rating

On Wednesday, the respected American organization Freedom House published its annual report on press freedom in the world, Freedom of the Press 2004: A Global Survey of Media Independence. According to the report, the situation with press freedom in the world has seriously deteriorated in 2003, and Russia is called a country where there is “almost total control over the audiovisual media.”
Freedom House is an American non-governmental organization created over 60 years ago with the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The organization, designed by its creators to defend democracy and freedom throughout the world, publishes analytical articles and studies, holds conferences and seminars.
The annual Freedom of the Press report coincides with International Press Freedom Day, which is celebrated on May 3. It analyzes the situation with freedom of speech in print media, radio, television and online publications. This takes into account the legal conditions of the media in each country, their political influence, as well as the economic pressure on them. The report covers 193 countries around the world, which are divided into three categories: with a free, partially free and unfree press.
According to the report, over the past two years the total number of people living in countries where the media are independent has decreased by 5%. In 73 countries of the world (38%) freedom of the press is respected, in 49 countries (25%) the press enjoys partial freedom, in 71 countries (37%) the media are not free. The top five countries with a free press are Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Norway. The USA ranks 17th, Germany 25th, France 38th, Spain 42nd, UK 44th. Botswana (72) and Solomon Islands (73) round out the list of countries with a free press. Italy dropped out of this group in 2003 and now leads the subgroup of countries with partial press freedom (74th place in the overall list), since Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to the authors of the report, “exerted undue influence on the RAI media holding.” Also in this subgroup are Argentina (78), Brazil (80), India (93), Comoros (100), Georgia (115), Pakistan (121). The last group of countries included all the former Soviet Central Asian republics, as well as Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Russia moved into the “Not Free Media” category in 2002 from the “Partly Free” category, and in 2003 it only worsened its position. According to the report's authors, "The Kremlin has strengthened its almost total control over the audiovisual media. The authorities have used judicial and financial pressure to further limit media criticism of them, especially on sensitive issues such as the war in Chechnya." Last year, the situation was worst in Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Turkmenistan: free media there are either completely absent or barely survive, the role of the press in them is reduced solely to expressing the opinion of the ruling regime.
ALENA Kommersant-MIKLASHEVSKAYA

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 79 dated April 30, 2004, p. 11

Authors:

Alena Miklashevskaya

Russia has been dropped even lower