Freedom of the Press

Is the freedom of the press threatened in Germany? In an index published in autumn 2006 by the organisation Reporters Without Borders, RWB, (Reporter ohne Grenzen, ROG) Germany is ranked at place 23.

The organisation's annual report, published at the end of January 2007, criticises spying on the media and journalists by intelligence services and police to identify whistle-blowers in their own ranks.

Reporters Without Borders is severe in its criticism, but – says spokesperson Katrin Evers – in Germany we are still on the safe side. “In the first third of the list we need not have any fundamental fear for press freedom.” The index comprises 168 states, at the bottom of the list are Turkmenistan and North Korea, Russia ranks at place 147.

The ranking is based on 50 questions. They are answered by at least three journalists' associations or corresponding organisations in the respective country. The questions enquire about the number of journalists killed, imprisoned and tortured, and also about whether and how the state controls the internet. Katrin Evers can list examples from the People's Republic of China (ranked 163rd) that make one's hair stand on end. “There fingerprints are taken when someone enters an internet café. Some computers are programmed to crash if the sequence of letters ‘human rights’ is entered. We discovered that our logo, our entire web site had been copied and filled up with forged, official government propaganda.” In cyberspace, she added, it was often impossible to trace whether and how manipulation had taken place.

Whittling away at protection of sources

In Europe it is not massive threats that are the problem, but the subtle whittling away of rights assumed to be firmly entrenched, as for example the protection of sources. No journalist may be forced to reveal his sources. In Germany, in March 2006, two colleagues from the magazine Cicero were indicted because they were said to have “abetted the betrayal of official secrets” by publishing excerpts from a confidential report of the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) about Al Qaida. The editing offices of Cicero as well as the private house of a journalist were searched and boxes of material were confiscated.

And the result? The court case came to nothing, the district court of Potsdam refused to open a case. It pointed out that everything that had been published had already been reported beforehand by a magazine in Switzerland. Reporters Without Borders sees a further case of a threat to press freedom in the game that the Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) has been playing for years. A recent parliamentary report comes to the conclusion that between 1990 and 2005 the Intelligence Service systematically spied on journalists and used others as informers. The reports also pillories the BND's wire-tapping of the magazine Stern and the television channel ZDF. The anti-terror battle and its attendant security interests were used recurrently as a pretext for these actions.

Without commitment no press freedom

Yet it is the democracies that should feel a special responsibility to uphold the freedom of the press. The annual report on the world-wide situation with regard to press freedom paints a gloomy picture. An alarming number of journalists and media workers were arrested or killed last year: 871 arrests and 81 killed – the highest figures since 1994. And, according to RWB, the first month of 2007 shows no improvement: six journalists and four media workers died because or in the course of their work in January alone.

“These figures indicate a lack of interest and occasionally also a failure on the part of democratic states to defend unequivocally freedom of the press and opinion,” says RWB. “EU states, for example, should show a stronger commitment to free media throughout the world. In economic co-operation, as with Russia or China, a demand for the human right to freedom of opinion should be a prerequisite.”

As an international human rights organisation, RWB has been espousing the protection of journalists in theatres of war and trouble spots since 1985. “Reporters sans frontiers” was founded in Montpelier in the south of France by a small group of media workers. It is now a global player in the field of human rights, an organisation that has been awarded many prizes and has at its disposal a network of over 100 correspondents, five offices and nine sections. RWB supports the freedom of the press and opinion throughout the world. Its HQ is in Paris. The Berlin-based German section has been in operation since 1994.

The founding of the German section was triggered by the murder of Egon Scotland, correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, who was fatally injured by the bullets of sniper in Kosovo in 1991. The German section moved into its first office under the roof of the daily newspaper taz.

Today Reporter ohne Grenzen, the German section of RWB, is a professional organisation with its own branch office. According to ROG, it finances its work with donations, membership fees and the revenues from the annual photo book Fotos für die Pressefreiheit (Photos for Press Freedom). This ensures its independence from governments and influential institutions.