year prison term last Dec. 28 also on the same charge.
Intimidation in Nepal
While Chinese journalists were facing the government’s strong-state policy, media practitioners in Nepal try to fend off a monarch.
Faced with a Maoist uprising, Nepal’s King Gyanendra assumed absolute power in February 2005. Upon his takeover, democratic rights and freedoms in the country were immediately suspended.
The Nepalese media defended their rights by organizing demonstrations and listing down incidents of assault and intimidation. Local journalists defied restrictions on news broadcasting on FM radio, and struggled to overcome the ban on government advertising in newspapers.
For their defiance, the Nepalese media have suffered. To date, hundreds of journalists have been imprisoned. Just last April, more than 200 journalists who participated in protest rallies were arrested, according to the Federation of Nepalese Journalists.
Among those who suffered under Gyanendra’s rule was journalist Bwahana Prasain of the monthly Majdur Aawaj, who was jailed for more than a month on charges of being a Maoist. She was arrested on Feb. 9 during a demonstration. Plainclothes policemen threatened to kill her if she tried to call other rallyists for help, according to the RSF. During her incarceration, her captors allegedly beat her up. She was kept in jail for 35 days, with visits limited to her brother and her editor.
Her editor, Satrayam Parajuli, attested to the severity of the beatings Prasain received. In one of his visits, he described Prasain as having “a swollen face and was psychologically demoralized.”
Prasain was released on March 16 after her detention was ruled illegal by Supreme Court judges Rajendra Kumar Bhandari and Tahir Ali Asmari in response to a petition by Parajuli.
Last April 25, King Gyanendra finally yielded to popular calls for the parliament’s restoration. The parliament is expected to craft a new constitution that will reduce his powers and prevent him or any other monarch from staging another power grab.
Signs of freedom?
With recent actions such as King Gyanendra’s relinquish-ment of some his powers, is it safe to say that the number of jailed journalists in the region is about to decline?
“CPJ is expecting the case levels to remain where they are,” Dietz said. “China will continue to jail journalists.”
“Democratic governments are regularly raising such issues but we need more international institutions to take care of press freedom,” Brossel said. “Govern-ments only respect press freedom if they are under pressure.”
Dietz said that the crackdown against the media will continue until the government realizes “it can’t win the battle.”
To attain some success, Brossel stressed the importance of consistent monitoring and publicity of detained journalist cases.
“International support for the local groups is very powerful,” Brossel emphasized, referring to the international media organi-zations’ constant pressure on national and international authorities through statements and dialogues.
According to Brossel, this approach—which has been employed by organizations such as CPJ, RSF, Article XIX, World Association of Newspapers, and the International Federation of Journalists—has proven to be relatively successful, as it has led to the release of several journalists in the region.
Bad image
For example, Vietnam, which has been wanting to get into the World Trade Organization, has freed several journalists. Burma has released six journalists along with a group of political prisoners being held in 2005, under apparent international pressure.
“Most of the countries in the world understand that a journalist in jail is always creating a bad image for the country,” Brossel said, adding “It is our main success.”
Chaipipat noted there can be a more effective way of ending unjust imprisonment of journalists, especially in Asia.
“Legal and media reform should be a focus of campaigns against jailing journalists,” Chaipipat said. “A call for the repeal of these laws or amendment of these laws to conform to international standards has to go hand in hand with the improvement of media laws to ensure that media’s rights are protected and media responsibility is upheld.” n
With research from Joyce Anne Roldan, Mary Khyne Palumar, Richel Catalan, and Kathryn Roja Raymundo
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