Journalists demand better protection

Journalists demand better protection

Agence France-Presse, Brussels/Banda Aceh, Indonesia

The number of journalists killed over the past year in the line
of their work rose to 83, the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ) said in a report last week that blamed official
indifference as well as war for heightening the risks facing the
media worldwide.

With the death of an Indonesian television journalist on
Monday in the troubled Aceh province, the toll surged to 84.

Ersa Siregar, a senior reporter for the Jakarta-based RCTI
television station, was killed in a skirmish between marines and
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels in East Aceh on Monday afternoon,
Lt. Col. Firdaus Komarno, an Aceh military spokesman, told AFP.

Ersa and cameraman Fery Santoro had been held by GAM as
hostages since June. There was no immediate word on Ferry's fate.

The number of media casualties -- due principally to the war
in the Iraq as well as continuing insurgencies in Colombia,
Indonesia and the Philippines -- was up from 70 in 2002, the
Brussels-based lobby group said.

"War, regional conflict, organized crime and government
indifference are the greatest obstacles to justice for
journalists and their safety," IFJ general secretary Aidan White
said.

"We see journalists being targeted for their work in many
parts of the world, but many governments simply don't care about
what these tragedies mean for democracy and free expression," he
said.

The IFJ said it would observe on April 8, 2004 an
international day of protest to mark the first anniversary of a
U.S. tank shell attack on a hotel housing the international press
in Baghdad which killed two cameramen.

The IFJ reiterated its demand for an independent investigation
into that attack, as well as into the killing of ITN journalist
Terry Lloyd near Basra in March and several other deaths of
journalists in Iraq.

The organization said at least seven journalists had been
killed in Colombia and three in the Philippines during 2003.

The IFJ said the rising death toll among the media underlined
the need for changes in international law "to ensure that
targeting of journalists and negligence in the protection of
journalists are made war crimes".

"In far too many instances the problem of impunity, and the
failure of officials to properly investigate killings of media
staff, remains a persistent obstacle to justice for journalists
and media staff who are killed," White said.