DPRK loses press freedom award…

From the Committee to Protect Journalists:

The world’s deepest information void, communist North Korea has no independent journalists, and all radio and television receivers sold in the country are locked to government-specified frequencies. Burma, Turkmenistan, Equatorial Guinea, and Libya round out the top five nations on CPJ’s list of the “10 Most Censored Countries.”

Patterns that emerge from CPJ’s analysis include:

Total control. Print and electronic media in all 10 countries are under heavy state control or influence. Some countries allow a few privately owned outlets to operate but most of these are in the hands of regime loyalists. In Libya, there are no independent broadcast or print media, an anachronism even by Middle East standards. Equatorial Guinea has one private broadcaster; its owner is the president’s son. In Burma, citizens risk arrest for listening to the BBC in public.

One-man-shows. Most of the countries on CPJ’s list are ruled by one man who has remained in power by manipulating the media and rigging any elections that are held. The media foster a cult of personality. On state television in Turkmenistan, “President for Life” Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov’s golden image is constantly displayed in profile at the bottom of the screen. State-run radio in Equatorial Guinea has described President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo as “the country’s God.”

Use of the “Big Lie.” In North Korea, all “news” is positive. According to the country’s rigidly controlled media, North Korea has never suffered famine or poverty, and citizens would willingly sacrifice themselves for their leader. The official Korean Central News Agency said that leader Kim Jong Il is so beloved that after a deadly munitions train explosion in a populated area, people ran into buildings to save the ubiquitous portraits of the “Dear Leader” before they rescued their own family members.

Zero tolerance for negative coverage. In Uzbekistan, a government crackdown forced more than a dozen foreign correspondents to flee abroad after they covered a massacre of antigovernment protesters in Andijan in May 2005. Reporters covering opposition to Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s recent re-election were jailed and charged with crimes such as “hooliganism.” In Cuba, the government organizes “repudiation acts” for recalcitrant journalists; demonstrators surround the journalist’s home and prevent people from coming or going.

Cynical disregard for people’s welfare. Governments suppress news of the dangers and hardships faced by their citizens. North Korea covered up a famine that affected millions. Burma stifled coverage of the effects of the tsunami that hit the country in December 2004.

“By any international standard, the practices of these governments are unacceptable,” said Cooper. “We call on the leaders of these most censored countries to join the free world by abandoning these restrictive actions and allowing journalists to independently report the news and inform their citizens.”

North Korea has wedded the traditional Confucian ideal of social order to the Stalinist model of an authoritarian communist state to create the world’s deepest information void. All domestic radio, television, and newspapers are controlled by the government. Radio and television receivers are locked to government-specified frequencies. Content is supplied almost entirely by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It serves up a daily diet of fawning coverage of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il and his official engagements. The country’s grinding poverty or famines are never mentioned. Only small numbers of foreign journalists are allowed limited access each year, and they must be accompanied by “minders” wherever they go.

Lowlight: After a deadly munitions train explosion in April 2004 in Ryongchon near the Chinese border, KCNA reported that citizens displayed the “spirit of guarding the leader with their very lives” by rushing into burning buildings to save portraits of Kim “before searching for their family members or saving their household goods.” The international press, meanwhile, was barred from the scene, where more than 150 died and thousands were injured.

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