Thirty `predators of press freedom' are denounced in Paris

In a joint message issued today to mark World Press Freedom Day, the UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mrs Mary Robinson and the Director-General of UNESCO Mr Koichiro Mat suura "urge the international community to defend and protect the right to receive and impart information free from censorship, through any media and regardless of frontiers".

However, nearly a third of the world's population live in countries where there is no freedom of the press. The Paris-based organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) notes that 86 journalists are imprisoned throughout the world, more than half of them in Iran, Burma and China.

Thirty-two journalists were killed in 2000, 329 were arrested and 510 threatened or assaulted, RSF reports. Four more journalists have been murdered since the beginning of this year.

RSF publishes its catalogue of abuses annually, but for the first time the group today denounces 30 "predators of press freedom" whom it holds personally responsible. "Whether they be president, minister, attorney general . . these predators of freedom of the press have the power to have journalists imprisoned, kidnapped, tortured and, in the worst cases, murdered," writes Robert Menard, the secretary-general of RSF.

"Because these predators have faces, they must be made known so they can be denounced." That Mollah Mohammad Omar of Afghanistan, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran abuse press freedom comes as a surprise to no one.

But RSF's blacklist includes leaders who are on good terms with Europe and the US, including Saudi King Fahd, the Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their images will be unfurled on a 180sq m banner denouncing the 30 in central Paris this morning.

Two of the "predators" are categories - the Basque nationalist group Euskadi ta Aska tasuna (ETA) and the kidnap ping mafia in Chechnya. "More and more often, these predators [of press freedom] are not official representatives of a state," says Robert Menard. Several journalists were wounded by ETA bombs last year and Jose Luis Lopez de Lacalle, a correspondent for El Mundo, was assassinated. Three journalists were killed by Chechen rebels.

The military junta in Burma is singled out for severe criticism by RSF and UNESCO. The Burmese President, Gen Than Shwe, refuses all compromise with the party of the Nobel prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Four journalists have died in the custody of his security forces.

The photograph of San San Nweh (55), stares out from the cover of a video-cassette and CD made by RSF. She has been held in a small cell in Rangoon for seven years and is serving a 10-year sentence for "publishing information harmful to the state". According to RSF, she and other women prisoners are forced to sit cross-legged on the ground from 6 a.m. with their heads bowed.

UNESCO today awards its World Press Freedom Prize to U Win Tin, who like San San Nweh, is imprisoned in Rangoon. The newspaper editor was a founder of the National League for Democracy and has been jailed for 11 years. Five years were added to his 14-year sentence when writing materials were found in his cell. He has been transferred to Rangoon general hospital where he is believed to be seriously ill. The junta says it will free him if he renounces all political activity.