What Najib doesn’t want you to know about Malaysia’s press freedom ranking

ARCHIVES 2012

By admin-s On Mar 20, 2012

The prime minister’s outlandish attempt last night to claim credit for Malaysia’s press freedom ranking is a shocking display of insensitivity to the deaths of at least two Indonesian journalists, and the violence against others which caused the rankings of their countries to fall, and Malaysia’s to rise.

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• Two journalists killed in Indonesia, 5 kidnapped, 18 assaulted
• Indonesia’s ranking plunges 29 places, three others drop
• Malaysia gains from violence to other Asian journalists

Plainly ignoring the facts contained in Reporters Sans Frontieres’s 2011-12 report, Najib Tun Razak said last night: “Since I become Prime Minister, Malaysia has moved up nine places in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index…”

His brazen effrontery is sickening. The real reason for Malaysia’s better showing is plain: other countries’ ranking fell, because of violence against journalists — Indonesia’s ranking plunged by 29 places, and India and Bangladesh also dropped. This table shows it all.

2010			2011-2012
	Country	Score		Country	Score
8	New Zealand	1,50	13	New Zealand	-5,33
11	Japan	2,50	22	Japan	-1,00
18	Australia	5,38	30	Australia	4,00
34	Hong-Kong	10,75	35	Papua New Guinea	9,00
42	Papua New Guinea	13,33	44	South Korea	12,67
42	South Korea	13,33	45	Taiwan	13,00
48	Taiwan	14,50	54	Hong-Kong	17,00
52	Maldives	16,00	54	Mauritius	17,00
64	Bhutan	17,75	54	Samoa	17,00
65	Mauritius	18,00	70	Bhutan	24,00
76	Mongolia	19,42	73	Maldives	25,00
93	Timor-Leste	25,00	86	Timor-Leste	30,00
111	Samoa	33,00	100	Mongolia	35,75
*117*	*Indonesia*	*35,83*	106	Nepal	38,75
119	Nepal	36,38	117	Cambodia	55,00
*122*	*India*	*38,75*	117	Fiji	55,00
*126*	*Bangladesh*	*42,50*	122	Malaysia	56,00
128	Cambodia	43,83	125	Brunei	56,20
*136*	*Singapore*	*47,50*	*129*	*Bangladesh*	*57,00*
141	Malaysia	50,75	*131*	*India*	*58,00*
142	Brunei	51,00	*135*	*Singapore*	*61,00*
149	Fiji	52,75	137	Thailand	61,50
151	Pakistan	56,17	140	Philippines	64,50
153	Thailand	56,83	*146*	*Indonesia*	*68,00*
156	Philippines	60,00	151	Pakistan	75,00
158	Sri Lanka	62,50	163	Sri Lanka	87,50
*165*	*Vietnam*	*75,75*	165	Laos	89,00
168	Laos	80,50	169	Burma	100,00
171	China	84,67	172	Vietnam	114,00
*174*	*Burma*	*94,50*	174	China	136,00
177	North Korea	104,75	178	North Korea	141,00

Asia-Pacific countries. Source: Reporters Sans Frontieres

No, prime minister, Malaysia did not rise in the RSF rankings. The others fell — because journalists were killed or beaten up.

In Indonesia at least two journalists died in an army crackdown in West Papua; five were kidnapped and 18 journalists assaulted.

“That was the main reason for Indonesia’s plunge,” says Reporters Sans Frontieres in the report to the press freedom index

“A corrupt judiciary that is too easily influenced by politicians and pressure groups and government attempts to control the media and Internet have prevented the development of a freer press.”

“In Bangladesh, opposition groups and the ruling Awami League took turns to attack and obstruct the press. In India, journalists were exposed to violence in two states and threats from mafia groups in the main cities; the government also attempted to tighten controls on online media

Conditions worsened in Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Singapore. Conditions did not improve in Malaysia in 2011.

While the prime minister sought to mock the United States and Britain, he conveniently neglected to see that 10 small Asian countries rank superior to Malaysia in the RSF table.

Najib’s boasts about his commitment to press freedom must be weighed against the events in Malaysia in the past year, among which were:

Malaysiakini was again refused a newspaper licence
A television cameraman died on duty in hostile conditions in a needless and showy adventure sponsored by a member of the prime minister’s department
The home minister and the information minister went on a frolic of their own to try to co-opt the national mass media into becoming full-fledged government and Barisan Nasional stooges and propagandists
The information minister went on a spree issuing libel writs against sundry small bloggers
The defence ministry co-opted for their own ends a notorious blogger who had, with impunity, gleefully published clips from a video purportedly of a man resembling the opposition leader cavorting with a woman purportedly a prostitute from China
Nanyang Siang Pau and The Star were hounded by the home ministry for errors that impinged on religious sensitivities, while Utusan Malaysia whipped up racial and religious tensions with abandon
The police hounded a young blogger who made facetious remarks about people in high places, based on reports already carried by other blogs and after he was fingered by pro-Umno bloggers
Media Prima took over the New Straits Times Press, and the prime minister’s press secretary was appointed to a senior editorial position to supervise NSTP newspapers, further concentrating press ownership and control.

Against all that, it is laughable that the prime minister seeks to gain personal glory out of a niggardly and grudging concession to withdraw annual licensing of newspapers — still unfulfilled after six months, and in the fourth year of his term.)

To add further insult, Najib even claims credit for the existence of Malaysiakini and the Malaysian Insider — both of which were set up well before he became prime minister: Malaysiakini 10 years before, and the Insider in 2008, a year before Najib’s government took office.