“Governments used security or anti-terrorism laws as a pretext to silence critical voices,” said the report’s project manager, Jennifer Dunham. “Militant groups and criminal gangs used increasingly brazen tactics to intimidate journalists, and media owners attempted to manipulate news content to serve their political or business interests.”
Journalists in many parts of the world face deteriorating reporting conditions, with a democracy watchdog group noting a sharp decline in global press freedom in 2014.
In its annual report released Wednesday, the group Freedom House says global press freedom declined last year to its lowest point in more than 10 years. Only one in seven people live in countries where coverage of political news is strong, journalists’ safety is guaranteed and state meddling in media affairs is minor, Freedom House said.
The worst offenders on the Freedom House list were: Belarus, Crimea, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Ranked best: Norway, Sweden and Belgium. The United States was ranked 34th on the list of 199 countries and territories assessed.
Freedom House says one main factor driving the decline was newly passed restrictive laws against the media. The report cited laws in Russia and Mexico that place new controls on blogs. Physical violence and intimidation of journalists continued to be a problem, especially in places such as Syria and Nigeria.
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