Estonia ranks third in Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007

16.10.2007

PARIS, Oct 16, BNS - Estonia is in shared third place with Slovakia in an index measuring the level of press freedom in 169 countries throughout the world that is published today by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders for the sixth year running.

At the top of the 2007 index are Iceland and Norway, and only European countries made it to the top 10, the AFP agency reported.

Estonia's northern neighbor Finland is in shared 5th together with Belgium and Sweden, Latvia placed 12th and Lithuania 23rd. Outside Europe no region of the world has been spared censorship or violence towards journalists, Reporters Without Borders said.

"Russia (144th) is not progressing. Anna Politkovskaya's murder in October 2006, the failure to punish those responsible for murdering journalists, and the still glaring lack of diversity in the media, especially the broadcast media, weighed heavily in the evaluation of press freedom in Russia," the organization said.

According to the report, the situation in Burma (164th) is particularly disturbing. The military junta's crackdown on demonstrations bodes ill for the future of basic freedoms in this country and journalists continue to work under the yoke of harsh censorship, Reporters Without Borders said.

North Korea and Turkmenistan are narrowly ahead of Eritrea in last place in the index.

The Internet is becoming more and more a target of press freedom violations, the organization observes. Websites are closed or made inaccessible and bloggers are being arrested. At least 64 persons are currently imprisoned worldwide because of what they posted on the Internet.

"We are concerned about the increase in cases of online censorship," Reporters Without Borders said. "More and more governments have realized that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it."

Baltic News Service