& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Home minister on RSF list of 'predators'

Staff Correspondent
Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury ranks on the 'predators' list of 42 prepared by Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF).
Armed Islamic militants from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Pakistan and the Philippines are also on the list of "Predators of Press Freedom".
The "predators" are responsible for attacks against press freedom, the RSF said in its scathing annual report, released to coincide with the 13th World Press Freedom Day today.
Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, and Francois Compaore, economic adviser and brother of the president of Burkina Faso, have also been enlisted.
The list also includes Than Shwe, head of Myanmar government, and Hu Jintao, president of China.
The Paris-based organisation rated the parliament leader of Colombia, Carlos Castano, and Colombian guerrilla leaders, Manuel Marulanda and Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista. Long serving Cuban President Fidel Castro also figures in the list.
The RSF termed that democracy is the loser each time governments stand in the way of the right to inform and be informed, a right that it is their duty to uphold.
AFP adds: Freedom of the press hit new lows in 2002, the watchdog group said in the report, with the number of journalists assaulted or threatened doubling since 2001.
"Press freedom is not guaranteed in more than half of the world's countries, so we must continue to be vigilant in 2003," says the report.
While the number of journalists killed went down from 31 in 2001 to 25 in 2002, the number of reporters detained went up by 40 per cent and twice as many were physically attacked or threatened than in 2001, the group says.
Over the course of the year, "at least 1,420 journalists were beaten, abducted, charged by the police, harassed or threatened with being killed," the organisation notes.
The RSF also alleges that at least half "were murdered by regime henchmen, armed groups, organ-
ised crime figures or agents of powerful interests the victims angered".
Asia proved to be the most dangerous continent for journalists -- with 11 killed there in 2002 -and the most repressive, with the highest number of reporters attacked, threatened, arrested, imprisoned and censored.
The situation in Africa revealed some rays of hope, with Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Mali, Mauritius and South Africa lauded for being particularly respectful of the rights of journalists.
The RSF added some new names to the list, which includes 42 heads of state, ministers, armed guerrilla groups and security forces accused of targeting reporters.
New faces in the "who's who" of press enemies include Nepal's King Gyanendra, Liberian President Charles Taylor, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
In a statement, the RSF called early figures for 2003 "worrying". Since the start of the US-led war in Iraq on March 20, more than a dozen journalists have been killed.