Ammu Joseph
Aiyathurai Nadesan, a veteran, award-winning Tamil journalist, was shot and killed by unidentified assailants in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, on 31 May 2004. Nadesan, who worked with the national Tamil-language daily, Virakesari, for 20 years and used the pen name, Nellai G. Nadesan, was on his way to work when he was gunned down.
Kanyaras Gurung, the driver of a media vehicle, was killed and two others were injured when they drove over a landmine allegedly planted by members of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-Maoist) in the district of Tanahun on 27 May. The vehicle was carrying copies of the daily newspaper, Annapurna Post, from Kathmandu to Pokhara on the second day of a general strike called by Maoists in the Gandak region.
On 24 April, guerillas belonging to the Maoist Communist Centre reportedly abducted and killed Indian journalist Naveen Kumar Verma in Gaya district, Bihar. Verma, who was working for the Patna edition of the Hindi daily, Dainik Jagran, was abducted from his house in Nima village and taken to a nearby field, where he was shot dead.
Asiya Jeelani was killed in a mine explosion in Jammu & Kashmir on 20 April. A freelance journalist and human rights activist who frequently contributed to local newspapers, she died en route to the hospital after the van she was travelling in accidentally detonated an explosive device on a rural road in northern Kashmir. The vehicle was being used by a election-monitoring team of which she was a member.
On the same day, again in J&K, another explosive device claimed the life of another journalist involved in monitoring the elections. Kumar Bharti, a reporter with the Hindi-language newspaper, Amar Ujala, was killed and six others were wounded when their car triggered a landmine.
V. Yadagiri, a journalist working for Andhra Prabha, a Telugu daily, was stabbed to death by three persons in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh, on 22 February. According to the police, he had been threatened by an excise contractor following a report he had written about the sale of adulterated toddy.
On 7 February, security forces killed journalist Padma Raj Devkota in the remote western district of Jumla in Nepal, reportedly during "routine security operations" against the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-Maoist) in the area. Besides working as editor-in-chief of the fortnightly newspaper, Burichula, Devkota was also a local correspondent for the Kathmandu-based Nepal Today and Karnali Sandes.
Journalist Sajid Tanoli, a reporter for the Urdu-language daily Shumaal, was shot dead in broad daylight by a mayor and a lawyer in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province on 29 January, apparently over a report about alcohol trafficking.
On 15 January, Manik Shaha, a correspondent for the daily, New Age, and a stringer for the Bengali service of the BBC World Service, was killed when a home-made bomb was thrown at him in Khulna, southwestern Bangladesh.
In the first week of June, Bangladeshi police attacked journalists covering street demonstrations in connection with a nationwide anti-government hartal (strike). On 4 June, the eve of the strike, they assaulted photojournalists who were covering a protest march led by supporters of the opposition party in Dhaka, injuring four photographers. The next day, another photographer was beaten by police while covering the strike in the town of Jessore. When the local press club organized a procession to protest against the assault, police attacked the procession, injuring five more journalists - this time, freelance reporters.
On 7 May, police officers beat and detained journalists who were covering a student-organized mock political referendum in the Nepali town, Butwal, located about 280 kilometres southwest of Kathmandu. While breaking up a large crowd of participants in the mock referendum on absolute monarchy vs. constitutional monarchy vs. republican democracy, police officers reportedly targeted and arrested a group of about 15 local journalists who were covering the event. Later, police assaulted several journalists who had been present at the protest, dragging them from a restaurant and beating them with batons and rifle butts before arresting them.
Sumi Khan, a crime reporter with the newsmagazine Weekly 2000, was knifed during an apparent kidnapping attempt in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on 27 April. Khan was on her way home that evening when three unidentified assailants in a rickshaw reportedly tried to forcibly take her with them. When she struggled, they cut her forehead, mouth, and hands with a knife, and beat her arms and legs. (All the dates above refer to this year.)
And, of course, a number of Indian journalists were subjected to violent attacks by marauding mobs as well as policemen while covering the prolonged communal violence in Gujarat in March and April 2002. In fact, journalists covering communal conflict here have been reporting for some time that they now feel far more vulnerable to physical violence, even in metropolitan cities, than they did some 12-15 years ago.
These are just a few of the instances of violence directed against media professionals in South Asia recently reported by organisations such as the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (www.cpj.org), Reporters Without Frontiers (www.rsf.org), the International Federation of Journalists (www.ifj.org), and the relatively new International News Safety Institute (www.newssafety.com).
The second annual report on press freedom in South Asia -- coordinated by the IFJ and covering Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- records and highlights a growing trend of violence against media professionals in the region, with at least 12 journalists and other media workers having died here in the 12 months between World Press Freedom Day (3 May) 2003 and 2004.
According to the report, "The year since May 2003 has been a turbulent time for journalists in South Asia. As in previous years, governments, insurgents, terrorists, corrupt officials, gangsters and fundamentalists of all religions were seen to be targeting media for its free and fearless reporting." As a result, journalism in at least some parts of South Asia continues to be a risky affair, and journalists operating in regions of civil, political unrest and ethnic violence within the various countries do so under enormous pressure on both their safety and their ability to do their job without fear or favour.
The CPJ estimates that ten journalists died in the course of their work in Asia (ranging from Afghanistan to Vietnam) in 2003, five of them killed in the Philippines alone. And this number does not include the numerous fatal attacks on media professionals in West Asia (listed as the Middle East along with North Africa on the CPJ website), especially Iraq, and Central Asia (listed along with Europe).
Worldwide figures are equally alarming. The statement of Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on World Press Freedom Day this year listed 19 journalists reported killed in the first four months of 2004 and 1460 journalists physically attacked or threatened last year. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s message on the same day mentioned 36 journalists killed in the line of duty during 2003.
In his "Global Review of Safety for Reporting in Conflict," issued on 3 May, Rodney Pinder, Director of the Brussels-based International News Safety Institute, estimated that between May 2003 and March 2004 as many as 50 journalists and critical staff, such as translators and drivers, had died violently in the course of their work in several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Congo, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kashmir (listed separately), Nepal, Palestine, Philippines, Somalia, and Russia. According to him, most of them were shot, bombed, rocketed, kidnapped and/or murdered, while some died in road accidents, and others from health-related reasons in situations of conflict. The Iraq war alone, he said, had claimed 38 journalists - in addition to two missing and believed to be dead -- in slightly more than a year.
"The Media Environment and the Safety of Journalists" was the subject of one session at the recent Asia Media Summit (Kuala Lumpur, 19-21 April 2004). In his keynote address, Chris Cramer, Managing Director, CNN International, who is also President of the INSI, highlighted the increasing incidence of journalists being not only in the line of fire but "intended targets" who are actually seen as "fair and legitimate prey." This had given a new meaning to the term "reality television," he said.
According to him, with the casualty rate among the international media in Iraq (1:125) is far higher than among soldiers (1:1000), "The stakes have changed for all of us in the media… We need to wake up to the dangers… We are at a very dangerous crossroads in the profession. Either we find solutions or withdraw from our national or international responsibilities."
Aidan White, General Secretary of the IFJ, pointed out that the INSI was set up in 2002, in the wake of media experiences in Afghanistan, in a unique collaboration between news workers, freedom of expression advocates and managements of media organisations. Recognised by the UN, it aims to be proactive on the issue of safety in news gathering activities, providing information about war zones, conducting training courses and offering technical assistance and safety equipment for journalists covering situations of conflict.
Seeking to help journalists and news organisations with meagre resources of their own, the INSI is in the process of securing funding for a major global programme of safety training for journalists in deprived areas on the understanding that, while much attention is usually focused on high profile wars involving hundreds of international journalists, thousands of news media staff and freelancers working in their own countries are also often gravely at risk: more than three quarters of the 1,200-plus news media personnel killed in the course of work in the past ten years died in their own countries. The Institute will also be working with the Cardiff School of Journalism in the UK to produce a safety training module for journalism schools.
John Glendinning, Deputy Head of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s High Risk Team, said it was important for media managements to take responsibility for staff who are out doing their jobs in hostile environments. According to him, their team works across the various departments of the BBC, ranging from children’s programming to the BBC Trust. Each deployment of personnel is scrutinized carefully in terms of the training and experience of team members, as well as their knowledge about the region they are going into, including its society and culture.
Victor Antonie, News Editor, Reuters, pointed out that while safety training for correspondents and other media workers in the field is critical, it is equally important to provide appropriate training for dispatching editors who are responsible for sending staff out into the field and keeping in touch with them. They need to understand the dynamics on the ground, think through the composition of the teams they send out, know how to listen carefully in order to pick up early signs and subtle signals about possible dangers, provide guidance on how to avoid danger, and figure out when to pull staff out of dangerous situations. "If we don’t protect our people we will attract fewer and fewer people into the profession," he said, pointing out that even veteran journalists are now hesitant to do things that were routinely done ten years ago.
Vsevolod Bogdanov, President of the Russian Union of Journalists, highlighted the need to take care of the children of journalists killed in the line of duty. According to him, their union formed a club for such children ten years ago and, today, many of the children had become or are training to be journalists, and almost all of them speak about the importance of freedom of expression as well as the duties and responsibilities of journalists in society.
The union has also set up a Centre of Journalism in Extreme Situations to investigate such situations and threats to journalists, analyse the causes of tragedies, and train journalists in safety measures. The centre estimates that there are up to 100 criminal attacks against journalists and editorial offices in the various regions of Russia every year. In 2003 there were nine known cases of violent death among Russian journalists not only in conflict zones like Chechnya but in their offices, at the doorsteps of their homes and on public streets; if those who died of unknown causes were counted, he said, that number would probably double.
The setting up of an Asian News Safety Institute (ANSI) was announced at the end of the Summit. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, working closely with the International News Safety Institute (INSI), and supported by a number of media organisations, such as CNN, the BBC, Reuters, the Asian Broadcasting Union, the Star Media Group of Malaysia and the Russian Union of Journalists, it is expected to operate under the umbrella of the Asia Media Studies Centre. Its primary mandate will be to help train Asian journalists to deal with work in hostile environments.
Perhaps the ANSI will help media organisations in South Asia to provide their journalists with what the IFJ report suggests they urgently need: support to do their work in safety, as well as professional training to equip them with skills that can help them cope with complex situations and reduce their vulnerability to violent attacks.
In the end, though, it may prove easier to promote the safety of journalists in theatres of actual war than in the many situations of internal and/or low-intensity conflict which are endemic in many parts of the world, including South Asia. It is difficult to imagine how they can be prepared to avoid or resist violence from sundry disgruntled individuals who respond to media exposure of their misdeeds by shooting the messenger (literally or figuratively) or, indeed, from the so-called guardians of law and order who, increasingly, do not hesitate to attack mediapersons for recording words and deeds that may be embarrassing to the powers that be. Judging from the experiences cited above, the latter challenges are particularly relevant in the South Asian context and will need to be taken on board in any safety training programmes for journalists here.
Meanwhile, the range of journalists perceived to be in need of such support and training is obviously growing by the day. According to a recent report in Newsweek, sports reporters with media organisations in North America and Europe, who will soon be heading to Athens to cover the Olympic Games, are already undergoing safety training -- with special inputs on how to avoid and react to car bombs, blast injuries, chemical and/or biological attacks, and mass panic -- and thereby adding another facet to the media’s continuing engagement with war and terror.
Ammu Joseph is an author and freelance journalist who focuses on media and gender issues. Contact:
ammujo2003@yahoo.co.in 
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