Media Violence and Terrorism

1
MEDIA
violence and terrorism
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - 2003
Editors: S.T. Kwame Boafo, John Maguire and Sylvie Coudray
The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this book and for the opinions
expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization.
The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of
any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of
its authorities or concerning the delimination of its frontiers and boundaries.
Layout and cover design: Irmgarda Kasinskaite
Published in 2003 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP (France)
Printed by Vaishali Graphics India, H-969, Palam Extention, New Delhi (India)
Contents
Foreword
Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson and Kochiro Matsuura
vii
Abdul Waheed Khan
ix
S.T. Kwame Boafo and Sylvie Coudray
xi
Conference on Media and Terrorism
15
Journalism and the War on Terrorism

Chris Warren
17
Chapter 2
Media in Danger
Mogens Schmidt
39
Chapter 3
Terrorist Attacks of 11 September:

Consequences for Freedom of Expression
Toby Mendel
43
Chapter 4
11 September: Consequences for Press Freedom

Jean-Paul Marthoz
51
Chapter 5
Brother with no Arms

Philippe Latour
59
Chapter 6
General Overview
65
I. General Remarks on Terrorism and Media

Oliver Clarke
65
II. Fairness is the Best Defence

Ronald Koven
67
Media and Terrorism: Case Studies
69
Chapter 7
Africa and Arab States
71
Case Study I
11 September: Consequences for Freedom of Information

in South Africa
Raymond Louw
71
Preface
Introduction
Part I
Chapter 1
Part II
Terrorism and Media in Zimbabwe

Geoffrey Nyarota
73
Aftermath of 11 September: An Arab Perspective

Nedal Mansour
74
Chapter 8
Asia and the Pacific
77
Case Study I
Terrorism and Journalists in Afghanistan

Faheem Dashty
77
Is the Safety of Journalists in Timor Leste Guaranteed?

Hugo Fernandes
78
Case Study III
The Safety of Journalists in the Pacific

Justin Kili
80
Case Study IV
Media and Terrorism in the Philippines

Melinda Quintos de Jesus
81
Case Study V
Media in Danger : South East Asia at a Glance

Chavarong Limpattaamapanee
84
Case Study II
Case Study III
Case Study II
Chapter 9
Europe
87
Case Study I
To Die for Being a Journalist in the Basque Region

Carmen Gurruchaga Basurto
87
War, Terrorism and Journalists: The Chechen Experience

Anna Politkovskaya
89
Media and Terrorism: Status of Research
91
Chapter 10
Media, Violence and Terrorism in Africa

Andy O. Alali
93
Chapter 11
Media, Violence and Terrorism in the Arab World

Basyouni I. Hamada
101
Chapter 12
Media, Violence and Terrorism in Europe

Annabelle Sreberny and Prasum Sonwalker
107
Chapter 13
Media, Violence and Terrorism in Latin America

Jorge Bonilla Vlez and Camilo Tamayo Gmez
115
Chapter 14
Media, Violence and Terrorism in North America

David L. Paletz and Jill Rickershauser
119
Case Study II
Part III
Apendices
1. Resolution on Terrorism and Media Adopted by Participants
in the Conference on Terrorism and Media, Manila, the Philippines
127
2. Official Ceremony and Awarding of the UNESCO/Guillermo

World Press Freedom Prize, 3 May 2002, Manila, The Philippines:
128
I. Remarks by Mrs Ana Maria Busquets de Cano,

President of the Guillermo Cano Foundation
128
II. Remarks by Mr Kochiro Matsuura,

Director-General of UNESCO
129
III. Speech by Her Excellency Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,

President of the Republic of the Philippines
131
Foreword
World Press Freedom Day,
3 May 2002
Joint Message
This year, World Press Freedom Day is devoted to the question of terrorism and media freedom. Above all,
it is dedicated to those courageous journalists who put themselves at serious risk, and sometimes pay the highest
penalty, by exercising their profession.
In each of the past two years, more than 50 journalists have been killed while covering violent conflicts.
Increasingly, such deaths are not the result of wars accidents but the outcome of a deliberate targeting of journalists
by those seeking to prevent media exposure of their criminal, corrupt or terrorist activities. The cruel fate of Daniel
Pearl, to cite just one tragic case, illustrates how dangerous the profession of journalism can be.
The threat of terrorism to the freedom and independence of the media can be both direct and indirect.
Terrorism all too often includes violent attacks on reporters and publishers, including assassinations, abductions,
torture and bombings of media offices. We abhor such violence. Journalists have human rights like everyone else,
rights which have not been forfeited because of their choice of profession.
The indirect threat of terrorism has two main aspects. First, it seeks to intimidate, to instill fear and suspicion
and to silence any voices with which it disagrees a climate inimical to the exercise of rights and freedoms. Second,
terrorism may provoke governmental responses that lead to laws, regulations and forms of surveillance that undermine the very rights and freedoms that an anti-terrorism campaign is supposed to defend. Indeed, in the name of
anti-terrorism, principles and values that were decades, even centuries, in the making may be put at risk.
Basic freedoms, human rights and democratic practices are the best guarantors of freedom. This protection
must extend to press freedom and free speech as positive goods in themselves and as means through which the fight
against terrorism may be waged. The greatest service that the media can perform in the fight against terrorism is to
act freely, independently and responsibly. This means that they must neither be cowed by threats nor become a mere
mouthpiece of patriotic sentiment or inflammatory opinion. Rather, the media must search for and publicize the
truth; present information and views impartially; consider their words and images carefully; and uphold high standards of professional conduct. A responsible press, moreover, is a self-regulated press. The temptation to impose
drastic state regulation upon the media must be resisted.
On World Press Freedom Day, we reaffirm that press freedom is an indispensable dimension of that wider
freedom of expression that is each persons birthright and one of the foundations for human progress.
Kofi A. Annan
Secretary-General of the United Nations
Kochiro Matsuura
Director-General of UNESCO
Mary Robinson
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
7
VII
Preface
When adopting the Constitution in November 1945, UNESCOs founders set the agenda for the Organizations
action in the field of communication for decades to come by mandating it to promote the free flow of ideas by
word and image. UNESCOs Constitution stresses the need for information and communication within and
between nations. It links the free flow of ideas to the broader objective of preventing wars and constructing the
defences of peace by advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples so that ignorance of each
others ways and lives ... suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world will no longer be a direct cause
of conflict.
The terrorist attacks on the United States of America on 11 September 2001 caused the international community to
focus on the issue of terrorism with renewed intensity. Within the span of a few weeks, the Security Council
unanimously passed resolutions 1368 (2001) on 12 September 2001; 1373 (2001) on 28 September 2001; and 1377
(2001) on 12 November 2001. The General Assembly adopted resolutions 56/1 on 12 September 2001 and 56/88
on 12 December 2001 and a Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism was established at the
request of the Secretary-General in October 2001.
Within this context, UNESCO, as the lead agency of the UN system in communication development, has endeavoured to contribute to the international anti-terrorism efforts by reviewing the complex issue of media and terrorism. As nations engage in conventional and new types of warfare to battle terrorism and resolve conflicts, accurate
information and analysis are needed. For antagonists and protagonists alike, media are important because they
generate information, symbols, impressions and ideas that are critical in the battle for the minds and hearts of
nations and people. Since 11 September 2001, the international press freedom landscape has become very complex.
Journalism itself has become a battleground as governments on all sides seek to influence media coverage to suit
their own political and strategic interests. At the same time, journalists and media workers have taken tragic risks to
report and to disseminate news and information about terrorism and the various efforts to deal with it.
In his address to the international conference on media and terrorism organised by UNESCO in Manila, Philippines, on 2-3 May 2002, the Director-General of UNESCO noted: one of the most worrying results of terrorism
is that it may cause some countries to impose forms of control and regulation which constrain democracy, freedom
of expression, and free, independent, and pluralistic media. We must remember that security is not an end in itself
but the means to an end, namely the peaceful enjoyment of our rights and liberties. Care must therefore be taken to
ensure that, in pursuing greater security, governmental authorities do not impose unjustified restrictions on freedom
of expression and press freedom. The struggle against terrorism should never undermine the protection and
promotion of human rights. As the UN Secretary-General stated when he addressed the Security Council on 18
January 2002: While we certainly need vigilance to prevent acts of terrorism, and firmness in condemning and
punishing them, it will be self-defeating if we sacrifice other key priorities such as human rights- in the process.
This publication attempts to reveal some of the profound changes in the way that fundamental liberties such as
freedom of expression and press freedom have been affected by terrorism and the efforts by the international
community to deal with terrorists threats.
Abdul Waheed Khan
Assistant Director-General
for Communication and Information
UNESCO, Paris
IX
9
10
Introduction
The tragic event of 11 September 2001 set in motion an intensified global discussion on terrorism and global
security. Some of the measures adopted to enhance global security have had profound repercussions on civil
liberties, especially freedom of expression. As UNESCO is the UN lead agency for freedom of expression, Mr
Kochiro Matsuura, the Director-General, decided to commemorate World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2003 with
an international conference focusing on the theme of media and terrorism.
The principal purpose of the Conference, which was organized in collaboration with the National Commission for
UNESCO in Manila, the Philippines, on 2-3 May 2002, was to provide a platform to exchange ideas and experiences on various issues related to media and terrorism, including how media spotlight terrorism as a political, ideological, religious and military weapon against civilians and how terrorism affects media and the safety of media professionals.
The 150 media professionals and representatives of non-governmental organizations from different regions of the
world who participated in the Manila Conference resolved that any strategy to address the threat of terrorism must,
first and foremost, promote greater respect for freedom of expression and of the media, rather than impose
restrictions on these fundamental rights. They stressed that the media have the right to report on terrorism in the
interest of the publics right to know and to promote open and informed debate on the issue and called on governments, institutions, public bodies and media organisations to do all in their power to ensure the safety of journalists
at all times and under all circumstances. The brutal killing of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002 was a grim reminder
of the dangers facing media professionals in the wake of 11 September 2001. The deaths of Marc Brunereau,
Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud, Volker Handloik, Azizullah Haidari, Harry Burton, Julio Fuentes, Maria Grazia
Cutuli and Ulf Strmberg, all of them killed in Afghanistan, add to the sad litany of those journalists who have lost
their lives while carrying out their mission.
This publication contains edited texts of papers and case studies presented at the Manila Conference as well as
regional reports on status of research studies dealing with media, violence and terrorism. The publication is organized in three parts. Part I presents the views of leading members of media professional bodies and organisations
concerned with freedom of the press on the issue of media and terrorism as well as the aftermath of the 11
September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, especially regarding freedom of expression and press freedom.
In Chapter 1, Chris Warren reviews the consequences of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks for press freedom
and civil rights in 36 countries and discusses the extent to which the right of journalists as well as basic human rights
such as freedom of expression have been altered in the aftermath of the attacks. He concludes that, although in
most countries the right of free and independent media has been preserved, vital changes have nevertheless occurred. In Chapter 2, Mogens Schmidt underlines the importance of a strong and critical media as a cornerstone for
every democratic society. He focuses on the Basque region in Spain and Colombia, where the media and the life of
journalists are in great danger due to threats, including terrorist acts, aiming to counter press freedom. He describes
the capacity-building programmes which the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), together with the World
Editors Forum, have introduced to assist media professionals.
XI
11
In Chapter 3, Toby Mendel discusses the introduction of new anti-terrorist laws by diverse governments around the
world, following the 11 September terrorist attacks in the U.S. He argues that some of the laws have adverse effect
on basic human rights as they often curtail the free flow of information and hence restrict the right of the public
to access official government information. Jean-Paul Marthoz focuses in Chapter 4 on restrictions on the work of
journalists and the media in general in the post-11 September world with special attention on the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan and outlines several factors that hinder journalists from reporting objectively. Chapter 5 by Philippe
Latour deals with the dangers that war correspondents face when reporting crisis situations. He explores the best
ways to improve their circumstances and minimise fatalities, noting that increased awareness and prior experience
are critical factors. In Chapter 6, Oliver Clarke briefly discusses the importance of securing free and critical media to
guarantee democracy and security, especially in the aftermath of 11 September, 2001. In the same Chapter, Ronald
12
XII
Koven argues that, in the face of terrorism whether from non-state actors or from governments fairness is the
best defence of press freedom.
Part II contains 10 case studies of media and terrorism from Africa, the Arab States, Asia, the Pacific, and Europe
which were presented at the Manila conference. The case studies represent a diversity of situations and the effects
of terrorism on the working conditions of professional journalists and editors.
Three case studies from Africa and the Arab States are presented in Chapter 7. Raymond Louw discusses the effects
of 11 September 2001 on freedom of information in South Africa, including the adoption of several anti-terrorism
bills which impinge on press freedom. Geoffrey Nyarota provides an insight on the suppression of the Zimbabwean media by the government and Nedal Mansour notes that, after the 11 September attacks, the media in the
Arab States have focused on factors in that region that trigger terrorism.
Chapter 8 presents five case studies from Asia and the Pacific. Faheem Dashty discusses the effects of terrorism on
the work of journalists in Afghanistan and Hugo Fernandes describes the threats to the safety of journalists in
Timor Leste both during the conflict in the region and in the post-conflict era. Justin Kili follows with a report on
the safety of journalists in the Pacific with a particular focus on Papua New Guinea. Melinda Quintos de Jesus
presents the situation in the Philippines, noting that a full understanding of the relationship between the media and
terrorism in the country requires background training in the development of terrorism and its use by marginalized
and aggrieved communities. Finally, Chavarong Limpattaamapanee describes various threats to press freedom in
five South East Asian countries and remarks that threats are not only physical in nature, but also come in the form
of advertising pressure and closure of newspapers by the government.
Two case studies from Europe are presented in Chapter 9. Carmen Gurruchaga Basurto reviews the dramatic
development of the Basque terrorist group, ETA, and the threats facing journalists who cover its activities. Anna
Politkovskaya describes the difficult situation for journalists reporting from Chechnya in the face of severe restrictions imposed by the government and threats from the military.
Part III, consisting of five chapters, deals with the status of research studies on media, violence and terrorism carried out in Africa, the Arab States, Europe, Latin America and North America. The main purpose of the desktype
research reports was to identify and assess the focus and content of research work and scholarly publications carried
out on media, violence and political terrorism during the four-year period of January 1998 to December 2001. Each
regional report presents an overview and critical assessment of the research studies and scholarly publications
examined, the main trends identified and makes suggestions for further investigation in the subject area.
In Chapter 10, Andy O. Alali analyses the patterns of violence and terrorism in Africa and media framing of such
acts. He notes that, despite the high incidence of different kinds of violence and terrorism in Africa, there is a dearth
in scholarly literature on the subject. Basyouni Ibrahim Hamada reports on the situation in the Arab region in
Chapter 11 and observes that, although the Arab region has been portrayed in the Western media as an environment which produces violence and terrorism Arab communication scholars have not carried out much research
work on the communication implications of violence and terrorism. Annabelle Sreberny and Prasun Sonwalker
also stress in Chapter 12 that the relationship between media and terrorism has not received much attention from
communication researchers in Europe and that, except in relation to the Balkans and the Kosovo crisis, the specific
consideration of the role of the media in political conflict and violence has not generated much sustained research
attention in the region.
XIII
13
In Chapter 13 Jorge Bonilla Velz and Camilo Tamayo Gmez report on the situation in Latin America and remark
that terrorism does not seem to be a particular subject for research in the region and that studies do not focus on
analysing terrorism or the role of media with respect to terrorism and its agents. In the final report in Chapter 14,
David Paletz and Jill Rickershauser compare and analyse a number of studies carried out in North America on the
relationship between media, political violence and terrorism. They point out the relative paucity of research on the
topic during the period of study and suggest that future research on media, political violence and terrorism should
be empirical, cummulative, generate original data, build on existing theories and use concepts from political communication.
This publication is designed to contribute to on-going discussions and reflections on terrorism, media, freedom of
expression, global security and human rights. Hopefully, such discussions and reflections will stimulate further
actions in the subject-area among the community of media professionals, freedom of expression advocates, researchers and policy-makers.
S.T. Kwame Boafo and Sylvie Coudray

Communication and Information Sector
UNESCO, Paris, France
* http://www.ipu.org/english/home.htm
14
PART I
Conf
erence on Media and T
errorism
Conference
Terrorism
15
16
Journalism
and
the War
on
Terrorism
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In the year since the 11 September attacks on the United States, the world has
become a more uncertain and fearful place. The IFJ surveyed the media landscape
in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks and our first report, published
on 23 October 2001, revealed a fast-developing crisis for journalism and civil liberties.
Almost a year on, these fears have been confirmed. The declaration of a war on
terrorism by the United States and its international coalition has created a dangerous situation in which journalists have become victims as well as key actors in reporting events. This is war of a very different kind. There is no set piece military
confrontation; there is no clearly defined enemy, no hard-and-fast objective, and no
obvious point of conclusion. Inevitably, it has created a pervasive atmosphere of
paranoia in which press freedom and pluralism have suffered.
It has also led to casualties among media staff. The brutal killing of Daniel Pearl in
Pakistan at the start of 2002 chillingly filmed by his media-wise murderers has
come to symbolise the appalling consequences of 11 September for journalism and
for freedom of expression. Pearls murder, together with the deaths of Marc
Brunereau, Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud, Volker Handloik, Azizullah Haidari, Harry
Burton, Julio Fuentes, Maria Grazia Cutuli and Ulf Strmberg in Afghanistan, is a
grim indicator of the dangers facing journalists.
In a world hungry for news, people need to understand the context and complexities of this new confrontation. They rely on journalists to provide them with reliable and timely information. During the war in Afghanistan around 3,500 foreign
correspondents were roaming the region covering the story.
But war is rarely good news for journalism. While journalists and media staff take
terrible risks to get their story, governments on all sides seek to influence media
coverage to suit their own political and strategic interests. The post-11 September
media crisis is seen everywhere. From Australia to Zimbabwe, via Colombia, Russia, the United States and Uganda, politicians have rushed to raise the standard of
anti-terrorism against their political opponents, and have tried to stifle free journalism along the way.
But media need to resist the pressure of politicians who are willing to sacrifice civil
liberties and press freedom to win their propaganda battles. The priority must always be the right to publish words and images however unpalatable that help
people better understand the roots of conflict.
Chris Warren
President
of the International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
This report covers developments in some 40 countries up to the beginning of

September 2002. We draw extensively upon information from IFJ member unions,
press freedom groups and human rights bodies at regional and international level. It
is not an exhaustive document and is, inevitably, abbreviated but it reveals profound changes in political attitudes and their impact on journalism. It should
set alarm bells ringing in newsrooms around the world.
17
Australia
Media coverage of 11 September has been comprehensive and all pervading and, generally, professional. Journalists in the mainstream media at both the tabloid and
broadsheet ends of the market have been responsible in
handling issues of tolerance.
CHAPTER 1
18
However, among some non-journalists such as radio

commentators there has been a serious increase in, at
best, lack of care in handling issues of race and, at worst,
open racism against people from Muslim backgrounds.
This is partly because the attacks occurred against a preexisting background of racial tension within Australia
generated by the debate over asylum seekers, particularly asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iraq. By world
standards, only a small number of asylum seekers attempt to enter Australia, some 4,500 a year, arriving by
boat, usually through Indonesia. But the conservative
government of John Howard has sought to make its
refusal to allow asylum seekers to enter Australian territorial waters or to land on Australian territory a major
political issue and, in doing so, has fed uncertainty and
fear within the population at large. Polls indicate that
more than 70 per cent of people agree with the governments stance.
At the same time, the government has sought to deliberately link asylum seekers with terrorism, claiming that 11
September has justified their approach because there
could be sleeper terrorists attempting to enter Australia by posing as asylum seekers. This caused tension
between much of the media and the Australian community, with supporters of the government and the government itself criticising media for being out of touch
with the majority views of Australia. 1
Since the generation of the asylum seekers crisis and
the 11 September attacks, the government called a general election, and successfully campaigned on the basis
of providing leadership against asylum seekers and terrorist attacks. Relying on the war on terrorism, the Federal Government has introduced two legislative packages.
The first package sought to amend the Commonwealth
Crimes Act so as to restate the official secrets legislation
and to extend it so as to make it an offence for a person
to receive leaked information. In other words, a journalist who was leaked information could be charged and
face jail of up to two years. In January and February
2002, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, media employers and press freedom supporters ran a major campaign against this legislation and, after the nongovernment parties in the Australian senate agreed to
block the legislation, the government announced it was
withdrawing the bill. A second security bill has also been

introduced. This would enable the government to proscribe organisations which threaten the security of Australia or of other countries. It also increased the power
of security organisations to detain suspects, suppress
information and intercept emails and other information.
This bill has been criticised by a Senate committee and
after attacks from its own back bench, the government
has agreed to redraft the bill to meet civil liberty concerns.
In a related development, an ABC journalist was arrested
outside a refugee detention centre in South Australia on
26 January and charged with trespass on Commonwealth
land. After extensive protests, the government agreed to
drop the charges.
These experiences illustrate two things: First, that the
government is prepared to use the war on terrorism to
expand its scope of investigation and to restrict press
freedom and other civil rights. Second, that concerted
campaigns in support of civil liberties still attract bipartisan political support and can be successful.
In Australia, coverage of the war has become inextricably linked with the debate over asylum seekers, many of
whom are Afghan or Iraqi refugees. Generally, professional journalists have handled these issues with compassion and sensitivity.
However, among other areas of the media, there has
been a rising intolerance which, it has to be said, attracts
some public support. This often puts the mainstream
media in conflict with majority views. For a perspective
on this, see the article by Mike Steketee in the most recent issue of The Walkley magazine2.
Canada
As in all western countries, Canadian coverage of the 11
September events was extensive and largely professional,
but freedom of expression groups responded angrily
when the federal government announced the preparation of a package of anti-terrorism legislation for introduction in Parliament. Canadian journalists called on the
government to reject curbs on free expression or proposals for increased surveillance that would trample basic citizens rights and obstruct the work of reporters.
We believe an effective counter-terrorism campaign
demands not only the preservation of fundamental liberties but also the vigorous assertion of their importance, said Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
(CJFE) president Arnold Amber. Amber is also director
of The Newspaper Guild Canada and a member of the
IFJ Executive Committee.3
The group says the bill provides for greater limits on

access to information and raises the prospect of prosecution for anyone who publishes information the government is taking measures to safeguard, even if unclassified. It also increases the surveillance powers of
the state and encroaches on the private communications
of individuals. Another concern is that those who peacefully exercise their right to free expression in the service
of a cause or in defence of the rights of the accused
could be prosecuted under the act because of provisions concerning the facilitation of terrorism.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to most Canadians, two other
proposed bills aimed at curbing political dissent at international meetings are proceeding quickly through Parliament.
Bill C-35, currently before the Senate, introduces amendments to the Foreign Missions and International Organisations Act. Civil liberty groups say Bill C-35 widens
the definition of internationally protected persons,
those foreign dignitaries who are granted diplomatic
immunity when they visit Canada. The new definition
now includes representatives of a foreign state that is a
member of or participates in an international organisation. Cross-referenced with Bill C-36, which defines
interference with protected persons or the threat of
interference as acts of terrorism, the legislation gives the
government wide-ranging powers to clamp down on
those who wish to exercise their legitimate right to protest at international gatherings, groups say. Indeed, some
critics believe passage of the bill is timed to quell protests before the convening of an upcoming summit of
G-8 leaders in Alberta.
Bill C-35 also gives the police wide discretion in controlling, limiting or prohibiting access to any area to the
extent and in a manner that is reasonable in the circumstances. However, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) says the bill does not provide any clear
definition of what reasonable in the circumstances
might mean. CCLA counsel Alan Borovoy argues that
police should not be given powers to determine citizens
rights to free expression. The usual role of the police
in a democracy is to enforce the judgments made by
others, not to make such judgments themselves. The
Canadian Association of University Teachers has voiced
concerns over Bill C-42, saying it contains provisions

directed at suppressing political dissent, particularly protest activity. It says universities and colleges, as centres
of dissenting opinion (from students in particular), and
often located close to international gatherings, are likely
targets.
Colombia
According to human rights groups, Colombias worsening internal armed conflict affects virtually every part
of the country and has taken the lives of more than
60,000 people since 1985 - currently around 20 people
every day. Journalists are among the victims, with more
than 80 killed in the past 10 years.
Thousands of civilians live in fear of being kidnapped,
killed or disappeared; thousands are forced to flee their
homes, their lands, their livelihood, as warring factions
refuse to guarantee their safety and their right not to be
drawn into the conflict. Around 80 per cent of victims
are civilians, killed outside combat. Killings, threats and
intimidation of members of human rights organizations,
trade unionists and other vulnerable sectors of civil society form part of a campaign by sectors of the Colombian security forces and their paramilitary allies to weaken
the work of human rights defenders.
The civilian population, caught in the crossfire between
military and their paramilitary allies on one side and armed
opposition groups on the other, is not receiving the human rights and humanitarian protection it urgently needs.
Each month, thousands of people are being displaced
as they flee from areas of armed conflict and huge numbers are victims of human rights violations committed
by the Colombian security forces and their paramilitary
allies, as well as by armed opposition groups. Impunity
persists, as the vast majority of perpetrators of human
rights violations continue to evade accountability in Colombia. Following the events of 11 September the United
States administration strengthened its contribution to
the anti-terrorist effort of the authorities and there
are fears that the internal conflict will, as a result, deepen.
The deterioration of the human rights situation continues to intensify and spread throughout the country and
has reached an even greater level of urgency since the
breakdown of the peace process between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
de Colombia (FARC), Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, in February 2002.
The UN Commission on Human Rights has condemned
the persistence of impunity in Colombia with regard to
violations and abuses of human rights and international
19
The introduction of Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act,

aroused an unprecedented debate about its impact on
civil liberties and freedom of expression. Under public
pressure the government made a number of positive
amendments to the original bill which the Senate passed
on 18 December 2001. However, according to CJFE, it
still contains language that could lead to serious assaults
on freedom of expression.
humanitarian law; has expressed its concerns regarding

alleged links between the Colombias armed and security forces and paramilitary groups; and has also deplored
attacks against human rights defenders. The Colombian
government should undertake full and prompt implementation of UN recommendations as a step towards
tackling impunity and addressing the human rights crisis. Alvaro Uribe, who has been elected the new President of Colombia, is under pressure to make human
rights concerns the centerpiece of his agenda.
Cyprus
CHAPTER 1
20
While media coverage has been generally extensive and

well informed, there has been no problem of intolerance in reporting. Although the Attorney General announced the preparation of a new anti-terrorism bill that
may create some dangers for free speech and civil liberties, the only relevant law introduced was one ratifying
the International Convention of the United Nations on
the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism. The authorities say they will not impose anything that endangers press freedom, but the Union of Cyprus Journalists has said it will follow the situation closely.
Denmark
As in many countries, 11 September turned the media
world upside down. Papers which for centuries had been
steadfastly domestic in their front-page news coverage
opened themselves to extensive coverage of international
news for several weeks. The reporting in general was
balanced.
Attempts to blame all Muslims for what happened have
been few and Muslim representatives in Denmark have
been asked their views frequently in the media. There
have been, however, in the first days after 11 September
episodes where people from different ethnic backgrounds were attacked or had their shops damaged.
In the media the question of how to define a terrorist
has been much discussed. This has also focused on local
connections. For example, the current vice-chairman of
the large Danish liberal party in the early 1980s volunteered to take part in the struggle in Afghanistan following the intervention by the Soviet Union, supporting
Taliban. Photographs of him and three Taliban-supporters, all four in typical Afghani-clothes and with guns,
have been printed over and over again as a constant reference point for this debate.
Although the government says it will do what is needed
to stop terrorism, no national legislative initiatives that
could be seen to influence the working conditions of
the press have been introduced, but controversy did accompany the national process for ratifying the European Union regulations covering the establishment of a
European-wide arrest warrant.
European Union
In the weeks and months after 11 September, European
Union states quickly formed a joint approach on counter-terrorism actions with the United States. Many of
these undermine traditional standards of civil liberties.
Cooperation was demonstrated most dramatically one
day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon when NATO activated its never-before-invoked Article 5, which declares an attack on one to be
an attack on all. European combat forces, aircraft and
ships were committed to support the U.S. strike on Afghanistan. Within three months, the European Union
had a common legal definition of terrorism, a list of
suspects closely in line with Washingtons and more than
100 million dollars in assets frozen. They also adopted a
common arrest warrant to prevent suspected terrorists
from evading arrest by crossing the EUs largely unchecked internal borders.
Joint meetings in December 2001 and June 2002 between European and U.S. officials sought to co-ordinate
policy and a list of terrorists groups was agreed. U.S.
targets left off Europes terrorist list in December, including the PKK Kurdish rebels in Turkey, the Shining
Path group in Peru and the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia, were included on an expanded list in June.
The June update also added five Palestinian groups, including the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a U.S.-based charity that has been accused
of channeling money to Hamas, which has carried out
dozens of deadly attacks in Israel. However, the EU differentiates between the political and military wings of
Hamas. And the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which targets
Israel from Lebanon, is considered a terrorist organisation by Washington but not by the EU.
The European Council, representing 15 nations, put
forward controversial proposals on 9 October 2002 for
a package of measures to improve the European Unions response to terrorism. The proposals included
more cross-border co-operation between police forces
and the establishment of a European-wide arrest warrant. Civil liberty groups have been particularly concerned
over the adoption of the EU-wide definition of terrorism which they say threatens to include people taking
part in recent violent protest demonstrations over
globalisation. The changes broaden the scope of what
constitutes a terrorist offence by including actions that
The actions by the European Union are a deliberate

attempt to broaden the concept of terrorism to cover
protests such as those in Gothenburg and Genoa, says
Tony Bunyan, the Editor of Statewatch, a civil liberties
watchdog. Draconian measures to control political dissent only serve to undermine the very freedoms and
democracies legislators say they are protecting
On 30 May 2002, the IFJ among others protested when
the European Parliament agreed to amend the 1997
European Directive on the Protection of Telecommunications Data and Information to allow Member States
to pass laws that will give the authorities regular access
to peoples telephone and Internet communications. This
will, said the IFJ, open the door to the snooping society
in which peoples private communications will become
subject to official monitoring.5
Giving the police, customs, immigration and intelligence
services access to peoples electronic communications
goes far beyond existing rules whereby data can only be
retained for a short period for billing purposes (i.e.: to
help the customer confirm usage details) and then it must
be erased. This amendment to policy would have been
unthinkable before September 11. Politicians are using
public uncertainty and security concerns to undermine
peoples rights and liberties, said the IFJ.
While Brussels bureaucrats argue that it will be up to
each government to decide how to respond to the
amended law, the IFJ has been informed that EU governments are planning to adopt a Framework Decision
that will bind all Member States to introduce the retention of data. This situation was confirmed in August
2002 when details of a binding framework decision were
revealed that will mean personal data traffic will be kept
throughout the EU for up to two years.
The IFJ says that putting telephone calls, e-mails, faxes
and Internet usage under official surveillance will undermine data protection as will the capacity of journalists
to monitor the apparatus of state and to store information. The citizens right to private space and for the
press to investigate and scrutinise the authorities without intimidation are freedoms that distinguish democracies from authoritarian regimes, says the IFJ, They must
not be given up lightly. However, the waiving of Europes strict data protection laws has also been done to
allow complete sharing of information between Europol
and U.S. investigative agencies as part of the process in

which European leaders have worked together, and in
coordination with the United States, to craft a military,
judicial and financial crackdown on terrorism. A U.S.EU working group is now looking for guidelines to allow protected personal data to be exchanged among
American and European law enforcement agencies on a
general basis, rather than under emergency exemption.
France
The tone of the French media coverage says the SNJCGT, can be summed up by the 12 September 2001
editorial of Le Monde: We are all Americans Now. While
one cannot talk of intolerance, much of the coverage
was lacking in analysis of American policy. Unfortunately,
many journalists committed errors of ignorance by confusing the terms, Arab, Muslim and Islamic and they
strengthened the view of many in France that Muslim equals terrorist. The SNJ-CGT published a press
release criticising this approach. It was not reported. The
union reports that many media organisations have taken
advantage of the uncertain times to announce cutbacks
(job losses, salary cuts) in the days immediately after the
terror attacks.
The government announced new anti-terrorist legislation, including surveillance and tracking of Internet
messages. Many journalists fear that, under the pretext
of the urgency of the situation and the tracking of terrorist networks, the government is preparing to adopt,
without much debate or dialogue, measures which could
have serious implications for press freedom and civil liberties.6
Unions and press freedom groups condemned these
moves and are demanding that there is full public debate
and examination of proposed legislative measures that
have been announced concerning Internet controls,
encryption and the retention of data. But there are fears
that, under the cover of the emergency of post-September 11, measures already included in the Information Society Bill (projet de loi sur la socit de linformation,
LSI) will be added to the Daily Security Bill (projet de
loi sur la scurit quotidienne).
Examined at the beginning of Summer 2002 by the
National Assembly, and currently being reviewed in the
Senate, this text will, therefore, be amended to include
the anti-terrorist measures presented by the Prime Minister in his 3 October speech to the Assembly. These
measures may also be included in a distinct post September 11 bill, but will in any event be adopted in a
form responding to the immediate urgency, according
to Jospins remarks. The measures aimed at regulating
21
seriously affect (rather than seriously alter) the political, economic or social structures of a country or an
international organisation. This brings international
organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, or
the World Bank, into the picture.4
the use of encryption technologies limit Internet users

ability to send their messages securely on the network.
Despite the many promises to completely liberalise
encryption technologies, the ownership and use of appropriate software will continue to be limited by the regulations included in the LSI Bill (Articles 41, 42 and following). In the context of legal proceedings, the text
calls for recourse to the defence services in order to break
encryption keys.
CHAPTER 1
22
The measures that concern the retention of Internet

users data, that is to say, the traces of the use of different public networks (mobile, land, etc.), are aimed at introducing the principle of preventive retention of data
into French law. A decree is likely to determine what
types of data are targeted by this measure, which is scheduled to be applied for a 12-month period. In the context
of the LSI, these measures would probably not have
been adopted until Spring 2002, after being reviewed by
the CNIL.
The LSI was, in fact, expected to serve as a legal framework for all Internet-based activities in France. Potentially repressive measures included in the first draft
of the bill, such as the criminal responsibility of
Internet service providers, or the CSAs control of
Internet content, were dropped from the final version. However, the bill announced the creation of an
Internet co-regulatory body, the Forum of Internet
Rights (Forum des droits de lInternet), which is to include private and public sector representatives, as well
as regular Internet users. This new regulatory bodys
rights are poorly defined.
On 28 May 2001, RSF, which campaigns for complete freedom regarding Internet controls and content, denounced the creation of such a surveillance
body. In early April, the government submitted a
nearly final draft version of the bill to four consultative groups representing citizens interests. However,
these institutions were expected to submit comments
prior to presentation before the Council of Ministers
and the vote in the National Assembly. The last minute
inclusion of the LSI Bills controversial measures in
the legislative plan on fighting terrorism renders the
four independent authorities exercise of their consultative role more difficult.
Finland
Although it is difficult to be precise, coverage was extensive and detailed. The very first media assumptions were
that the attack was linked directly to the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians. These were supported by pictures showing triumphant Palestinians on television.
However, accusations against Palestinians ceased after
the news about Osama bin Ladens role became clearer.

Nevertheless, certain media still identify the root cause
as the long-lasting conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as the support given to Israel by the U.S.
The media follow-up has been to the point and professional with extensive media coverage of Islam and how
widely it is spread around the world. There have been
illuminating discussions on television and radio with Islamic people living in Finland, people representing other
religions, as well as researchers and specialists in politics.
The Finnish audience has been provided with a fairly
comprehensive information package on Islam within a
short period of time.
At the same time, coverage has been tempered with numerous newspaper articles and at least one television
documentary about the distressing situation of the civil
population of Afghanistan and the military situation
there. There are no reports of limitations on the work
of journalists. 7
This is the moment to strengthen the work of the International Media Working Group Against Racism and
Xenophobia (IMRAX) which was launched some years
ago by the IFJ. The only way in which journalists can
effectively influence matters is by raising awareness and
reducing suspicion and racist attitudes. The Union of
Journalists in Finland has suggested that the IFJ should
reach out to journalists from all cultures and traditions
to promote professional solidarity and organise a global
conference or regional events on these issues.
Germany
The coverage in Germany of 11 September was uniform and, like most countries, provided continual repetition of the incidents with pictures from CNN used
by German private channels. According to some newspapers, the incidents brought journalism and the public
closer because the very surprise and shock of the terror
attacks did not require additional sensational reporting. It was one of those few events that speaks for itself.
Pictures and information about the attacks have been
distributed and exchanged between media without the
usual fierce competition and dealing between news outlets.
The public service broadcaster, ARD, had the largest
audience followed by private RTL network and then
ZDF, the second public broadcaster, although there was
little between them all in terms of content. As in many
other countries, advertisements were taboo in the first
hours. In the immediate aftermath, the power of images was felt in the sudden gulf of understanding that
appeared between Western perspectives and those of
So far there have been no official anti-terrorist measures

that affect media. Laws are very general safety laws:
fingerprints for foreigners, analysis of bank-accounts,
restriction on freedom of association for religious beliefs, more possibilities for German justice to investigate
in foreign countries.
The President of the German Federation of Journalists
(DJV), speaking in 20018, said that there was not enough
background information and analysis in the media (about
fundamentalism and terrorism before the attacks). He also
criticised the use of pictures from Palestine of celebration; this was emotional and very local and did not reflect the entire Arab world in general. He said the fact
that some channels had exactly the same programme
shows how the private sector is concentrated.
Great Britain
As in many other countries, the coverage of the 11 September events was saturation. In terms of intolerance
covering ethnic/religious differences, the U.K. press has
not performed badly. There have been riots in some
British cities in recent times between white racist youth
and particularly Asian Muslim youth, and there is a real
fear of ethnic conflict that has forced government and
press to pull back from racist coverage.
The National Unions of Journalist (NUJ) reports that
U.K. media follow the government slavishly in such times.
Television, especially the BBC, is even more loyal than
the papers. The BBC goes straight into Ministry of
Information mode, says the NUJ, imagining at some
level of its collective consciousness that it is holding the
nation together in the face of a Nazi invasion.9
The government has been assiduous in cultivating ethnic and religious minorities, especially Muslims. The
Prime Minister has held meetings with Muslim leaders
and the message we are at war with terrorism not
Islam - has been widely covered. There have not, says
the NUJ, been anything like the level of assaults and
harassment of Asians in the U.K. that there has been in
the U.S. - but perhaps it is just not being reported. But
there is another kind of intolerance that of dissent.
The media hardly cover the anti-war movement (which
might be small but is at least of interest) and are full of
unpleasant articles attacking anyone who questions the
U.S., often in violently abusive terms.
The NUJ reports a general clampdown on civil liberties,
though not specifically targeted at freedom of expression. Measures introduced by the government include
speeding up extradition, tightening restrictions on granting asylum, removing the right to jury trial in some cases
(though this was being done anyway), steps against
money-laundering the clandestine movement of money
by people suspected of terrorism and acceptance
of the Euro-warrant. A new crime of incitement to religious hatred is to be introduced.
It is an offence already for a journalist (like anyone else)
to fail to tell police of any activity by organisations
deemed to be terrorist. There is a list of such organisations, although some are not terrorist groups (for instance, liberation organisations of Kurds, Tamils, etc).
Though nobody questions steps to prevent terrorism,
there is concern about the application of anti-terrorist
laws, which do affect journalists. This anxiety is vividly
illustrated by the protest and criticism of civil liberty
groups that greeted the U.K. governments Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which passed into
law in December 2001. It went through Parliament very
quickly, as such measures, introduced in a panic induced
by government propaganda, usually do.
For the first time in peacetime, the government has taken
power to imprison people without trial. The power applies to foreign citizens seeking asylum or otherwise trying to stay in the U.K., against whom there is a suspicion
of terrorist activities or sympathy. It suspends the traditional right of habeas corpus.
To be able to enact this law the government had to declare a state of national emergency in order to derogate from Article 5 of the European Human Rights
Convention. The convention had only been incorporated into British law a year earlier in the 1999 Human
Rights Act. For some people this process demonstrated
the hollowness of the U.K.s hysterical reaction to the
imagined threat of terrorism. There has been no critical
media coverage at all of the declaration of the state of
emergency, even though it was patently absurd and there
was and is no national emergency. There has been no
terrorist activity in the U.K. since 11 September, despite
a number of well-publicised official announcements that
attacks were imminent.
But the Act is not entirely novel, being merely an extension of a process that U.K. governments (there is no
difference between the main parties) have been following for a long time. The Terrorism Act 2000, enacted
before the New York atrocity, contained repressive measures that could specifically be used against journalists. It
established a list of terrorist organisations and an offence of failing to notify police of any of their activities.
So any journalist in contact with one of these organisa-
23
the Arab world as media showed people celebrating the

attacks: as one commentator put it, years of efforts
toward mutual comprehension have been destroyed in
one day.
tions who does not tell police everything he or she knows

could be imprisoned. There are about 25 of these organisations. Some have been defunct for years but others are quite well known liberation groups in the U.K.,
with whom journalists work regularly. We must point
out that these powers have not yet been used against
any journalists. Perhaps the main intention is deterrent.
CHAPTER 1
24
As everywhere, the media tend to follow the general

political direction of government, and both were already
very pro-American. After 11 September this tendency
overrode everything else. Reporting of the war aims of
the coalition was uncritical and for a month or two dissenting voices were bitterly attacked. The problem has
been the lack of questioning of the consensus, and not
so much regarding reactions to events in the U.S. as regarding Britains own military role. The BBC in particular has given completely uncritical coverage.
However, it must be stated that there has been some
excellent coverage, and not just in the obvious paper, the
Guardian, the leading liberal paper. In particular the Daily
Mirror, the second highest circulating national paper,
which had been totally Blairite, converted itself to a
critical position in March 2002 and has run some critical
coverage, which has been widely welcomed among journalists. The Nation Unions of Journalists adopted a series six of resolutions in a special debate on the War
against Terror at its Annual Delegate Meeting (ADM)
in March 2002.
Greece
The Journalists Union of Athens Daily Newspapers,
the largest journalists group in Greece, reports that some
media have tried to cash in on the heightened atmosphere of uncertainty and deep public concern. When
the military campaign started and reports of fear and
panic came from the United States, some newspapers
and television channels attempted to increase their audience share and advertising profits at the expense of professional standards, according to a statement from the
Unions executive board.10
An extreme example of this was the action of the television channel Tempo, which has been investigated by the
board for allegedly fabricating a report said to have come
directly from Afghanistan and which the channel claimed
as a world exclusive. The board also condemned the
bias of the reporting.
Although there have been concerns over self-censorship and the counter-terrorism campaign that may lead
to measures limiting individual freedom, no precise pro-
posals have yet been made. The union has issued a strong
appeal to journalists to ensure that their reporting is professional and has encouraged the IFJ to lead an international campaign for tolerance and quality in journalism.
Hong Kong, China

The Hong Kong Journalists Association reports that the
government published a bill targeting terrorist organisations and financing on 12 April 2002. The Hong Kong
government says it is adopting a minimalist approach to
the issue, and has refrained from increasing surveillance
and detention powers. On preliminary reading, the bill
does not appear to be as draconian as feared by many
observers.
Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities in Beijing have used
the war on terrorism to seek international backing for
their campaign against Muslim groups seeking independence in the North west of the country. The record of
the mainland government in continuing to apply pressure on press freedom advocates, Internet users and its
denial of meaningful freedom of expression remain, irrespective of 11 September, of great concern to journalists and human rights groups in the region.
Hungary
Hungary, a new NATO member, supported President
Bushs call for steps to be taken in order to avoid terrorist attacks like those against WTC and the Pentagon. No
special regulations were enforced concerning the activities of the Press, but Parliament adopted a complex
motion, which amended statutory provisions to make
money laundering difficult.
From 1 January 2002. anonymous accounts were banned,
cash flow was limited, banks were compelled to report
to the Hungarian authorities all transfers of monies over
and above HUF 2 million (8,000 Euros approx.), and
account holders are being asked seemingly inappropriate questions if they have accounts with unclear origins.
Those questions are so personal (level of education,
possession of real estate etc.) that they tend to cross the
borders of civil liberties but, on the whole, policies and
regulations regarding civil liberties as such or freedom
of the press remained unchanged.
Within Hungary there has been an extensive debate on
the events and their roots. The catastrophe was very
widely reported, including a continuous commentary in
the public radio. Bitter arguments developed over who
was responsible. Istvn Csurka, a former playwright tender of Hungarys extreme right-wing party MIP (the
party lost all its parliamentary positions in the first round
of the elections on 7 April), said that what happened
India
Since India has a long history of facing terrorist threats
and acts, as they are perceived, in Kashmir and other
parts of the country, there is a general climate of understanding over the need for counter terrorism in the country, but journalists have joined a wide-ranging coalition
of groups that have protested strongly over recent
changes to law that threaten civil liberties.
The National Union of Journalists (India) and the Indian Journalists Union report that, by and large, media
coverage of attacks on New York and Washington was
professional and unbiased although a section of the
media did try to focus attention on Islamic fundamentalism presumably with a view to equate the terrorist
attacks on the U.S. with terrorism in India. However, to
many the global campaign has begun to appear as a
selective and brutal military campaign to secure the global strategic interests of the West, particularly the U.S.
and Britain. Media can play a major role in trying to ensure that the focus of the campaign remains on terrorism and diplomatic ways to resolve the problems responsible for the growth of terrorism.
In response to heightened national security concerns,
and as relations with Pakistan deteriorate and violence
in Kashmir and elsewhere escalates, the Indian government introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance
(POTO), a modified version of the now-lapsed Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA)
of 1985, which facilitated the torture and arbitrary detention of minority groups and political opponents.
POTO was signed into law by the president on 24 October 2001 to remain in effect for six weeks. It was introduced as a bill during Indias winter session of parliament and was passed on 27 March 2002.
Under TADA, tens of thousands of politically motivated detentions, torture, and other human rights violations were committed against Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, trade
union activists, and political opponents in the late 1980s
and early 1990s. In the face of mounting opposition to
the act, Indias government acknowledged these abuses
and consequently let TADA lapse in 1995. Civil rights
groups, journalists, opposition parties, minority rights
groups, and Indias National Human Rights Commis-
sion unequivocally condemned POTO. Now enacted,

the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) sets forth a
broad definition of terrorism that includes acts of violence or disruption of essential services carried out with
intent to threaten the unity and integrity of India or to
strike terror in any part of the people.
Since it was first introduced, the government has added
some additional safeguards to protect due process rights,
but POTAs critics stress that the safeguards do not go
far enough and that existing laws are sufficient to deal
with the threat of terrorism. Shortly after POTA was
approved by parliament, Richard Boucher, speaking for
the United States, declared that the bill was within constitutional bounds and India had strengthened its legal
system to combat terrorism in a manner consistent with
democratic principles.
However, critics say that sentencing a journalist to imprisonment because he is suspected of not transmitting
information about a terrorist to the authorities is contrary to Indias commitment to press freedom. Indian
journalists warn that the law may lead to more self-censorship in the coverage of separatist movements. Some
sensitive issues may, therefore, completely disappear
from the media.
In some Indian states, such as Kashmir, Assam or
Manipur, the new law will likely make journalists investigative work impossible. Reporters will be caught in the
crossfire between separatists, designated as terrorists
by the authorities, and the security forces. The Indian
Journalists Union says the community of journalists will
remain vigilant and will campaign vigorously to protect
journalists interests and are confident of getting wide
support from the democratic forces in the county against
measures directed against reporters.
Ireland
The national mood of sympathy and support for the
victims of the 11 September attacks reflects the strong
ties between the United States and the Republic of Ireland. One incident that underlined this relationship and
led to a media controversy was the decision of the Irish
Government to declare a National Day of Mourning.
The Irish Times, one of the countrys leading newspapers,
decided not to publish on the National Day of Mourning, describing non-publication as being in keeping with
the national mourning. However, this caused outrage
within the papers editorial committee and was opposed
by the National Union of Journalists office branch. Journalists complained that the decision was taken only for
commercial and operational reasons few newspaper
shops were open. Journalists (including senior editorial
25
was sad but when it comes to responsibility, America

comes in not only as a victim but, indirectly, motivated
the attacks itself. Lively polemics followed, with valuable
contributions in the daily Npszabadsg, the widest circulation Hungarian daily, and two weeklies, let s Irodalom
(Life and Literature), and 168 ra. At the same time
Hungarians took to the web to air their views, opening a
new chapter for quality e-journalism.
personnel) felt it would have been better to give the paper out free. There has been saturation coverage, much
of it repetitive, with a strong reliance on Sky News and
CNN, especially in the early stages. Outstanding coverage was provided by Conor O Clery, The Irish Times, who
provided on-site commentary from the Twin Towers in
New York. Many sections of media gave coverage to
the reaction of the Muslim community, and to explaining Islamic culture.
CHAPTER 1
26
It must be said that The Irish Times and the State broadcasting service, RTE, along with independent commercial station Today FM have provided a platform for some
critical voices, notably Robert Fisk, (The Irish Independent/RTE). Independent News and Media Groups Sunday Independent stands out as the only newspaper which
has been intolerant not of ethnic or religious minorities but of media commentators who have challenged
or questioned the American response or, indeed, Irish
government policy. Outside commentators included
former U.S. Diplomat George Dempsey who claimed
that the Irish medias anti-American stance meant that
Irish media should share blame for the events of 11
September. He was especially critical of Fintan OToole,
who was targeted by the Sunday Independent as a hate figure alongside Fisk.
An issue of concern is the decision of Independent News
and Media, the largest media group in the country, not
to send journalists abroad, relying instead on U.K. and
U.S. media outlets. The anti-union station, TV3 also decided not to send reporters abroad. No specific national
measures have been considered which would limit media freedom arising from this attack.
raeli response to Palestinian attacks during 2002 has been

to continually make the link with the war on terror
with its actions against the Palestinian Intifada. There have
been accusations that the Palestinians have been
harboring terrorist groups such as Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan, Hizbullah and others in Syrian controlled
Lebanon, and sundry other terror organizations based
in such capitals as Damascus, Baghdad, and Khartoum.
Israel alleges that these states and terror organizations
together constitute a terror network whose constituent
parts support each other operationally as well as politically.
Although Palestinians sought to distance themselves
from militants by limiting press freedom in one case
television stations were warned by the Palestinian Authority in the days after 11 September not to broadcast
film of Palestinians apparently celebrating the attacks
on the U.S. persistent comment from the Israeli leadership has been to link Yasser Arafat with Osama bin
Laden and the Palestinian cause with Al-Qaeda. Former
Prime Minister Ehud Barak told CNN on 12 September 2001 that the terror attacks on the U.S. were the
result of continuous incitement by Chairman Arafat
and his media.11 The response of Israeli media, once
known for their critical edge, has been to marginalize
opposition to the official line, broadcasting almost solely
those views conforming to the governments position.12
Japan
Israel
In Japan, the 11 September events led to co-ordinated

and extensive coverage by all networks and, as a result,
public opinion was supportive of American military action in retaliation. There was little public debate about
the consequences of military retaliation. Opposing views
were difficult to express. For instance, a Japanese Diet
member who belonged to an Opposition party stated
controversially on her website that she thought Americas mistaken foreign policies were to blame for the assault, which would explain why some countries would
welcome the news. She had to apologise. Gathering information about U.S. military bases was strictly restricted
and it was almost two weeks after the initial attack before Japanese television and press began covering objections to Americas military actions.13
Israel responded immediately to the attacks of 11 September by declaring its full support for the War on Terror launched by the United States and by linking the
attacks to the conflict in Palestine. Speaking before the
United States Congress on 20 September, former Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the international terrorist network is based in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, on Taliban
Afghanistan, Yasser Arafats Palestinian authority, and
several other Arab regimes such as the Sudan. The Is-
Because the Constitution of Japan, framed after World

War Two, prohibits sending the army abroad, temporary legislation is necessary to cooperate with Americas
military action. However, in the atmosphere of unconditional support for the U.S., opinions of those opposing the Self-Defense Force abroad were criticised or ridiculed by right leaning press. Journalists had to be very
courageous to write reports that questioned Americas
retaliation by armed forces. There was no backlash against
The issue of terrorism and media was brought home to

all journalists in Ireland with the assassination of investigative journalist Martin OHagan on 28 September by
Protestant terrorists. His killing was the first targeted
death of a journalist in 30 years of conflict in the region.
Media outlets need to be specific in informing readers/
viewers of limitations placed on coverage. Journalists
need to be warned against reliance on Government agencies and vested interests.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumis cabinet submitted

to the Diet a set of three bills to govern Japans response
to a foreign military attack on 17 April 2002. One of
them, covering self-defence, will apply to the case that
Japan is attacked or likely to be attacked by foreign countries.
Under the bill, the Self-Defense Forces can build military bases and they can use arms. The government has
authorization to request citizens to cooperate with the
government, and to restrain their rights. As for the media, NHK, the public broadcasting, is assigned to cooperate with the government. The bill offers basic policies
only. Specific items, such as restrictions on rights of citizens, NHKs role, and countermeasures to terrorism,
will be laid before the Diet in two years.
The bill was presented in answer to the trend of public
opinion that needed emergency legislation on protecting the country. Japanese have become conscious of the
importance of crisis management after the attack on the
United States and aggravation of relations between Japan and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
The Constitution stipulates that Japan renounces war
and the use of force, so, in case of being attacked by
foreign countries, Japan will need a law to handle the
situation. Countermeasures had been discussed, but no
bill had been presented because many people had objected to them. Though presented, the bill will not pass
the Diet easily, because deep antipathy still exists among
the citizens. They claim that laws that allow the use of
the force are undesirable because they will threaten Asian
countries, and the governments request for cooperation will lay an embargo upon free speech of the press.
In another development, bills have been put before the
Diet on the Protection of human rights and Protection of privacy. They could limit the ability of the press
to investigate and publish material about corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. The three journalists unions affiliated to the IFJ have declared their opposition to these
bills. In addition, another draft bill is being prepared that
protects young people from bad influences of the
media. Public sympathy for media opposition to these
laws is limited.
dom, there is evidence that the Jordanian government is

taking advantage of the instability and anti-terrorism
campaign to adopt restrictive measures against the press.
In October 2001 Jordan amended by decree its penal
code and press law in order, said Prime Minister Ali Abul
Ragheb, to cover all the needs that we are confronting
now. The amendments allowed the government to close
down any publications deemed to have published false
or libelous information that can undermine national unity
or the countrys reputation, and prescribed prison terms
for publicizing in the media or on the Internet pictures
that undermine the kings dignity or information tarnishing the reputation of the royal family.
The new amendments apparently provided the basis for
the 13 January arrest of Fahd al-Rimawi, editor of AlMajd weekly, for articles criticizing Abul Raghebs government and predicting, accurately as it turned out, that
the King intended to replace his cabinet. Rimawi was
released on bail on 16 January. If convicted Rimawi could
face jail terms of up to three years as well as sizeable
fines. According to information collected by press freedom groups14, restrictive measures were adopted against
the press, as part of the anti-terrorist campaign, on 9
October 2001. Our penal code does not cover all the
current needs and amendments will be introduced in
order to deal with these issues, meaning how to deal
with terrorist acts and punish them, said Prime Minister Ali Abou Ragheb.
The measures provide for the temporary or permanent closure of newspapers in case they publish news
that is defamatory, false, harmful to national unity or
the states reputation, or incitement to strike, hold illegal
public meetings or disturb public order. At the same
time, sentences for insulting the royal couple and the
crown prince are being reinforced. These offences are
now punishable by sentences ranging from one to three
years in jail. Previously, the penalty was limited to a fine.
The 1999 amendments to the penal code put an end to
the penalty of closing newspapers in Jordan.
Mexico
Jordan
The Mexican press depends increasingly on information supplied by North American media, especially when
speaking of international events, so the coverage of the
events of 11 September was dominated by reports from
Mexican correspondents in the U.S. and the news received from the international, and mainly North American, networks. The information was uniform, impartial
and straightforward with little analysis.
Although in recent years Jordan has been considered to

be one of the Arab countries with the most press free-
It is useful to note that the main national television networks did not broadcast either the images of the im-
27
Islamic civilians. Some editors and journalists say it was

not easy to express their opinions, particularly those who
do not agree with sending the Japanese Self-Defense
Force abroad and Americas retaliatory measures.
pacts of the planes against the towers or Bin Ladens

famous videotaped press statement. However, some intolerance vis--vis Muslim people was evident and the
authorities took action to protect their interests. At least
18 Mexican citizens died during the attacks and the Mexican government has not reacted with any new laws to
counter terrorism. However, in the coming months,
President Fox will send to the Congress a proposal on
the right to information, which does not exist for the
moment in Mexico. It is not yet clear whether this new
law will contain elements that may curtail the freedom
of journalists.
28
surance for journalists going on dangerous missions. In

addition, the NVJ is very concerned about the control
of information at official level that makes journalists
work difficult. The importance of access to information in times of uncertainty is critically important. The
actions of the European Union to restrict free access to
information, highlighted by the intervention of the
Council of Ministers last year the infamous Solana
summertime coup when rules on access to official
information were virtually changed overnight on security grounds and were later endorsed by the Parliament,
indicate just how important this matter is at times of
heightened international tension.
CHAPTER 1
The Netherlands
Nigeria
Dutch media maintained a central focus on the attack
for days with news about the attack, extra bulletins and
specials on radio and television. The work of print media, radio, and television was complementary. Moreover,
both Internet sites of the NVJ have since the attack been
visited daily in abnormally high numbers.15 Villamedia
had on 11 September, within two hours, a separate page
and links with information for journalists on the attack.
There have been a high number of attacks on Muslims,
reports the Dutch Journalists Association, which has provoked a great deal of open debate. The NVJ itself has
organised with the assistance of some of the ministries
some very well attended debates through its working
group on Migrants and the Media. The core discussion
concerns the attitude of the media on the 11 September
attacks and the relationship with migrant communities.
Journalists have stressed the need to maintain professionalism and have warned that journalism dedicated to
only good intentions can result in bad practice. NVJ representatives, editors-in chief and editors maintain the
line that all news needs to be reported even when difficult for minority groups or ethnic groups. Each newspaper or broadcaster adopts a degree of extra carefulness or sensitivity according to their perspective, but
everyone maintains the view that news is the priority
and sensitivity concerning conflicting emotions in society comes second.
The NVJ notes that the presence of the working group
on Migrants and the Media (established in 1984 following the example of the NUJ, U.K. & Ireland) now fulfils
a special role. The working group, with an annual turnover in projects of 120,000 Euros, is also recognised by
the authorities as an independent organisation dealing
with the problems associated with the media and the
changing multi-cultural society. In cooperation with the
Ministry of Defence, the NVJ organised an extra information/training day for journalists going to Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. The NVJ, together with
the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, has a good risk in-
The events of 11 September and the subsequent military action have heightened on-going tensions between
Muslim and Christian communities and precipitated an
urgent response on the part of journalists and media
people.
The country is already grappling with a wave of ethnic
and religious bloodshed in which well over 2,000 people
have died following the introduction of strict Islamic
sharia law in parts of predominantly Muslim northern
Nigeria, despite opposition from non-Muslims. This crisis appears to have only compounded the historic ethnic
and regional rivalries, which are blamed for the devastating civil war in the late 1960s in which more than a million people died. Major confrontations have centred on
Kano, the biggest city in northern Nigeria where, according to community leaders, more than 200 died after
a weekend of violence on 13 and 14 October during
Muslim protests against U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan.
In the immediate aftermath of the 11 September events,
a major meeting was held between journalists, editors
and media experts on Media and Terrorism Lessons of the
American Attack, organised by the International Press
Center (IPC), Lagos, on 25 September 2001. The meeting, supported by the International Federation of Journalists, analysed media coverage of the recent terrorist
attack in the United States in Nigeria and worldwide.
The meeting considered the media had been fair, balanced and objective in their post-attack reports.
However, there is widespread concern over reports
tainted with religious and race bias thus violating the
principles of ethics and professionalism. There was a
strong feeling that the Nigerian media had devoted too
much attention to the American incident to the detriment of conflicts at home, for example the Jos, Plateau
State, killings, a major national incident that was equally
deserving of attention. At the end of the exhaustive presentations and discussions, it was agreed that:
< The media should condemn terrorism but must refrain from portraying or labelling any particular religion as terrorist. They should also highlight identified likely causes of terrorism with a view to removing them.
The meeting also agreed that in reporting the attack or
any other major crisis, journalists should abide by their
ethics and code of conduct through:
< Eschewing propaganda;
< Not embellishing facts;
< Presenting different sides to the issues to enable the
reader or audience to arrive at a balanced conclusion;
< Avoid being manipulated by politicians and policymakers.
These principles can only be meaningful if journalists
continuously remind themselves of the fundamentals
of the profession.
Norway
Media coverage of the 11 September attacks was extensive and, although no specific problems of intolerant
journalism are reported, a debate has taken place among
authors, politicians, journalists and intellectuals on the
use of symbols and words like Christian world, Muslim world, Islamic and other terms in media coverage and political debates. Some politicians now say that
there should be more flexibility and tolerance over when
and where the police may tap phones and tape conversations. There is also a debate in Norway taking place in
the context of an old system of a network between government authorities and military leadership and centrally
placed editors and journalists in Norwegian media. This
network of contacts, which has existed since the Cold
War, is now being openly questioned. The Norwegian
Union has asked the press ethics complaints committee
to give a statement on whether or not such a network is
acceptable as part of the conditions for an independent
and free press. There have been complaints by military
authorities on lack of competence and quality in the
media coverage of issues related to defence, the army
and strategic policy. In this way they want to continue
the sort of network described above.
affected by the fall-out of 11 September. It became a

crucial ally of the United States and its war on the Taliban
in Afghanistan and meanwhile has maintained a form
of military rule that has challenged its commitment to
democratic legitimacy.
The United States regards the Musharraf regime as a
vital player in its campaign against terrorism and is reluctant to challenge the governments democratic failings because the Musharraf has proved effective in capturing Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who fled to Pakistan
from Afghanistan.
This position has given Musharraf the confidence to
announce, in August 2002, changes to the constitution
allowing him to dissolve the elected parliament and appoint military leaders and Supreme Court justices and to
neutralise the impact of elections proposed for October 2002. He extended his stay in office by another five
years.
Musharraf, a military general, seized power in 1999
through a bloodless coup. The United States initially regarded him as a pariah, but this was turned around after
11 September. The countrys media are largely caught
up in the fierce rivalry with India over the disputed Kashmir region with media on both sides being accused of
providing propaganda to suit their own political claims.
Journalists do not have access to high profile court hearings (the case of those accused over the killing of Wall
Street journalist Daniel Pearl is one example).
Few believe that the latest amendments to the constitution will assist the development of a more open and
pluralist media system within the country. Indeed,
Musharraf s constitutional changes hand more power
to the military and they have further united the generals
opponents who say Musharraf s position will be stronger
after the October 10 general elections and still give him
wide-ranging powers under a supposedly more democratic set-up.
Pakistan
Musharraf s leeway to carry out changes in the Constitution, however, has been upheld by the Supreme Court,
which had also given him three years to rule after the
coup and required him to call elections in 2002.
Musharraf s reforms allow him to dismiss an elected
parliament and government, and to appoint and sack
heads of important constitutional offices, powers previously exercised only by the prime minister. In effect, critics
say, the amendments will grant the military, which has
run Pakistans affairs for more than half of its life as an
independent nation, a permanent role over the functioning of a popularly elected government.
Pakistan is one of those countries that has been most
Although Musharraf says the package has been agreed
29
< The media in their further reports must be sensitive

to the diversity social, religious, political, cultural,
language of different peoples in different parts
of the world; and
after consultation, since public consultations were opened

in June, Musharraf has dismissed protests by an assembly of political parties, lawyers groups, rights-based organizations and the intellectuals including journalists, all
of whom declared the changes an attack on the free will
of the people as exercised by their elected representatives.
Palestine
CHAPTER 1
30
The difficulties facing journalists in the Middle East intensified in the period after 11 September. In the weeks
and months that followed the crisis developed into a
profound confrontation as bitter and as tragic as any in
the period since the six-day war in 1967.
On 8 October, in Gaza, police prevented journalists from
covering an anti-American demonstration.16 This was the
latest in a number of press freedom violations in the
Territories under Palestinian authority since the beginning of the international crisis caused by the terrorist
attacks on the United States.
While there is a fear that the Palestinian Authority is
taking advantage of the international medias focus on
the American response to increasingly repress the right
to information, these issues have been dwarfed by the
confrontation in the first months of 2002 in which hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians have been killed. Local
and international media have been prevented from covering the reactions of the Palestinian people to 11 September. That same day, a cameraman with the French
television channel TF1 was arrested for three hours and
at least four journalists were beaten. During this demonstration, which was declared illegal by the police, two
Palestinians were killed. The Palestinian Authority decided to ban, in the territories under its control, interviews of Palestinians on the subject of the attack
launched by the United States in Afghanistan. Since 9
October, access to Gaza is forbidden to foreigners, including foreign journalists. The Palestinian Authority
justified this measure by explaining that it was not able
to secure the safety of foreigners against possible attacks.
On 14 September, the Palestinian police detained five
journalists. They were covering a demonstration in the
Nusseirat refugee camp in memory of the perpetrator
of the 9 September suicide-bomb attack in Nahariya,
Israel. A photographer and an editor from Reuters, an
Associated Press TV cameraman, the correspondent for
the Abu Dhabi satellite television channel and an Agence
France-Presse photographer were released one and a half
hours after the police had seized their tapes and films.
On 18 September, in Bethlehem, Palestinian police announced the implementation of new regulations con-
cerning Palestinian television and radio stations. They

were instructed not to broadcast news items concerning
calls for a general strike, nationalist activities, demonstrations or security news without permission from the
police or national security services.17
During 2002 the confrontation deepened with new Israeli actions to counter suicide bombings. Actions were
taken to derecognise the professional status of Palestinian journalists and widespread allegations were made that
Palestinian media were promoting terrorism. The IFJ
carried a detailed mission to the region in June 2002 which
called for a new Israeli/Palestinian initiative to issue press
cards to journalists.18
Poland
Media coverage was generally fair, quick and accurate.
There were a few incidents of anti-Muslim behaviour
and physical attacks were widely reported and condemned. The general tone of media coverage focused
on the war on terrorism not against the Muslim or
Arab world. The President visited a mosque in Gdansk
to apologise to the Muslim community.
The voices of journalists were heard effectively during
the weeks after 11 September. Ryszard Kapusciuski, the
distinguished reporter and author, launched a debate on
the implications for globalisation, North-south relations
and appealed for solutions to third world underdevelopment and the need to confront widespread problems of
social exclusion, fear and poor health care. On another
level, Oriana Fallacis controversial essay on Christian
and Muslim values published in Gazeta Wyborcza caused
a stir. Some described her remarks about Islam as racist
and hysterical while others said she was right to point
out the problem of discrimination against Christians in
the Muslim world. The Media Ethics Council of journalists, established with the support of the Polish Journalists Association, criticised her views as well as some
racist and xenophobic opinion from a minority of Polish
media.
Apart from some anti-war protests, there have been no
other significant events nor any attempts to draft new
counter terrorism laws that might compromise civil liberties or press freedom.
Qatar
A factor for change in Arab media has been the establishment of Qatars al-Jazeera Satellite Channel, which
has been putting across the views of Osama Bin Laden
and his al-Qaeda network. As the only broadcaster permitted by the Taliban to operate in Kabul, al-Jazeera has
captured worldwide fame with exclusive pictures of
Born five years ago out of the ruins of a failed co-venture between the BBC and Saudi investors, al-Jazeera inherited many BBC-trained journalists left jobless when
repeated Saudi attempts to inhibit reporting of regional
issues forced the BBC to withdraw. The Emir of Qatar
has invested $150 million in re-starting the project. The
station has earned a steady flow of protests from fellow
heads of state who are unused to seeing Arab stations
interviewing Israeli cabinet ministers, and treating openly
issues not normally exposed to the viewing masses. It
has also become Bin Ladens favourite way of getting
his point of view across to the Arab and Muslim people,
over the heads of the sheikhs and presidents whose rule
he detests.
Al-Jazeera has been used by Western leaders, notably by
British Prime Minister Tony Blair to put their point of
view. The channel, which carried a pre-recorded video
of Bin Laden giving a response to the opening of the
military action against Afghanistan, has also come under pressure from outside the region particularly in the
United States.
Press freedom groups report that Qatars emir, Sheikh
Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thaniof, said he was asked by the
U.S. State Department, during a recent visit to Washington, to use his governments influence to soften the reporting stance of al-Jazeera which, said the State Department, has provided air time for experts hostile to the
U.S. Denying the criticism, al-Jazeera stated it gave both
the U.S. and Afghanistan positions equal airtime. We
give equal coverage to both sides and that is our role. We
present both sides, said Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, director general of the television station.
The channels unique access to Bin Laden has, according to media commentators, exposed a paradoxical aspect of the cultural divide, converted by 11 September
into a chasm.19 It is now Western broadcasters who are
under pressure from their governments to restrict access to their airwaves for people deemed enemies of the
state. The Bush administration and the Blair government
have pressed their national networks to exercise caution over use of al-Jazeera material, claiming pictures
may contain coded messages. The networks Kabul
office was destroyed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in
October.
Russia
The Russian mass media as a whole have covered widely
and objectively the events in New York and Washing-
ton, reports the Russian Union of Journalists, as well as

the Russian and international reaction to them. The basic theme has been the hostile methods of terrorism
and an understanding for the need of an international
response.
However, since the 11 September attacks, international
concern for human rights abuses in Chechnya appeared
to wane, although Russian forces in Chechnya have continued to engage in extra judicial executions, arrests, and
extortion of civilians. Since 11 September alone, at least
one person per week has disappeared after being taken
into custody by Russian forces. Western governments
did little to challenge perceptions that it had softened its
criticism of Russian actions in Chechnya to gain Russian support for the war on terrorism. When he visited
Russia last November, NATO secretary-general Lord
Robertson told his Russian host, who had just sided with
the United States in the fight against terrorism, we certainly see the plague of terrorism in Chechnya with different eyes now.
The Russian Union warns that a campaign against terrorism can be used as an excuse for inappropriate restrictions on civil liberties and human rights particularly in the Northern Caucasus where such infringements
are taking place on a daily basis. However, media are
covering these issues far less often than before. Although
there is no direct increase in violations to press freedom
or civil rights beyond Chechnya, statements made by a
growing number of officials in the government as well
as in the parliament show that attempts are underway to
take advantage of the situation in order to toughen controls over the media.20
Saudi Arabia
A Reuters report from Riyadh on 10 October 2002 points
out that, while tradition still rules in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam, in the month since 11 September its newspapers have shown just how far press freedom has advanced since the last big crisis 11 years ago. When Iraq
invaded Kuwait in August 1990, it took several days before some of the kingdoms dailies mentioned the event.
By contrast, U.S. attacks on Afghanistan a sensitive
subject made instant front-page news.
Newspaper editors say the governments handling of
the media began to alter in the mid-1990s, and they now
have an unprecedented degree of freedom. We are enjoying a sort of freedom that we didnt have before,
Mohammed al-Tunisi, editor of the Arabic business daily
al-Eqtisadiah, told Reuters. Nobody tells us anymore
dont publish this. They feel we are responsible for reflecting the interests of our country. Saudi newspapers
are printing stories about previously taboo issues like
31
bombing raids and air defences, as well as more controversially its transmission of taped messages from
the leaders of al-Qaeda.
CHAPTER 1
32
child abuse, mistreatment of domestic servants, and rising unemployment.
European Union to take urgent measures to grant the

free exercise of journalism in the Basque region.
Things have really opened up here nowadays you

cant hide anything, Arab News editor-in-chief Khaled
Al-Maeena told Reuters. As a journalist I feel much more
comfortable. There has been extensive coverage of
the 11 September attacks and of military strikes against
Afghanistan. At the same time, journalists had become
more responsible and the authorities would tolerate criticism provided it was accurate. There is an acceptance
of criticism by government bodies on lots of issues
they might get angry but they take it seriously, al-Tunisi
said.
The events of 11 September led to fresh national initiatives to counter the threat of terrorism, but indiscriminate attacks on civil society continued during 2002 leading in August 2002 to new legislation from the government seeking to ban the political party, Batasuna, that is
close to the terrorist organisation ETA. Although
Batasuna denies any links with ETA, the government alleges that the party is a key part of the armed groups
shadowy network of commandos, fund-raising activities and recruitment operations. Authorities also accuse
Batasuna of fomenting street violence by radical Basque
youth groups through its strong anti-Spanish stances and
its refusal to condemn ETAs attacks. The opposition
Socialists also backed the bill. However, legislators from
parties in the Basque, Catalonian, Galician and other small
regions either abstained or voted against the motion.
These non-violent parties, some of which are in favour
of Basque self-determination, fear they may also be
banned. A judge has ordered that Batasunas activities be
suspended for three years. The party is barred from calling public demonstrations or political rallies or receiving
a share of electoral funds. But elected representatives of
the party will be allowed to serve out their terms in the
75-member Basque regional parliament. The party won
10 percent of the vote in the last Basque regional election in May 2001. The authorities claim ETA has killed
836 people since its first attack in 1968 and injured 2,367
over the course of 3,391 attacks, and also sponsored
3,761 acts of so-called low-level street violence since
1991. One group that has been particularly targeted has
been media.
The main drivers of change in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region have been satellite television and
the Internet. In Saudi Arabia itself, editors believe Crown
Prince Abdullah has been instrumental in easing pressure on the media since he took over the bulk of responsibility from an ailing King Fahd several years ago.
Interior Minister Prince Naif, another key figure, heads
an information council and holds regular off-the-record
briefings with media editors. The doors are opening, but
ministers and the countrys ruling elite still guide cautious moves towards full press freedom.
South Africa
The South Africa Union of Journalists (SAUJ) has criticised the growing harassment of journalists covering
the conflict in Afghanistan and says scores of media
workers from around the world had been arrested, physically attacked and sometimes barred from performing
their professional duties in covering the war.21 SAUJ general secretary, Motsomi Mokhine, said the union was
horrified by the implications of the U.S. State Departments demand that the media exercise caution in using
material from the al-Jazeera TV station, which has been
airing the views of Osama Bin Laden: We believe this
demand is an attack on freedom of expression and might
lead to similar demands being made on journalists by
other sides in the conflict for or against their own interests.
Spain
One country where journalists and media staff were targets of terrorism prior to 11 September was Spain where
the activities of the terrorist separatist group ETA in
the Basque region had been roundly condemned by the
IFJ Congress, meeting in Seoul on 11 to 15 June, 2001.
In the months prior to the Congress, three media workers had been assassinated, several injured persons and
many more had been threatened. The IFJ called on the
political authorities in the Basque region, Spain and the
Sweden
The Swedish Union of Journalists reports some examples of intolerance in reporting, but says this has been
offset by many more examples of serious attempts to
analyse the situation and present a balanced view of
events. Swedish media in general seem to be very aware
of the dangers and as a whole, the coverage can be said
to be professional and objective. Part of the debate taking place also concerns the role of Swedish media and
its quality given the importance of the events after 11
September. There has been no open political discussion
about measures that might compromise press freedom,
although civil liberties have been put under pressure. The
government has made it clear that Sweden is on Americas side in the war on terrorism. So far, the media have
been left alone.
Reporting has been balanced, with sometimes very biased reporting counter-attacked by more debate about
quality in journalism and the role of media and journal-
However, when it comes to civil liberties and the judicial

system, it is a different story. Three Swedish citizens are
on the U.S. list of terrorists and in practice out-lawed
since several months (all their financial assets have been
frozen, including a housing allowance paid to one of
the families). They are accused of helping al-Qaeda financially (by sending money to their relatives in Somalia) but no evidence has been presented. For a long period of time the government was very quiet about this
situation, but apparently the case has been discussed for
some time with American authorities and the three men
involved seem to get some help in proving their innocence. Meanwhile, they survive on money that is illegally
collected among people and the Swedish authorities have
chosen to turn a blind eye to this. The compliance towards the U.S. has been very much criticized and debated by the media. Another Swedish citizen with immigrant background is among those prisoners of war being held at Guantanamo. Again, the government has been
very passive.
Switzerland
The Swiss affiliate of the IFJ, Comedia, reports that as
far as Switzerland is concerned, while no new laws have
been introduced surrounding the war on terrorism
the quality of journalism has been affected. Coverage
of the war was - for the most of it - very close to the
American point of view (with the exception of the Palestinian conflict, where more balanced and critical journalism has been evident). There has been precious little
real investigation of the war on terrorism and events
around it.
This may be due to the difficult working conditions for
journalists covering the war directly from Afghanistan,
but the union says that there is also a widespread lack of
wanting to tell the true story. A real problem for journalists working here in Switzerland - and a theme we as
a union treated and discussed several times over the last
few months concerns the working conditions of our
members. Due to the exceptional circumstances (war
on terrorism, Swissair grounding, attack on the parliament of Zug, etc.), journalists have worked exceptional
times beyond agreed limits and there is little chance to
recoup this extra time worked.
when he highlighted the differences between fighting

for freedom and terrorism and promised to firmly deal
with those elements that plan to destabilise Uganda.
The Suppression of Terrorism Bill, 2001, which imposes
a mandatory death sentence for terrorists and any person who aids, abets, finances or supports terrorism was
tabled before Parliament at the same time.22 The law is
intended to suppress acts of terrorism by imposing tough
sentences for terrorists, their sponsors and supporters.
It gives the High Court extra-territorial jurisdiction to
try any offence relating to terrorism committed within
or outside Uganda. It also seeks to give extra-ordinary
powers to officers engaged in anti-terrorism investigations to carry out surveillance against suspects. These
powers include accessing suspects bank accounts and
intercepting their phone calls, faxes, e-mail and other
communication.
When the Ugandan Parliament finally adopted the bill in
April 2002, it additionally threatened the death penalty
to any journalist publishing materials deemed to support terrorism. The bill has raised major concerns with
the Ugandan Journalists Union and other press freedom
groups in the region.
Ukraine
The Parliament in Kiev has adopted a law On the Fight
Against Terrorism which contains provisions that go
beyond what is necessary to combat terrorism and
amount to a severe restriction on freedom of expression. The law gives State authorities power in the area
of the conduct of a counter-terrorism operation to use
for official purposes means of communication belonging to citizens, state agencies and organisations regardless of their form of ownership. It also permits the
head of the counter-terrorism operation to regulate the
activities of media representatives in the area of conduct of the counter-terrorism operation. Both provisions confer an open-ended power on State authorities
to assume control over media, the only qualifying provision being that the power can only be used during a
counter-terrorism operation.
Uganda
Second, the powers granted to authorities under these

provisions are extremely broad and hence potentially
subject to abuse. International law does recognise that
certain obligations may be imposed on public service
broadcasters to, for example, broadcast public warnings
in times of national emergency. However, the powers
conferred by this Law go far beyond this and are, indeed, unprecedented in their scope, allowing the State in
effect to assume full control over the media.
President Yoweri Museveni set the tone for Ugandas

anti-terrorist actions after 11 September in October 2001
The broad nature of these powers is exacerbated by the

loose definition in Article 3 of terrorist activity, which
33
ists than is usually seen in Swedish media. (In this new

debate and questioning of sources etc. has developed
fresh discussion about quality of reporting about, for
instance, the situation in the Middle East.)
CHAPTER 1
34
would include political demonstrations where some acts

of violence occur. The powers conferred under Article
13, therefore, constitute a serious restriction on the right
to freedom of expression, which cannot be justified, even
in the context of counter-terrorism operations. The IFJ
says they should be removed. In addition, Article 15 of
the law restricts circulation of information if it discloses special methods or tactics used in conducting the
counter-terrorism operation, or that serves as propaganda for or justification of terrorism, or that contains information about staff involved in anti-terrorist
actions. This law inhibits legitimate, and indeed crucial,
public debate and is open to abuse on political grounds,
potentially being used by the authorities to silence political opponents.23
United States of America

The U.S. news media, battered for 25 years by declining
credibility, appear to have regained respect among readers and viewers at least temporarily after the 11 September terrorist attacks. But within days journalists came
under pressure, says the Newspaper Guild-CWA, the
IFJ affiliate representing journalists and newspaper industry staff. Some found themselves expected to become
patriots first, and journalists second.24 At the same
time the Congress has moved rapidly to adopt repressive new immigration and wiretapping laws and other
anti-terrorist measures raising serious concerns about
civil liberties.
Linda Foley, President of the Newspaper Guild-CWA,
reports that journalists and media staff both at the
top and bottom of the media have on the whole
acted responsibly. The unprecedented atrocities of 11
September and the events in the following days, in which
journalists themselves were the targeted victims of attacks, has tested the professionalism of media to the
full, she said. The response of media has been measured with widespread support for the tough measures
enacted by the government, though the civil liberty implications of changes in law raise some understandable
questions.
Despite some early backlash against Arab-Americans
and Islam, much of it an emotional and fearful reflection of anxiety in the wake of 11 September, there has
been a high level of professionalism and racist attitudes
have been largely sidelined, says Linda Foley.
In the first week after the attacks, an unprecedented 89
per cent of the public gave the media a positive rating,
according to the Pew Research Center for the People &
the Press, a Washington-based independent polling firm.
This is a welcome change for many newspapers in particular, where a shift toward scandal, sensationalism and
celebrity-oriented news, combined with reductions in

staff and news space, had exacerbated reader dissatisfaction.
However, when military action began on 7 October 2001
and media sought more access and information than
the Pentagon and the White House were willing to provide, problems emerged. On 10 October the Bush administration called on all news networks to exercise
judgement in broadcasting statements by Bin Laden
and his associates, warning that they may include coded
incitements to violence.
The Newspaper Guild-CWA established a web site to
publicise attacks on the media.25 It has also issued numerous advice and guidance on dealing with the threat
of anthrax following the targeting of media organisations and the death of a Florida-based journalist. A widespread debate on the role of media has emerged with
numerous cases of individual journalists and news staff
victimised for expressing views that do not agree with
the conventional wisdom of the political and military
administration. Journalists have found themselves striving to maintain professionalism in an atmosphere where
popular opinion suggests that in the aftermath of the
attacks on New York and Washington people are all too
willing to give up their essential liberty. A poll was conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post on 13 September in which 92 per cent of respondents said they
would support new laws that would make it easier for
the FBI and other authorities to investigate people they
suspect of involvement in terrorism. Support dropped
only slightly, to 71 per cent, when people were asked
whether they were prepared to give up some of Americans personal liberties and privacy.
In this atmosphere of widespread public anxiety, ArabAmericans have been harassed and attacked. Music has
been censored. In Texas, the FBI shut down Arabic Web
sites prompting, according to Reuters, charges of conducting an anti-Muslim witch hunt. In Baltimore, the
Sun reported that anchors and even a weather forecaster
at one TV station were required to read messages conveying full support for the Bush administrations efforts
against terrorism. When staffers objected, the message
was changed to indicate that it came from station management.
The Bush Administration has several times tried to curb
or control the flow of news. This anti-democratic tendency met resistance, which demonstrated the countrys
solid democratic traditions. But there are anxieties that
the process has encouraged a drift towards increasing
self-censorship among journalists. Media critics of President Bush like Tom Gutting, city editor for the Texas
City Sun, and Dan Guthrie, a columnist for the Grants
In October 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleeza

Rice contacted the five networks to caution them against
running interviews of Osama bin Laden out of fear that
his televised addresses may contain hidden messages for
his followers, inspire his followers and frighten Americans. In another case, syndicated radio host Peter Werbes
talk-radio show was dropped by radio station KOMYAM in Santa Cruz, California, in early October 2001 after questioning U.S. military actions in Afghanistan. On
5 October, 2001, President Bush, citing national security needs, instructed senior members of his government to stop sending certain confidential material to
members of Congress for fear it would be leaked to the
media. A few days earlier, the Washington Post had run a
story saying members of Congress had been told a new
terrorist attack on the United States was very likely. The
president soon withdrew in the face of strong protests
by members of Congress.
On 19 February, the New York Times reported that the
Defence Departments Office of Strategic Influence
(OSI) had proposed planting disinformation in the foreign media. At that time, the government feared foreigners would see the war against terrorism as a war
against Islam. The outcry set off by these revelations
led the White House to order the OSI closed down because, according to defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
the Pentagon does not lie to the American people.
From the first day of the U.S. militarys Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in October 2001, the Pentagon tried to exercise control over the media. The filming
of the war was inhibited by an exclusive government
contract with the firm Space Imaging, preventing the
company from selling, distributing, sharing or providing pictures taken by the Ikonos civilian satellite to the
media, which were thus deprived of pictures of the results of the U.S. bombings taken by this satellite. Ikonos
is the most efficient of the civilian satellites. While the
Pentagon says the agreement is meant to supplement
the governments own satellite images, observers point
out that the agreement means that the news media will
no longer have access to such images and, as a result, are
unable to report on basic aspects of military actions in
Afghanistan. Journalists will not be able to independ-
ently verify Pentagon claims.26 In addition, a dozen media organisations covering the military operations were
prevented several times from doing their work by U.S.
Special Forces troops.
The foreign media were not spared either. On 12 November, U.S. troops bombed and seriously damaged the
Kabul offices of TV station Al-Jazeera. In February this
year, the Pentagon refused to open an enquiry into the
bombing, saying the building was suspected of harbouring Al-Qaeda militants and was, therefore, a military target. This matter was the subject of strong protests by
the IFJ and other press freedom groups. Journalists from
CNN, CBS, The Army Times and others were given permission in January to photograph and film in Kabul the
departure of about 20 prisoners being flown to the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the prisoners were flown out, the journalists were told they could
not use their pictures. A Pentagon spokesman said they
violated international agreements because they were degrading for the prisoners. Several media ignored the
order.
Media were also targets and victims in the rush to legislate against terrorism, a process that has raised the most
serious concerns among those campaigning for civil liberties. The limitations on press freedom imposed by the
government include undermining the confidentiality of
Internet messages. Shortly after the attacks on the World
Trade Center in New York, FBI agents went to the offices of Internet service providers AOL, Earthlink and
Hotmail to install their Carnivore programme on the
servers, to monitor the e-mail of all their customers, in
the hope of finding traces of the attackers on the
Internet. This Internet monitoring was formalised on
24 October when the House of Representatives passed
the Patriot Act, allowing the FBI to install Carnivore on
any Internet service provider, to monitor all e-mail messages and keep track of the web-surfing of people suspected of having contacts with a foreign power. To do
this, the only permission needed is from a special legal
entity whose activities are secret. The measures also included easing the rules surrounding phone tapping. As
well as the invasion of individual privacy, this blank
cheque given to the FBI threatens the confidentiality of
journalists sources.
Encryption technology, which allows Internet users to
code their messages to keep them private, is under attack from the FBIs Magic Lantern programme, a virus
that can be sent to targets by e-mail without their knowledge and which records their keystrokes and thus the
key to the encryption codes. After the press reported
this, the FBI denied it had such a device, but admitted it
was working on one. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced bitter disappointment with
35
Pass Daily Courier in Oregon were fired. In September

2001, the U.S. Department of State asked the Voice of
America, a U.S. government-funded radio network, to
refrain from running an interview with Mullah
Mohammad Omar, leader of Afghanistans ruling Taliban
saying that airing the interview would be providing a
means for terrorists to communicate their messages and
that it was not newsworthy. After staffers protested,
the State Department relented and the interview was
broadcast on 25 September.
the passage of anti-terrorism legislation, which mirrored

closely highly controversial original legislative proposals
the Bush Administration submitted to the House of
Representatives and the Senate. This bill has simply
missed the mark of maximizing security and, at the same
time, minimizing any adverse effects on Americas
freedoms, said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU
Washington National Office. Most Americans do not
recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that would
give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish
dissent.
CHAPTER 1
36
Congress has recent experience in how not to react to a

terrorist attack. A year after the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and
Effective Death Penalty Act, a piece of legislation that
severely curtailed the writ of habeas corpus, making it
far more difficult for convicted criminals even those
awaiting the death penalty to present new evidence
that they had been wrongly convicted. It further allowed
the use of secret evidence in deportation cases against
immigrants. In recent years, a number of proposals to
curtail fundamental freedoms in the name of security
have lurked in back offices in Washington and elsewhere,
waiting for the right time to be sprung upon an unsuspecting public.
The new law adopted by Congress follows closely the
text submitted by Attorney General John Ashcroft as
the so-called Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, or ATA. The
bill was the subject of wide-ranging opposition from a
broad coalition of interest groups ranging from the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic
Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC) to conservative groups such
as Phyllis Schlaflys Eagle Forum and the Gun Owners
of America.
The new Senate legislation goes far beyond any powers
conceivably necessary to fight terrorism in the United
States, said Laura W. Murphy, The long-term impact
on basic freedoms in this legislation cannot be justified.
For immigrants, added Gregory T. Nojeim, Associate
Director of the ACLUs Washington Office, this bill is
a dramatic setback. It is unconscionable to detain immigrants who prove in a court of law that they are not
terrorists and who win their deportation cases.
Other threats lurk. Certain elements in Washington have
been trying for years to ban the use of encryption technology unless the government could be guaranteed a
way to crack the code. There is no evidence the New
York and Washington terrorists used encryption, but
freedom fighters in other parts of the world have used it
to safeguard their communications from tyrants such as
Slobodan Milosevic. When encryption is outlawed, only

outlaws will use encryption.
Many fear that in the desperate search for security, the
right to private speech, to engage in public discussion,
and to do so anonymously will be drastically diminished
and the Bill of Rights substantially weakened.
The ALCU says many of the provisions enhance the
power of the FBI to spy on Americans for intelligence
as opposed to criminal purposes. Other information
sharing provisions direct highly personal information
about Americans into the hands of the CIA and the
Department of Defense, without meaningful restrictions
on how it is used or re-distributed.27 The historical record
makes clear that unchecked trust in the government to
spy on its citizens responsibly is misplaced. The ACLU
points to the introduction of the FBIs infamous and
secret Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO),
created out of fear of growing social dissidence by Director J. Edgar Hoover, which harassed and spied on a
vast number of peaceful social protest groups. The vast
majority of the organisations and individuals targeted
for surveillance were actually avowedly non-violent. One
of the most prominent public figures investigated was
the Rev. Martin Luther King.
In light of the 11 September attacks, says Laura W.
Murphy, the lessons of historical examples of inappropriate and unconstitutional domestic surveillance are all
the more relevant. The current administration would
do well to remember its predecessors breaches of the
public trust, she says. If Congress really wishes to earn
Americas trust, it should ensure that its anti-terrorism
legislation contain all the essential checks and balances
to prevent the political or ideological surveillance of lawabiding citizens.
The threat posed to civil liberties aside, fears over press
freedom and the constitutional protection of the First
Amendment do not so much concern official censorship that is, bans enacted by the government as
self-censorship, a phenomenon that is far more dangerous in an age of media conglomerates than it would
have been in an earlier time.
Zimbabwe
The campaign of the regime of Robert Mugabe against
independent media and professional journalists reached
a rare peak of hysteria and paranoia on 23 November
2001, when a government spokesman announced that
six journalists working for foreign-based media, including both Zimbabweans and non-citizens, who wrote stories on attacks on whites and political violence in Zimbabwe would be treated as terrorists.
Internal critics of the Mugabe regime have increasingly

been subjected to intimidation, harassment, and arrest.
In his remarks, the presidential spokesman also criticized
Zimbabwes independent media for intimidating statecontrolled media, stating that, this kind of media terrorism will not be tolerated.
Ironically, the government has remained subdued as
unknown attackers have firebombed, threatened and attacked the offices of the Daily News, one of the newspapers most critical of the regime. 28
Conclusions and Recommendations

IFJ Executive Committee, meeting in Washington in June 2002,
considered this report and agreed the following statement and reiterated a plan of action agreed at its previous meeting in Stockholm
in October 2001:
If there is a war on terrorism to be won, it will not be on
the back of strategies that promote fear, ignorance and
intolerance. But the actions of governments in North
America and Europe would suggest otherwise. Since 11
September 2001 the democracies of Europe and North
America have been dangerously ambivalent about their
commitment to citizens rights and press freedom. Their
actions have reinforced cynicism in autocratic regimes
about Western commitment to fundamental rights and,
even worse, they have inspired a fresh round of media
oppression in countries that routinely victimise and intimidate journalists.
On this issue, journalists groups and publishers are of
one voice. The World Association of Newspapers Congress in Belgium at the end of May 2002 called on the
international community to reverse the current trend and
said that the United States policies in the wake of 11
September had contributed to the increasing threats to
press freedom.29 Dwelling on the attitude and actions
of the American government, when the world is full of
real villains, might seem unfair, were it not for the immense power and influence that the U.S. wields on the
global stage and the effects its policies and example have
on so many other countries, said the WAN President.
The hardening of American attitudes is certainly the most
symptomatic of the restrictions affecting freedom of
expression after 11 September; and steps taken by the
United States, simply because of that countrys power,
inevitably have consequences for the rest of the world.
The 11 September events in the U.S. have been a profound test of the professionalism of journalists worldwide and, apart from the inevitable banalities and some
bizarre exceptions, coverage appears to have been restrained, intelligent and informed.
However, there have been numerous attempts to manipulate the media message by governments creating
undue pressure on journalists that is potentially damaging to the quality of coverage of the conflict. Journalists
must be free to work without being pressed into service
in defence of governmental definitions of patriotism
or national interest. At the same time there has been
an unprecedented debate about policing, security and
civil liberties. In almost every country, governments and
politicians have been developing anti-terrorist strategies,
which include the possibility of damaging new laws that
37
It is now an open secret that these reporters are not

only distorting the facts but are assisting terrorists who
stand accused in our courts of law of abduction, torture
and murder, by covering up and misrepresenting the
brutal deeds of terrorists, said the presidential spokesman, adding that, As for the correspondents, we would
like them to know that we agree with U.S. President Bush
that anyone who in any way finances, harbors or defends terrorists is himself a terrorist. We, too, will not
make any difference between terrorists and their friends
and supporters.
may threaten existing standards of personal freedom and

press freedom. Journalists should be among the first
to question politicians who make quick-fix promises
in the name of security, particularly when our ability
to collect and store information, to protect sources
of information, to carry out legitimate inquiry, and
to be independent of the policing and security services, are at risk. The IFJ will engage fully in this debate.
CHAPTER 1
38
The evidence of this report alone shows that, among

others, in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, France, Russia and within the European Union,
there is a worrying rush to legislate on new rules on
phone-tapping, police surveillance, encryption technology, detention of migrants, control of the Internet and
freedom of movement. Many believe these new laws
are being drafted and processed too quickly for effective
scrutiny by the public at large or by legislators. The impact on journalists and their work could be far-reaching.
Plan of Action
< The IFJ will launch an international campaign to
publicise useful material and guidelines for journalists and media covering the current crisis in order to
promote better understanding of the issues involved
and the need for professionalism.
< The IFJ will continue to provide useful data on safety
of journalists and health and safety matters and will
promote risk awareness among media unions.
< The IFJ will promote the importance of tolerance
and quality in journalism to counter prejudice and
cultural misunderstanding through a range of initiatives including the launch of five regional prizes for
tolerance in journalism and by reinvigorating the International Media Working Group Against Racism
and Xenophobia (IMRAX).
< The IFJ will promote international solidarity between
journalists from all cultures and traditions in the
current conflict, particularly by reaching out to colleagues from the Arab world and supporting their
efforts to promote professionalism in journalism
against the threat of fundamentalism and governmental interference.
< With this in mind, the IFJ will sponsor international
and regional seminars and conferences on war, terrorism and the role of media with the support of
appropriate international agencies and press freedom agencies.
References
1
For further information, see Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, see http://www.alliance.org.au/
2
http://www.alliance.org.au/
3
Full details from http://www.cjfe.org/
4
Full details of the proposed new laws are available at
http://www.statewatch.org/news/index.html
5
IFJ Press Release, 27 May 2002.
6
Details available from Reporters Sans Frontieres at http://www.rsf.fr/
7
Further information from the Finnish Union of Journalists at
http://www.journalistiliitto.fi/inenglish
8
WEISCHENBERG, S. contact through Deutscher Journalisten
Verband at http://www.djv.de/home.htmlsee
9
Further information from Tim Gopsill at
http://www.gn.apc.org/media/nuj.html
10
Press release October 12, Athens. See http://www.esiea.gr/
11
Israel National News, 12 September 2001.
12
NEVE G., Ben-Gurion University writing for
Inthesetimes.com
13
Further information from IFJ Tokyo Office.
E-mail: ifj-okuda@nifty.com
14
See International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) at
http://www.ifex.org
15
http://www.villamedia.nl/ and http://www.Internetjournalist.nl
16
See International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) at
http://www.ifex.org
17
For full reports on incidents that affected journalists in this period
see www.ifj.org
18
See IFJ Report Deadlines and Danger, www.ifj.org
19
See comment in Opendemocracy.net by David Elstein and James
Curran, 15 October 2001.
20
Details can be obtained from the Moscow-based Glasnost Defence Foundation at http://www.gdf.ru/
21
The SAUJ General Secretary can be contacted at
e-mail: mokhine@sauj.co.za
22
New Vision, 4 October 2001.
23
Information from Article 19, the Centre for Free Expression.
24
More information available from http://www.newsguild.org/
25
www.newsguild.org/2edged.php
26
New York Times, 19 October 2002
27
The full text of the legislation is available at http://www.aclu.org/
28
For more information see www.ifj.org
29
PARKINSON, R 2002. World Association of Newspapers, President, 3 June.
Media
in
Danger
In a windy corner of a large, democratic European country, editors and journalists

are being physically assaulted, several journalists have been killed and many others
have escaped murder attempts. In a highly developed South American country with
a long tradition for democracy and a flourishing cultural life, an atmosphere of
intimidation and fear is making it impossible for editors and journalists to live a
normal life, privately and professionally. I am talking about the Basque region in
Spain and I am talking about Colombia.
CHAPTER 2
When journalists have to begin their day on their hands and knees looking for bombs
under their cars telling their children that they are looking for the cat so as not to
scare them, when steel doors and refined arms and bomb detectors have to be
installed in newspaper offices and printing plants, and when journalists cannot fetch
their children after school or eat in the same restaurant two nights in a row, the media
are in danger. When journalists or their families are threatened because of what they
write, and when other editors and journalists are forced to pay so-called protection
money to stay out of the terrorists sights, the media are in danger. When journalists
have to carry bullet proof vests and run in zigzag in order to escape attacks from
left-wing and right-wing guerrillas, from extreme nationalist groups, and from criminals, the media are in danger.
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum, the
editorial branch of WAN, have decided to establish a series of press freedom activities in those countries where media are indeed in danger. This initiative has been
taken in order to create increased attention to the problem and to work out a new
three-step-strategy, which we at WAN believe will create the most efficient output.
The three-step strategy comprises an initial phase with field and document research,
and missions; a second phase to create attention, including the organising of one or
more high profile conferences in the targeted region or country; and a third phase
with a capacity building programme that caters for both the eminent press freedom
issues and for assisting the media in obtaining true financial independence through
developing their business performance and editorial quality.
Fighting for Press Freedom

There are many press freedom organisations working nationally and internationally.
All of them are important and are contributing to every small progress that is actually made in the field. All of them, at the same time, are also working under difficult
conditions, often under-financed, and sometimes these organisations are threatened
and persecuted just like critical, independent media. All of them need the collaboration of similar organisations in other countries, they need the attention and support
from donor organisations in the field and they need national and international exposure of their work and the problems they are facing. It is one of the aims of Media
in Danger activities to assist in meeting this objective.
Mogens Schmidt*
World Association of
Newspapers and Director,
World Editors Forum
* Mr M. Schmidt is now Director,

Division for Freedom of Expression,
Democracy and Peace, UNESCO, Paris.
It is a perversion of civil conditions for the media, when printing plants and newsrooms have to be fortified and staff and visitors have to undergo security checks
again and again. It is poisoning the professional standards of journalism when fear
for your own life or that of your relatives is influencing your reporting and editorial
decisions. Publishers, editors, press photographers and journalists, all media professionals, work under dangerous conditions in countries where press freedom is not
an established reality. It does not matter whether the threat comes from local or
national authorities, from criminals or from guerrillas and terrorists. What matters is
to assist these media professionals in the best practical way. This is the other objective of Media in Danger activities. The fight for press freedom needs exposure, and
the media professionals fighting for the right to write and tell the full truth about
current issues need the active backing from colleagues from all over the world and
39
from such organisations that have been created to support the quest for freedom of expression. This is another objective of Media in Danger activities.
Business Development and

Press Freedom
CHAPTER 2
40
It is generally accepted that the existence of a free and

independent press is fundamental, indeed a precondition, to the establishment of durable democracy and an
effective market economy. Good government, a mature
system of political alternance and responsible civil society rarely if ever develop in the absence of a strong,
critical and free press. Freedom of the press demands
not only that journalists be able to exercise their profession without restriction. It also requires the existence of
well-managed, economically viable newspaper enterprises, operating within effective infrastructures.
All over the developing world, and in countless countries making the transition to democracy and a market
economy, newspapers with excellent journalists have
failed to accomplish their mission because they have failed
as businesses. In many cases, they have not had a second chance. A brief window of opportunity for democracy has closed behind them. When the socialist regimes
of the Soviet bloc collapsed at the end of the 1980s, the
need to help the rapid creation of an independent press
in these countries, if recognized at all, was barely a footnote in the master-plans drawn up to reconstruct the
economies of the region. A decade later, one could see
that in Russia alone the vast majority of newspapers
outside Moscow remain in the hands of provincial and
local government administrators, with the consequences
one can imagine on their editorial independence, objectivity and willingness or ability to expose corruption and
bad management and, only recently, there are the first
signs of a new development for the press.
If mere survival were ambition enough, one might even
consider the Russian press fortunate in finding politicians avid to retain press control and influence through
subsidies. Most newspapers in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria or the former Soviet
Republics of Central Asia, live either a hand-to-mouth
existence or face imminent danger of bankruptcy, both
of which effectively prevent their development as serious counterweights to the abuse of political power.
In the new development programmes for Afghanistan,
the plans for aid and reconstruction of society do indeed comprise support for media infrastructure and training programmes to make media professionals better journalists and better entrepreneurs. That is an encouraging
sign. Another one is that the new annual report from
the World Bank Institute dedicates a full chapter to the
importance of supporting the business development of

the media to secure a truly independent press.
A capacity-building programme will always be an integrated part of Media in Danger activities. This programme will always comprise practical initiatives to help
protect media professionals, initiatives to enhance monitoring of press freedom violations, initiatives to assist
exiled journalists, initiatives to organise public campaigns
for press freedom and to support jailed journalists, initiatives to fight impunity by providing legal assistance.
It will also comprise training intended to improve the
professional editorial and writing skills of reporters and
training to develop local professional standards. Furthermore, it will also comprise such issues as increasing advertising revenues for newspapers, the establishment of
intelligent Customer Relation Management systems, assistance in creating Internet-based news-services, and
newspaper management training for both the editorial
and the commercial workforce.
Media in Danger Events
Bilbao, the Basque Region of Spain

WAN started its Media in Danger activities in 2001. On
the encouragement of the Spanish newspaper publishers association AEDE, a number of WAN staff and
representatives from the WAN Press Freedom Advisory Committee went in March 2001 on a fact finding
mission to Spain, especially to the Basque region in the
North. A report was written, on the basis of more than
20 interviews with all the media in the region, politicians
representing all parties and other key persons.
After writing the report, WAN organized in collaboration with the Spanish publishers and the media in Bilbao in the Basque region a large conference in September 2001. More than 250 media professionals took part
in this conference. Speakers included journalists and
editors who had been attacked by ETA, a panel of all
the Spanish newspaper publishers who at this Conference for the first time were on a public stage together,
and national and international reporters who talked about
how to work under similar dangerous conditions in countries such as Algeria, Colombia, Indonesia, Israel and
Northern Ireland. The manifest outcome of the Conference was a strong resolution, which is included in this
chapter, condemning terrorism against the media. However, the outcome was certainly also the strengthened
collaboration among Spanish and Basque media which
had not been working strongly together in the fight for
press freedom before and the increased national and international attention to the horrendous terror in a small,
windy corner of Europe.
Future Media in Danger Events
The second Media in Danger Conference took place in

Bogot, Colombia, in March 2002. The conference
brought back to Colombia six media professionals who
had had to flee their country and live in exile. Their testimonies were a strong argument for the reason to continue to fight against the violations of press freedom in
Colombia, whether these violations came from paramilitary groups, guerrillas or drug gangsters. Speakers also
included leading Colombian and South American intellectuals and, again, it was a clear objective of the event
to bring together all of the newspaper publishers to secure a strong collaboration within the press to stand up
against terror. Also in Bogot, the 300 participants carried a strong resolution.
There is unfortunately no doubt that there are still many

countries and regions where the media are in danger.
One of the preconditions for the WAN Media in Danger Programme is the active involvement of a local, significant press institution that will assure the active involvement of all the media publishers in the country or
region. This precondition excludes some countries, where
other means for support must be found. There are, however, still ample possibilities for three-step strategy Media in Danger events in the countries of Central Asia, in
Bangladesh, in Nepal, in Namibia, in Venezuela, in
Moldova, in Ukraine and in Pakistan.
During the second days Capacity Building Workshop,

the participating representatives from the media and from
Colombian press freedom organisations agreed upon a
concrete assistance programme for enhancing press freedom work and collaboration among these organisations
and on providing the Colombian press with stronger
tools for their business development to improve their
independence.
The programme included eight different activities. The
first aimed at enforcing press freedom monitoring
through enhanced cooperation among the main Colombian press freedom organisations. Through better-coordinated activities, it will be ensured that press freedom
monitoring and assistance to threatened journalists and
their families will be improved and better coordinated.
The second is a training and work programme for exiled
Colombian journalists, which will be created with the
support of international donor organisations. Third, a
UNESCO guide for journalists working in conflict areas will be adapted to Colombian conditions and distributed through the Fundacion Antonio Narinho. The
IFJ will open a Solidarity Centre in Bogot to assist
Colombian journalists with practical and legal assistance.
Fifth, the Interamerican Press Association (IAPA) has
committed to make a larger number of training scholarships available for Colombian media professionals, notably for those working in the most dangerous regions
and those already in exile.
Furthermore, the International Media Support (IMS) will
fund a WAN training and consulting programme on Customer Relations Management for the national press in
Colombia and also a WAN training and consultancy programme on advertising sales and other commercial issues for Colombian regional press. Finally, sponsorship
is at present sought for a comprehensive training programme in newspaper management, comprising technological, commercial and editorial issues.
Press Release and Resolution from

the Bilbao Media in Danger Event
Bilbao, Spain, 14 September 2001
More than 200 publishers, journalists and free press advocates from 25 countries, meeting in Bilbao, Spain, on
Friday, condemned without reservation the outrageous and cowardly attacks on the media by Basque
terrorists. In a resolution, they stated that the murders
of press executives and the bombing of media enterprises in Spain were the work of terrorists pursuing the
same fanatical logic as the terrorists who wrought mass
destruction in the United States on Tuesday.
The catastrophe in the United States is evidently perpetrated on quite another scale than the regular acts of
terrorist murder and destruction in Spain, said the closing resolution of the Conference on Terrorism Against
the Media. The roots of this violence and the motives
of the killers are, however, essentially the same and follow a similar fanatical logic: to pursue political ends not
by debate and the free flow of information and ideas,
but by terrorising and eliminating the people, institutions, and guarantors of democratic society, it cautioned.
In a message to the conference, the President of the
European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, said: The Parliament, and myself, consider the fight against terrorism
in Spain a priority of the European Union because terrorism denies the fundamental rights and the democratic
principles on which our Union is founded. She said
that attacking freedom of the press was a priority for
the terrorists because of its fundamental role in developing democracy.
The conference had been planned before the fatal U.S.
attacks to focus on terrorism against the media, particularly in Spains Basque region, where the terrorist organisation ETA has made media and their staff a priority
target for violent attacks. The resolution concluded: In
these tragic days of new and unprecedented terror against
humanity, it is more urgent than ever to stand resolute
41
Media in Danger
Bogota, Colombia
against, and to condemn, every single violation of the

fundamental, democratic principles which govern the
civilised world.
In addition to focusing on the escalation of attacks against
the media in the Basque region, the conference also examined violence against the media in Algeria, Colombia,
Indonesia, Israel and Northern Ireland. The resolution
expressed total solidarity with journalists and media in
the Basque country in their dangerous and courageous
work and called on all political parties to denounce all
forms of violence against the media.
CHAPTER 2
42
The conference was organised by the World Association of Newspapers, the World Editors Forum, the Spanish Newspaper Publishers Association (AEDE), supported by the Federation of Spanish Press Associations
(FAPE). It was hosted by Grupo Correo. It follows a
WAN and World Editors Forum mission to the Basque
Country that found an alarming increase in threats, intimidation, and attacks on media staff made by the radical Basque nationalist terror organisation, ETA and its
supporters. The attacks have made it impossible for journalists there to live normal lives, both privately and professionally.
Press Release and Resolution from

the Bogota Media in Danger Event
Bogota, 11 March 2002
More than 200 publishers, journalists and free press advocates from 15 countries, meeting in Bogot, Colombia on Friday, 22 March 2002 condemn without reservation the outrageous and cowardly attacks on the media
by Colombian criminals and terrorists.
Freedom of expression and the right to be informed are
basic conditions for any society to be defined as democratic. Any threat to these fundamental rights seriously
damages society and endangers democracy. Media professionals working to maintain these principles have the
right to carry out their duties safely and freely without
the risk of being threatened, harassed or attacked.
In Colombia, paramilitary and criminal organisations have
made media and their staff a target for violent attacks.
Thus freedom of expression and of the press is seriously limited by murder, terrorism, kidnapping, pressure,
intimidation, destruction of printing and broadcast facilities, and violence of any kind and impunity for perpetrators.
In order to confront this challenge, the World Association of Newspapers, the World Editors Forum, the Colombian Newspaper Publishers Association, Andiarios,
together with the Inter-American Press Organisation,
UNESCO and the International Media Support Fund

have organised the conference Media in Danger taking
place in Bogot on 22-23 March 2002, gathering more
than 200 media professionals from 15 countries.
The Conference condemns without reservation the outrageous and cowardly attacks on the free press and calls
on the authorities, police and security forces to do everything possible to apprehend the perpetrators. The
Conference underlines the importance of national and
international attention to the plight of the Colombian
press in the face of murders and kidnappings. The Conference urges initiatives to advance efforts to protect
media professionals, including the reinforcement of the
Colombian press freedom organisations.
On behalf of the world newspaper community, we the
participants also express our total solidarity with journalists and media in Colombia in their dangerous and
courageous work and their refusal to be held hostage to
threats and violence. The participants of the Conference strongly encourage all democratic political parties
in Colombia to denounce without reserve all forms of
violence and intimidation of the press and to refrain
from any speech or writing that incites hatred or violence against media.
In a period of unprecedented terror against humanity, it
is more urgent than ever to stand resolute against, and
to condemn, every single violation of the fundamental,
democratic principles, which govern the civilised world.
That has been the aim of this conference.
Terrorist
Attacks of
11 September:
Consequences
for
Freedom of
Expression
CHAPTER 3
Introduction
In the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September, a number of governments around
the world took steps to enact new legislation to enable them to take more effective
measures to combat terrorism worldwide. To a greater or lesser extent, these legislative efforts give the authorities legitimate new powers to address the very real problem of terrorism, a problem which, in the past, appears to have attracted less official
attention, at least in some countries, than one would have expected. At the same
time, however, governments have taken advantage of the climate of fear, in certain
cases verging on hysteria, to give themselves some powers which trench on human
rights. The most obvious, and blatant, examples of this are in relation to the detention, removal and/or trial of suspected terrorists without respect for due process
guarantees that have been established over centuries. However, in some cases, legislative measures have also eroded guarantees of freedom of expression and of information.
More subtle, but no less important, is the impact of 11 September in terms of selfcensorship, both encouraged by the authorities and in response to public attitudes.
This self-censorship has made it difficult openly and critically to discuss issues such
as the root causes of terrorism and how best to address this problem, including an
assessment of the effectiveness and legitimacy of the war in Afghanistan, the terrible events now taking place in Israel and Palestine, and the threat of further military
measures to fight terrorism. It has also made it much more difficult for human
rights advocates to promote what are now unpopular causes, such as the human
rights of those accused of terrorism. This undermines holistic, long-term attempts
to address the problem of terrorism.
A related problem is the enormous international attention currently being devoted
by the international community to the fight against terrorism. While this is not a bad
thing in itself, it has two side effects which are most unfortunate for human rights
advocates. First, given capacity limits for international action, the overwhelming
focus on terrorism diverts attention from human rights issues. Second, some of the
main powers playing an active role in the fight against terrorism, particularly the
United States, have been prepared to overlook human rights abuses to gain allies or
strategic advantage. This makes it significantly more difficult for human rights advocates to effect change.
Freedom of Expression and Combating Terrorism

International bodies and courts have made it very clear that freedom of expression
and information is one of the most important human rights. In its very first session
in 1946 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 59(I) which
states: Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touch-stone
of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.
Toby Mendel
Head
Law Programme,
ARTICLE 19
As this resolution notes, freedom of expression is both fundamentally important in

its own right and also key to the fulfilment of all other rights. It is only in societies
where the free flow of information and ideas is permitted that democracy can flourish. In addition, freedom of expression is essential if violations of human rights are
to be exposed and challenged. The importance of freedom of expression has repeatedly been stressed by both international and national courts.
Efforts to promote greater respect for freedom of expression are crucial to any
long-term strategy to address the problem of terrorism. It is only in the context of
respect for freedom of expression that the root causes of terrorism can be ad-
43
dressed. The three special international mechanisms on

freedom of expression, the UN Special Rapporteur on
Freedom of Opinion and Expression, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and the OAS Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, adopted a
Joint Declaration on 20 November, 2001 stating, among
other things that [We are] of the view that the events
of 11 September, 2001 and their aftermath highlight the
importance of open public debate based on the free
exchange of ideas, and should serve as a catalyst for States
all over the world to bolster guarantees of freedom of
expression.
CHAPTER 3
44
Respect for freedom of expression is essential both in

those countries which are potential targets of terrorism
and in those countries which harbour or generate terrorists. Although there can be no question that the methods employed by terrorists on 11 September were totally illegitimate, it is equally clear that they were motivated by concerns which strike a chord with many people, particularly those living in the poorer regions of the
world. These concerns may be described as pull factors for terrorism. It is short-sighted, indeed futile, to
attempt to address the problem of terrorism without
understanding pull factors and taking steps to address
them. This can only be done through frank, open debate, in a context of respect for freedom of expression
and the free flow of information and ideas.
At the same time, terrorism thrives in repressive environments, where peaceful, democratic means of expressing dissent, and of having ones views heard, are not
available. It also thrives on rumours, distortion and bias;
in other words in places where reliable, accurate information is not freely available. There is, therefore, a clear
association between breeding grounds for terrorism and
lack of respect for human rights, and in particular the
right to freedom of expression, what we might call
push factors. A comprehensive strategy to address
terrorism must, therefore, seek to eliminate push factors, including by enhancing protection for human rights.
Finally, there is a need for more, and better, contact between communities and societies around the world. Over
the longer term, contact, including open communication, is the only way to address problems such as racism,
which has unfortunately flourished since 11 September,
and partisanship, including both anti-Arab sentiment and
demonising the West and the United States.
Official Measures Restricting Freedom

of Expression
Under international law, freedom of expression may be
restricted, but only where the measures taken meet a
strict three-part test. First, the interference must be provided for by law. The European Court of Human Rights
has stated that this requirement will be fulfilled only where

the law is accessible and formulated with sufficient precision to enable the citizen to regulate his conduct. Second, the interference must pursue one of the legitimate
aims listed in the treaty in question. These aims include
public order and national security. Third, the restriction
must be necessary and proportionate to secure the legitimate aim. Addressing terrorism is clearly a legitimate
aim, but where measures have an excessive impact on
freedom of expression, or could be drafted more narrowly and still achieve the aim, they cannot be justified.
In various countries around the world, such as Belarus,
Canada, India, Nepal, the United Kingdom and the
United States, new legislation has been introduced in
the wake of the attacks of 11 September to address the
threat of worldwide terrorism. These laws focus primarily on powers to detain and try suspected terrorists. Of
some notoriety, for example, is the Executive Order issued by President Bush of the United States which provides for the trial of non-citizen international terrorists by military commissions, originally envisaged as
being held in secret. This provides authority for trials of
al-Qaeda suspects at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.
The new rules also have implications for freedom of
expression. An example of a measure restricting freedom of expression is a provision under the USA PATRIOT Act (United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism) allowing the U.S. Secretary of State
to declare persons seeking entry into the U.S. to be inadmissible because they are deemed to have undertaken
advocacy that undermines U.S. anti-terrorist efforts. The
broad terms of this power mean that it can be used
against practically anyone criticising the U.S. administrations approach to combating terror. This may deter legitimate criticism of U.S. policy and/or practice abroad,
for example where journalists are concerned about jeopardising their ability to enter the U.S. It could lead to the
exclusion from the U.S., for example, of a British journalist who opposed Bushs proposed military solution
for Iraq.
The breadth of this power and the fact that it is wielded
by a political actor, the Secretary of State, make it hard
to justify as a restriction on freedom of expression. It
may be contrasted with the general constitutional standard in the U.S., whereby speech may be limited only where
it constitutes incitement to lawless action (mere advocacy of such action is permitted) and where the threat
of lawlessness is imminent. States obviously have the
right to prevent terrorists from entering their borders,
but this is quite different from excluding everyone
deemed to undermine U.S. anti-terrorist efforts.
In other countries, even more draconian steps have been

taken. An anti-terrorism law passed in December 2001
in Belarus imposes a number of wide-ranging restrictions on the media including by granting the authorities
the power to take over media outlets in the area of conduct of an anti-terrorism operation. There is no justification for such an extreme measure, particularly given
that the area in question is undefined and may well include the whole country. The law also imposes broad
content restrictions, for example, on material that serves
to justify terrorism or about staff involved in anti-terrorist activities. There is no requirement in either case
that the material in question pose a risk of harm.
In India, the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance
(POTO), passed on 1 April, 2002 makes it a criminal
offence for journalists to refuse to hand over information which the authorities consider to be of material
assistance in preventing a terrorist attack. This trenches
on the right of journalists to protect confidential sources
and clouds the line between investigative journalists and
the police. The European Court of Human Rights has
held that mandatory source disclosure may be legitimate
only where justified by an overriding requirement in
the public interest. The POTO clearly fails to meet this
standard.
Even more draconian is a new anti-terrorist bill currently
before the Nepalese parliament which would make it a
criminal offence to distribute information about any
individual or groups implicated in terrorist or subversive
activities. If applied, this would make it practically impossible for the media to report on the on-going conflict inside Nepal and would seriously undermine the
publics right to know.
In many instances, law enforcement authorities have been
granted new, broader powers to undertake electronic
surveillance and monitoring, for example, of telephone
or Internet communications. These are powers which
historically have been subjected to serious abuse by the
authorities, and which were subjected to formal limits
only after concerted public action, including exposure
of official abuse. Although communications are most
directly protected as an aspect of the right to privacy, the
threat of excessive official surveillance may also lead to
self-censorship. In the past, courts have often struck

down these powers as offensive to human rights and,
although terrorism has to be addressed, there is little to
suggest that broader surveillance powers are needed for
this task than to combat other kinds of crime.
Authorities in some countries also attempted to rein in
independent reporting relating to Afghanistan, particularly during the first part of the military campaign, before the Taliban were overthrown. This started with U.S.
officials using their influence to try and prevent the Voice
of America, an independent but State-funded broadcaster which remains susceptible to official pressure, from
aring an interview with the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. The station eventually decided to broadcast just a few excerpts from the interview as part of a
larger programme.
On 10 October, national security advisor Condoleezza
Rice held a conference call with major U.S. network
broadcasters, urging them not to broadcast pre-recorded
statements by Osama bin Laden. This was justified by
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer as follows:
At best, Osama bin Ladens messages are propaganda calling on
people to kill Americans. At worst, he could be issuing orders to
his followers to initiate such attacks.
The networks insisted that they were treating the call
simply as friendly advice, and rejected the idea that it
amounted to censorship. The idea that Osama bin Laden
would use American broadcasts to disseminate orders
verges on the ridiculous, given the many other more reliable means at his disposal to achieve this end. Osama
bin Laden and his multi-billion dollar network surely have
more effective ways of spreading their message than
through the U.S. networks. If they wanted to use a broadcaster, which hardly seems the most reliable means of
issuing commands given other options such as the
Internet, Al-Jazeera would be a more likely choice.
Despite this, the networks agreed to review tapes before
airing them, suggesting the conference call did have an
impact on reporting. Britain followed suit a few days
later with Prime Minister Tony Blairs director of communications, Alistair Campbell, summoning broadcasters in the U.K. for a meeting on the same issue. Again,
the broadcasters, including the BBC, insisted they had
not been censored. A joint statement issued afterwards
stated that the broadcasters believed sensible dialogue
with the Government is important during the current
conflict. But we will retain the right to exercise our own
independent, impartial editorial judgement. However,
broadcasting practise in relation to the airing of direct
statements by al-Qaeda did change recognisably after the
meeting.
45
Terrorist Attacks of 11 September: Consequences for Freedom of Expression
The PATRIOT Act also grants the FBI broad powers

to investigate terrorism, including by looking into reading habits and the like of suspects. The Act also prohibits libraries and bookstores from disclosing the fact that
they have been subjected to an investigation. This effectively shields from public view large areas of FBI operations. The prohibition should at least be restricted to
cases where the disclosure would be likely to cause harm
to the investigation.
CHAPTER 3
46
Even more insidious were attempts by U.S. officials to

censor the independent Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite
channel. Al-Jazeera is one of the few independent broadcasting voices in the Middle East and had, even before
11 September, established a good reputation for its open
political reporting. Even before the U.S. attacks in Afghanistan began, on 2 October 2001, the U.S. Embassy
in Qatar issued a formal diplomatic complaint regarding
Al-Jazeeras coverage of the Afghan issue. This was followed a day later by a meeting in Washington between
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Qatari ruler
Sheikh Hamad Khalifa al-Thani, at which the Sheikh
was requested to rein in Al-Jazeeras coverage. It would
appear U.S. officials were irked by Al-Jazeeras frequent
airing of its exclusive December 1998 interview with
Osama bin Laden, and its anti-American and anti-Israeli
position. The latter is a particularly sensitive issue, given
U.S. attempts to secure peace in the region as part of its
coalition-building efforts.
These blatant attempts by U.S. officials to censor AlJazeera were widely criticised, including by several media
freedom groups, such as the U.S.-based Committee to
Protect Journalists and Reporters sans Frontires, based
in France. A New York Times editorial on 11 October,
2001 also decried the censorship and instead called on
U.S. officials to address what they perceived as Al-Jazeeras
bias by providing the station with more information from
a U.S. perspective. Al-Jazeera had in the past complained
that it was unable to secure interviews with U.S. officials.
Secrecy
The past few years have witnessed a significant growth
in openness in countries around the world, and in official recognition that the public has a right to know what
government is doing on their behalf. This is reflected in
the fact that, over the past five years, numerous countries from every region in the world have adopted freedom of information laws giving individuals a right to
access information held by public bodies.
The attacks of 11 September have had an unfortunate
impact on this very positive trend. Openness is often
the first casualty of war, as governments justify secrecy
on the basis of military necessity and the public accepts
this excuse too readily, not being willing, or able, to effectively question it. There is something particularly insidious about this form of secrecy, since it is extremely
difficult to assess independently the need for secrecy in
a conflict situation.
Almost immediately after the 11 September attacks, U.S.
officials were calling for better protection for confidential documents, even though leaks of such documents
had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks. Reports
indicate that in practice it is now more difficult to access

information. A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, for example, decried the rise in secrecy at the White
House, including in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. It goes beyond the issue of
terrorism, however, and in February 2002 a federal judge
ordered the Energy Department to release thousands
of pages of information from Vice President Dick
Cheneys energy task force, criticising the administration
for moving at a glacial pace.
In November 2001, shortly after the beginning of the
hostilities in Afghanistan, the United Kingdom put off
implementation of its Freedom of Information Act,
adopted in November 2000, until at least January 2005.
It had previously been scheduled to come into force in
the summer of 2002. Around the same time, the Canadian authorities amended their Access to Information
Act by allowing the Minister of Justice to issue certificates exempting certain records from disclosure. This
was done despite the fact that studies have indicated that
the Act already provided adequate protection to national
security interests.
There is little doubt that secrecy has also increased in
countries which have not amended their freedom of
information laws, although the precise impact is sometimes hard to assess. A number of countries in Eastern
and Central Europe, including Bulgaria and Romania,
are in the process of adopting secrecy laws as a condition for NATO membership. Although these laws are
not a result of the events of 11 September, there are
concerns that advantage has been taken of the prevailing climate of secrecy in drafting these laws. This is exacerbated by the fact that campaigning for greater openness is undermined by moves towards greater secrecy in
countries like the U.S. and Canada, traditionally strong
proponents of openness.
The three special rapporteurs on freedom of expression expressed concern about these developments in their
Joint Declaration of 20 November 2001, as follows:
Certain governments have, in the aftermath of the events of September 11, adopted measures or taken steps to limit freedom of
expression and curtail the free flow of information; this reaction
plays into the hands of the terrorists.
In most cases, responding to terrorism cannot justify
eroding established guarantees of openness. Freedom
of information laws normally provide for a comprehensive, often excessive, regime of exceptions which already
takes into account every legitimate reason to refuse to
disclose information, including national security. Although terrorism is a unique threat to national security,
it does not require special systemic forms of secrecy. In
Legal measures find their parallel in the sometimes blatant manipulation of military information during the war
by both sides. An interesting example of this was information about the failed U.S. raid of 19 October, 2001
on Afghan territory, which was successfully repulsed by
Taliban forces. For their part, the Taliban reported significant numbers of U.S. fatalities, whereas in fact no
Americans were killed. The U.S. authorities, on the other
hand, claimed the next day that the raid had been a success. General Richard Myers, Chairman of the U.S. Joint
Chiefs of Staff, stated in a press briefing that it had been
conducted without significant interference from Taliban
forces and the authorities even released footage demonstrating this, later revealed to be showcased rather than
the actual event. The U.S. authorities only acknowledged
much later that the raid had led to a number of casualties but continued to obscure the extent and effectiveness of Taliban resistance.
The media had no independent means by which to verify
or assess either sides claims. Western media duly reported
the U.S. claims of success while media in some countries, for example, Pakistan, presented the Taliban claims
of fatalities as accurate. This led to the public either being misled, confused or kept totally in the dark. By the
time the truth did finally emerge, there was enough general confusion that only careful readers would have been
set straight. In any case, by that time the importance and
relevance of the information had significantly declined.
As this example clearly shows, official control over information places the media in a very difficult position.
They have to report on these events, which are of paramount public importance, and yet they have very little
capacity to independently assess military claims.
A related problem is the need for the media to exercise
professional responsibility in light of military claims of
a need for secrecy. This is reflected in the BBC Editorial
Policy Guidelines on reporting on the war which, to their
credit, they made public. The Guidelines recognised both
the need to inform the public and the risk that disseminating information might increase the hazards facing the
armed forces. As a result, the BBC signalled a willingness to withhold information for a while at the request
of the military authorities, as long as satisfactory reasons are given. However, in most cases it will be almost
impossible for the BBC to assess whether or not reasons given are satisfactory. As a result, it has to take claims
of a need for secrecy at face value, giving the military
authorities significant powers over the flow of information.
Problems of Self-Censorship
and Media Bias
The impact of official restrictions on freedom of expression is at least paralleled by the effect media selfcensorship and bias has had on the flow of information
to the public in the aftermath of 11 September. Selfcensorship in this context derives from a number of
factors, including official pressure and underlying public
fear and emotion. Officials and the public at large are
focused on responding, not analysing, and this can create a climate whereby the public simply do not want to
hear anything which does not appear to fully support
the measures being taken. This seriously undermines
public oversight of official action.
In some cases, officials have taken active steps to promote self-censorship. An example of this was the successful attempt by U.S. President Bush and his officials
to promote a climate in which anyone who was not with
the U.S. was seen as supporting the terrorists. This bipartisan attitude of us and them is palpably false in
fact and has the effect of eroding the middle ground,
making it very difficult to criticise the U.S. administrations response to the attacks. Even the name of the
anti-terrorist legislation, the USA PATRIOT Act, was
cleverly designed to stifle dissent.
U.S. officials have also used the us and them tactic
directly to attempt to quell human rights voices. On 7
December 2001, appearing before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stated:
[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost
liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they
erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to Americas enemies, and pause to Americas friends.
They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of
evil.
There is something ironic in this message, inasmuch as
one of the key problems with the terrorists is that they
do not respect liberty and the rule of law and yet Ashcroft
is criticising those who defend liberty. There is further
irony in Ashcrofts concern about silencing people of
goodwill, since that is exactly what he himself is trying
to do.
Public attitudes also have an impact on open discussion
and the free flow of information about the Afghan situation. No doubt partly because of overwhelming public
support for the administrations response to the events
of 11 September, the U.S. media largely abandoned their
47
particular, there is no reason to abandon the rule that all

exceptions to the right to information must be justified
on the basis of a threat of tangible harm to a legitimate
interest and that even where a risk of harm is proved,
the information should still be disclosed where this is in
the overall public interest.
role as watchdog of government, accepting administration claims, failing to challenge assumptions and not
questioning policies. This is reflected, for example, in
CNN coverage of the war in Afghanistan, which used
the banner Strike Against Terror, thereby effectively
precluding any criticism, or even serious analysis, of the
military action.
CHAPTER 3
48
An illustrative example of public pressure on the media

relates to a regular BBC show called Question Time,
hosted by David Dimbleby, aired two days after the terrorist attacks. The show brings together a hand-picked
audience and a number of special guests and, on that
day featured, among others, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Philip Lader. Strong antiAmerican sentiments were voiced by the audience and
Mr. Lader was reportedly reduced to tears. Over 2,000
viewers called in to complain about the programme. The
BBC originally defended the programme but then reversed its position and the Director General, Greg Dyke,
took the unprecedented step of issuing a personal apology, which included the following statement:
[D]espite the best efforts of David Dimbleby and the panel, there
were times in the programme when the tone was not appropriate,
given the terrible events of this week.
The apology was unfortunate. The Bush administration
portrayed the attacks from the very beginning as a war
against America, thereby paving the way for a military
response. Opposition to this, including that voiced on
BBCs Question Time, was effectively being stifled out
of respect for the dead. However, open and frank debate about the attacks was essential, including in the period immediately after they occurred, since this was a
key formative period for peoples views, including about
how to respond to the attacks.
Although the above example took place just two days
after the attacks, the enormity of the tragedy was used
to attempt to stifle criticism long afterwards. A televised
debate in the U.K. in January 2002 concerned the rights
of prisoners accused of supporting al-Qaeda and being
held at Guantanamo Bay. An American lawyer, finding
himself getting the worst of the debate, accused his challenger, a human rights activist, of demeaning the memory
of the victims. Obviously the plight of the victims cannot justify human rights abuse by U.S. authorities, but it
plays on peoples emotions, causing them to lose sight
of the real issue.
Self-censorship and bias also played a role in reporting
in countries where there was significant public opposition to the war. For example, in Pakistan even leading
dailies regularly reported on Taliban claims of success
without much verification, although most ultimately
proved to be false. The example of reporting on the

U.S. raid of 19 October has already been noted. Another example concerns Taliban claims in early November to have shot down a B-52 bomber. This attracted
newspaper attention in Pakistan for several days, even
though the evidence behind the claim was very dubious. In the event, the claim proved to be false. This gave
people in the country a very distorted view of what was
actually happening.
These instances of self-censorship derive primarily from
underlying public fears and biases, rather than media
manipulation. Conflict brings out the worst in people,
and a tendency to interpret events emotionally, rather
than based on a sober assessment of the situation. This
almost naturally leads to a situation of self-censorship,
whereby it becomes difficult to voice unpopular views
and in which the media avoid certain types of controversy for fear of a public backlash.
Unfortunately, the very topics which become taboo are
often matters which society most needs to discuss openly.
It is, for example, of the greatest importance that the
U.S. and Britain have an open, informed public debate
before any decision regarding military action against Iraq
is taken. In practice, however, the opposite seems to be
the case with the leadership taking decisions and trying
to prevent debate.
Promoting Human Rights

A serious implication of the attacks of 11 September
for human rights advocates is the general decline in priority of human rights concerns, including those relating
to freedom of expression. Human rights advocates
around the world are finding it more difficult to promote their causes for a number of reasons. A key problem is that the attention of the international community
is focused on combating terrorism, to the detriment of
promoting human rights. Resources and attention are
limited, and the overwhelming attention given to terrorism naturally undermines efforts in other areas.
A related problem is that key international players, including the U.S. and the U.K., have shown that they are
willing to overlook human rights abuses as a trade-off
for support in the fight against terrorism. A good example of this is Pakistan, where the international community had expressed serious concern about both the development of nuclear military capacity and the military
takeover. These concerns were, however, summarily
brushed aside in exchange for Pakistans support for the
war in Afghanistan.
Finally, as noted above in relation to freedom of information, it is far more difficult for countries which have
Conclusion
Freedom of expression, and of the media, has suffered
in a number of ways since the attacks of 11 September.
Official actors have taken steps which both directly limit
freedom of expression and information and which indirectly have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.
Equally important is the serious climate of media selfcensorship and bias in many countries, which leads to a
denial of the publics right to know.
Restricting human rights in the aftermath of a terrorist
attack somehow represents a victory for the terrorists
who seek to undermine our way of life, including democracy and human rights. Furthermore, restricting freedom of expression is likely to undermine, rather than
enhance, long-term strategies to address the problem
of terrorism. Frank, open debate is essential to counter
both push and pull factors associated with terrorism.
49
promoted human rights to continue to do so when they

themselves have been repudiating long-established rights.
This clearly affects human rights advocates, since it is
difficult to convince governments to improve their human rights records when those governments are aware
that rights are being limited in established democracies.
As the three special rapporteurs on freedom of expression noted in their 20 November 2001 Joint Declaration, We are particularly concerned that recent moves
by some governments to introduce legislation limiting
freedom of expression set a bad precedent.
50
11 September:
Consequences
for Press
Freedom
CHAPTER 4
For journalists, the murder of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan at the start of 2002 was
certainly the most brutal instance of the consequences of 11 September for freedom of expression. That murder, together with the earlier killing of no fewer than
eight journalists in Afghanistan, gives some indication of the dangers that lie in wait
for journalism and threaten freedom of expression; threats posed directly by the
bands of killers, but arising also, and more perniciously, from certain governments
notions of press freedom. Daniel Pearl was not, as President Musharaf of Pakistan
was to declare a few weeks later, being over-intrusive. He was doing his job, and
doing it very well. Like Marc Brunereau, Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud, Volker
Handloik, Azizullah Haidari, Harry Burton, Julio Fuentes, Maria Grazia Cutuli and
Ulf Stromberg, he was where he ought to have been, on the spot, to witness and to
explain. His murder trial, which began in Karachi on 5 April 2002, affords another
example of the restrictions imposed on journalists. The Pakistani authorities refused on security grounds to let the press attend the proceedings.
These murders remind us that States, or at least their official representatives, are not
the only authors of attacks on press freedom, or even necessarily the worst culprits.
Among those who prey on freedom, we increasingly find unofficial agencies, fundamentalist groups, paramilitary gangs, freewheeling secret services and organized
crime. In this twilight war against terrorism, State repression occurs alongside individual crime and on occasion the two mingle inextricably. In this, 11 September was
not a sharp divide. In the course of the last 10 years, the majority of murdered
journalists have been killed by private groups: the Basque separatists of ETA,
armed Islamic groups in Algeria, guerrilleros of the far Left and paramilitaries of
the far Right in Colombia, and rebel raiders in Sierra Leone.
Shock Waves
War has never been good for freedom of expression. Before even truth, the first
casualty of war is, in fact, this freedom: the freedom to investigate and report, the
freedom to publish criticisms and revelations. Yet war can also bring more freedom.
The press enjoys greater freedom in Kabul today than under the Taliban, and is freer
now in Belgrade than before the fall of Milosevic. The shock waves of world events
do not all move the same way, nor do they have the same effects in all places. Hostilities can gag the media, or remove a gag. In Saudi Arabia, the shock of 11 September might even explain the faint stirrings noticed these last few months in a press
that has always toed the regimes line until now. The effects of 11 September on the
world system, notes Critique Internationale, cannot be reduced to a logical and
unambiguous summary; in fact they are opening up as many opportunities as they
are imposing constraints. 1
Jean-Paul Marthoz
Director of Human Rights
Watch, Europe Office
Even though the atrocity of 11 September shook the news-gathering world to the
core and made drastic changes to the circumstances surrounding the exercise of
journalism, it still does not really constitute a complete break in terms of freedom
of expression. Attacks on press independence in Zimbabwe, restrictions imposed
on press coverage of the violence in the Middle East, curtailment of press freedom
in Morocco or Uzbekistan: none of these began only on 12 September, and some
of the laws and regulations enacted after the terrorists flew into the twin towers had
already been in the pipeline long before, such as the French Prevention of Terrorism Act [the Everyday Security Act], the bill for which was first brought before
the National Assembly on 14 March 2001.
Nor should we deceive ourselves, in our assessment of the consequences of 11
September, over our apparent unanimity. True, we all protest against the murder of
journalists, or their imprisonment, or the outrageous amounts they are fined. But
this does not mean we share the same definitions of what it should or should not be
51
permissible to say. The balance of contending rights such

as freedom of expression, non-discriminatory treatment
and the security of the nation or the citizen is not only a
thorny issue between the State and journalists. It is also
a matter on which journalists themselves are divided,
and this debate began well before 11 September.
CHAPTER 4
52
The present war is also, consequently, a test of the universality, the globalization of journalism, of the medias capacity not only to handle global information, but
also to think about the principles and values underlying
their mission to inform. The controversy over the encounter between civilizations, exacerbated by different
interpretations of the terrorist outrage, raises crucial
questions about freedom of expression, its responsibilities, its prospects and its limitations. What is blasphemy
in one place is freedom in another; what is racism here is
free speech there. Censorship may also be exercised in
the cause of morality and respect for others.
On the Defensive
These introductory remarks and caveats do not, however, drain our central theme of its content. Since 11
September, press freedom has not been quite the same.
What we need to know is whether the curtailments of
these liberties are going to be temporary or herald the
end of a historic cycle which began with the upsurge of
freedom as the Berlin Wall crumbled, and was confirmed
on African soil in the Windhoek Declaration. As the
Canadian writer and thinker Michael Ignatieff observed
in a New York Times article,2 the atrocity has put the human rights movement on the defensive, a victim of the
priority now accorded to national security.
muzzled as soon as, against the backdrop of the war

against terrorism, it did not confine itself to relaying the
American line, but gave air time to Bin Laden.
The understanding extended by the United States to
authoritarian governments known for suppression of
free speech is another negative consequence of the fight
against terrorism, recalling the unholy alliances and selective expressions of indignation of Cold War days. The
welcome Washington gave this March to President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan clearly demonstrated this
new indulgence towards allied dictators.3
This is a challenge for all the democratic countries which
have in recent years spoken in favour of press freedom
and supported independent journalists who were being
harassed by authoritarian regimes. There is a danger that
the fight against terrorism may relegate press freedom
to the background, when actually it is one of our best
bulwarks against violence and hatred. The international
community, observed Ann Cooper, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, must continue to make it costly for those countries that do imprison journalists. But there are signs that the political
cost has declined somewhat since the war on terror was
declared; the crackdowns that left 11 in prison in Eritrea
and 17 in Nepal, for example, were carried out swiftly
and with little international outcry. 4
Access to Information
The hardening of American attitudes is certainly the most

symptomatic of the restrictions affecting freedom of
expression after 11 September. Steps taken by the United
States, simply because of that countrys power, inevitably have consequences for the rest of the world. Policies
adopted by the Pentagon for theatres of military operations directly influence the special correspondents of all
countries. And the measures taken for surveillance of
the alleged activities by terrorist groups on the Internet,
that global medium par excellence, affect all Internet users
directly.
In the United States itself, this change of attitude has led

to a questioning of traditional principles concerning information, and in particular of the right to know.5
Thus a number of individual American states, the Departments of Transport and Energy, and federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and the national archives administration, have
(sometimes temporarily) withdrawn information from
their sites which they judged too sensitive, such as the
location of power stations or measures for the prevention of industrial accidents in chemical factories. Moreover, in October, the United States Attorney General, John
Ashcroft, sent a circular to federal agencies requiring them
to exercise extreme caution in their handling of requests
made under the Freedom of Information Act.6
The United States, which in the name of the First

Amendment to the Constitution had made the defence
of free expression one of the cornerstones of its diplomacy and a foundation of its policy of assisting the media
in former Communist countries, has done a brisk aboutturn. This change of mood and policy is illustrated in its
attitude to the Qatar TV station Al-Jezeerah. That station, praised until then as a model of free expression in
the Arab world, suddenly became one that had to be
Nevertheless, it has been on the battlefields of Afghanistan that press restrictions have most got in the way of
journalists work. The rules for war reporting laid down
by the Pentagon have never been so strict, exclaimed
the respected Columbia University Journalism Review.7 On
28 September, on the eve of its Afghanistan campaign,
the Pentagon set out the guidelines for coverage of military operations before the bureau chiefs of the Washington press corps. As during the Gulf War, the United
To boilerplate its arrangements, the Pentagon also

bought the exclusive rights to images from the Ikonos
satellite turned on Afghanistan. One of the purposes
was to prevent the major media companies from spying on its military operations. The information made
public at Donald Rumsfelds briefings at the Pentagon,
or Ari Fleischers at the White House, was likewise designed with a view to keeping everything under control.
Contradictions, obfuscating formulations and corrections made only under duress have given the feeling that
the information was strongly filtered when not downright distorted, was Le Mondes comment.8 As a result,
the initial phases of the war in Afghanistan were conducted with next to no published pictures, except from
the territories controlled by the Northern Alliance. Kept
away by the United States army, the press was also generally shut out from the zones under Taliban control.
Only a few journalists were authorized to cross the
Talibans lines (heavily escorted) to observe the collateral damage (civilian losses) attributed to the American
bombing.
The Internet
Presented as a favourite instrument of terrorism, the
Internet found itself a particular target of the anti-terrorist campaigners. The United States security services
were authorized to use Carnivore (a surveillance system
installed on the main computers of United States-based
ISPs) without requiring a warrant.9 The Libration reported: The FBI will from now on be able to connect
this snooping-machine to an ISPs network and vacuum
up all of an Internet users e-mails and every trace of
Web surfing.10 In a report published in October 2001,
Reporters Sans Frontires said the FBI had demanded,
and got, from those in charge of Hotmail, every detail
of any account whose e-mail address included the word
Allah. All the major ISPs, RSF went on, would appear to have followed Hotmails example and be fully
collaborating with the United States security services.11
RSF also noted (January 2002) that the FBI had got hold
of an application known as Magic Lantern that could be
remotely operated to communicate to the authorities the
whole contents of a target computer.
Some United States corporations have taken measures

on their own initiative which, in the name of security,
effectively limit freedom of expression and the free flow
of information. For instance, Anonymizer.com will not
now take subscribers from countries suspected of harbouring terrorists.12 The Electronic Frontier Foundation
has been keeping a list of sites closed by ISPs on United
States Government instructions (such as iraradio.com),
and of sites that have been closed in part, or cleansed,
by their owners, either because they contained information regarded as sensitive (an example is the website of
the Project on Government Secrecy, run by the Federation of American Scientists), or because they published
articles too hostile to the United States President at a
time of appeals to national unity (for example, the Barbra
Streisand site and that of Planned Parenthood).13
There is also a real danger that technologies for
encryption of electronic transmission of information
may be outlawed. Such a ban might appear sensible as
part of the fight against terrorism, but the danger is that
it may be applied to the communications of perfectly
legitimate organizations (such as the press, or human
rights groups) which need confidentiality if they are to
carry out their mission.
What 11 September in fact did was to accelerate developments already begun by the repercussions in the United
States of the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.
As early as 5 September, before the atrocity, 500 Internet
sites, many of them related to the Arab or Muslim worlds,
had become impossible to access after government intervention in a Texan company, InfoComp.14 Many governments, moreover, had been taking steps to curb the
Net before the atrocity. In China, more than 60 regulations were issued from 1995 onwards to control Internet
content. In many Middle East countries, governments
insisted that servers must be capable of tracing surfers
and establishing the identity of sites consulted. Under
pressure from some governments, certain servers refuse
access to websites which compromise state security or
national morale. This includes sites of organizations
for the defence of human rights. In June 1999, at a particularly acute moment of the Kashmir crisis, India
banned access to the website of the Pakistani daily Dawn.
Windfall Effect
The period following 11 September, and the campaign
launched by the United States, have been marked, in a
number of countries, by urgent reinforcement of antiterrorist laws, regulations and measures of implementation. The report published in March 2002 by the Coalition Information Centre lists with satisfaction the measures taken by coalition member countries, but it is hard
to see which of these initiatives truly and legitimately
53
11 September: Consequences on Press Freedom
States Department of Defense announced that it would

be taking it upon itself to organize pools of journalists
authorized to accompany the operations, and that the
journalists copy would be purged of any information
regarded as sensitive. The Pentagon spokesperson also
gave a warning that the kind of operation envisaged for
Afghanistan, the use of special forces, would necessarily
complicate news gathering, not least by making it harder
for war correspondents to accompany United States
forces.
contribute to the safety of citizens, and which are undue

limitations on free expression.
CHAPTER 4
54
The nature of the regimes which have joined the coalition (formally or informally), gives an initial clue. Some
authoritarian governments have indeed made good use
of the example set by the United States and reinforced
their instruments of repression, not least for justifying
and intensifying their harassment of ethnic, political or
religious minorities that can be depicted as terrorists. This
is what the French review Critique Internationale has called
the windfall effect.15 In particular, such opportunist
reactions have affected the Uighur minority in the
Xinjiang region of China and Muslim dissidents in
Uzbekistan. In India, the government pushed through
an anti-terrorist bill at the end of March 2002 (the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, POTO) which had
been described the previous October by the former
Editor of The Times of India as an encroachment on the
freedom of the press in an unprecedented manner.16
In Zimbabwe, the Information Minister, seeking to justify repression against independent journalists, referred
directly to the measures taken in the West. If the most
celebrated democracies in the world wont allow their
national interests to be tampered with, we will not allow
it, too, exclaimed Jonathan Moyo. RSF was concerned
to note (20 March 2002) that the parliament of Uganda
had adopted a new anti-terrorist law punishing with up
to 10 years imprisonment the publication of information liable to promote terrorism. As for the regimes
which had already been waging a tough fight against Islamic extremist groups, involving curtailment of free
expression, these hastened to claim their vindication, with
praise on occasion from leaders of democratic countries, as when the former Italian Foreign Minister, Renato
Ruggiero, declared: Tunisias example in the fight against
extremism and terrorism could be followed to advantage within the framework of the international struggle
to deal with this scourge.17
Democracies on Edge
Certain democracies have not been slow to follow suit.
Many countries traditionally attached to the protection
of freedom of expression have also adopted measures
that threaten it or gnaw at its edges. In the United States,
hundreds of foreigners have been arrested and held incognito without due process, and special military courts
have been proposed under terms which nullify freedom
of information by denying or restricting the right of the
press to know the charges against those arrested or to
attend the proceedings.
In the European Union, organizations for the defence
of freedom of expression have also become concerned
at the measures envisaged, warning particularly against
the definition of terrorism proposed by the European

Commission on 19 September, as throwing the doors
open to a dangerously vague interpretation that could
prejudice legitimate forms of freedom of opinion.18
They have also had strong reservations about the draft
treaty on computer crime which is currently before the
Council of Europe.19 In France, the Parliaments enactment (October 2001) of the Everyday Security Bill was
vigorously denounced by libertarian Internet-users. The
Act embodies the principle that ISPs must retain users
connection data (their digital traces) for periods of up to
a year, and restricts the use of encryption, which is regarded as the only effective means of ensuring the confidentiality of Internet communications.20
The Australian Government had already raised the hackles of associations for the defence of refugees rights by
using the terrorist menace to justify incarcerating Afghan refugees. Journalists, too, have felt targeted by government measures. The alarm was sounded by Fred
Hilmer, Chairman of the major press group Fairfax, in a
speech at Sydney University, accusing the Howard Government of being a growing threat to freedom of the
press with its changes to legislation and its refusal to
allow access to the refugee detention camps.21 This senior media figure took particular issue with the amendment to the criminal law on espionage and similar offences, which prescribes criminal penalties for divulging, or receiving, official information. If it makes it a
crime to reveal or receive any information without authorization, Fred Hilmer observed, then this law, by
restricting coverage of the doings of government, directly hinders and prevents the public discussion of current issues, and strikes right at the heart of the work of
a free press in a democracy. In Canada, the introduction of a Prevention of Terrorism Bill (C-36) in the federal Parliament has aroused vigorous resentment among
journalists. Though its most dangerous provisions have
been abandoned, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression pointed out (26 February, 2002) that it still contained clauses that were death to certain freedoms, restricting access to information, aggravating the exposure to criminal charges of journalists who published
(even non-confidential) information which the Government regarded as damaging, and threatening to
criminalize some forms of peaceful expression.22
Some governments, however, have not thought it necessary to legislate or amend their legislation on the press,
either because they decided they should keep a sense
of proportion or because they already had a sufficient
legislative arsenal to deal with the terrorist threat. The
Belgian group of the Interparliamentary Union declared
(6 February 2002) that no draft or Bill with any possible
impact on the media (including the Internet) had been
laid before, debated in or adopted by the Belgian Parlia-
Bombardment
A bomb can be as effective in censorship as a decree or
a blue pencil. The war in Afghanistan has renewed serious issues concerning combatants right to target the
media. Although the bombardment of Serbian Radio
and Television during the Kosovo war had been strenuously condemned by most organizations for the defence
of free expression, the story was the same in Afghanistan, with the destruction of the Kabul office of AlJezeera accused of being used by the terrorist Al-Qaeda
network. Fernando Castello,23 former Director of the
agency EFE and international President of RSF (Reporters Sans Frontires), wrote The United States has
made Afghan journalists into military targets, with their
selective bombing of radio and television facilities (including the premises of the Qatar television station AlJezeera and of press buildings in Kabul and other towns,
just as NATO previously did in Kosovo. The Israeli
army followed this example in December and January,
when it bombarded the premises of Voice of Palestine
and destroyed the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation
building. Ann Cooper of the CPJ has issued a timely
reminder that international humanitarian law prohibits
deliberate attacks on civilian facilities unless they are used
for military purposes.
There is a more general, and very disturbing, tendency
for the armed forces of countries which claim to be
concerned with defending press freedom to target journalists without hesitation, as demonstrated by incidents
in Afghanistan24 and, above all, in the Palestinian territories occupied by the Israeli army.
Propaganda
Propaganda is another form of censorship. Muddying
information streams, putting obstacles in the way of the
long march towards the truth, has been in the thick of
every conflict, and the war against terrorism could be no
exception. The United States set up a highly official apparatus for overall communication between Washington, London and Islamabad so as to exercise the greatest possible control in a particularly multifaceted
transnational media environment. The New York Times
revealed, however (19 February 2002), that after 11 September, the Pentagon had, much more secretly and with
the advice of a private PR agency, created a Bureau of
Strategic Influence for the purpose of planting (true or
false) information favourable to United States interests

in the international press. Although this Bureau was abolished after indignant protests (from the media and from
American Government officials), the affair shows that
the work of journalists in time of war crosses some dangerous minefields. Such propaganda pollutes journalism,
and therefore constitutes a real restriction on freedom
of expression by making it hard to get at the truth. It is
all the more pernicious in that it allows rumours to start
and to spread. The memory of how past wars have been
manipulated (Kosovo or the Gulf), fosters this atmosphere of doubt in which the daftest theories can thrive,
such as the one denying that there had ever been an
attack on the Pentagon, or the one accusing CNN of
recycling video footage from the Gulf War.
Patriotism
In periods of crisis and great insecurity, governments
find in patriotism a weighty argument for demanding
prudence, or even a conniving silence, on the part of the
media. This is a natural and widespread phenomenon.
A study made at the end of 2001 on the way the French
press had handled terrorist atrocities in France (the RER
outrage, the assassination of Claude Erignac, Prfet of
Corsica) concluded: it seems the media find it impossible to say anything about terrorism that is truly independent of the dominant patterns of interpretation laid
down by the political authorities.25 This reaction is particularly strong in the first days following any outrage.
At such times, the press takes on a role going beyond its
mission to inform, providing psychological therapy for
public opinion in its state of shock.
But the appeal to patriotism may be utterly perverted, as
in the case of Zimbabwe, where the authorities used the
fight against terrorism as a pretext for muzzling the independent press. In the United States, the Government,
approved by a majority of public opinion, required journalists to choose their side and not undermine the
effectiveness of the fight against terrorism. Pointing to
the example of Zimbabwe, where a pro-government
journalist had proclaimed negativity is not news, Joseph
Lelyveld, former CEO of The New York Times, mused:
I find this a particularly opportune example, at a time
when the idea that negative news is no news is gaining
ground in the United States. Our Government has ordered us not to print or publish Bin Ladens crazy harangues for fear his medieval vision justifying the massacre of innocent civilians may stir up new supporters. It
has promulgated a system of military tribunals which,
according to the Vice-President, would have the power
to try and even to execute some of these people [foreigners under arrest Ed.] without any provision for
recourse to the constitutionally established courts, still
less any access for journalists.26
55
ment following 11 September, 2001. Similar reports came

in from Cyprus, Albania, Ireland, Latvia, Malawi, Norway, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Spain, Japan, United
Arab Emirates, Korea, Solomon Islands, Ecuador, Cape
Verde, Guinea, and Hungary.
Self-censorship
In most societies, whether democratic or authoritarian,
self-censorship is still the rulers most effective weapon.
The fear of displeasing majority opinion, of rubbing
the public up the wrong way, has influenced many in the
media where coverage of the fight against terrorism and
the war in Afghanistan is concerned. The profit motive
that dominates their world further intensifies the temptation to conform.
CHAPTER 4
56
This self-censorship has taken two forms: the privatization of censorship, where the management of an
organ has set limits to the freedom of its journalists, and
the internalizing of censorship where journalists themselves consciously or unconsciously restrict their own
free will, and stick as closely as possible to the official
line or the feelings of public opinion. Some instances:
the Washington Posts media critic, Howard Kurtz, revealed
on 30 October that Walter Isaacson, President of CNN,
had circulated an internal memo suggesting the editorial
staff should balance their coverage of American
bombing in Afghanistan by recalling the atrocity of 11
September and its civilian victims. Two journalists were
fired, one from the Texas City Sun and the other from
the Daily Courier, for criticizing President Bush. Such direct measures have, however, been exceptional. Another
writer has even suffered for an excess of martial zeal.
Ann Coulter had her column withdrawn from National
Review Online after she had written that the United States
ought to invade [the terrorists] countries, kill their bosses
and convert them to Christianity.
The fact that the second Intifada is going on at the same
time, and the connections that have inevitably been established between the troubles in the Middle East and
the terrorist attacks, have considerably added to the pressure on journalists, both in democracies where editors
have been lobbied by pro-Israelis and pro-Palestinians,
and in the authoritarian countries of that region, where
governments have taken every opportunity to exercise
tighter control of their media, here requiring activism,
and there applying the muzzle.
Nuances
The extent of government restrictions and the amount
of media self-censorship are not things that should be
exaggerated or caricatured. Media professionals courage and sense of vocation have not in every instance
caved in before patriotic intimidation or police intrusiveness. In the country directly targeted by the atrocity,
the serious press very quickly re-established the necessary distance for critical appraisal of the steps taken by
the United States Government, in particular those, such
as the military courts or the incarceration of foreigners

without due process, which involved restrictions on press
access to courts and hearings. Journalists associations,
likewise, have been very quick to protest against the rules
imposed by the Pentagon for the battlefields of Afghanistan. On 13 October 2001 a score of professional organizations, including the well-respected Society of Professional Journalists, published a joint communiqu
maintaining that increasing restrictions by the United
States Government that limit news gathering pose
dangers to American democracy and prevent citizens
from obtaining the information they need.
The previous day, The New York Times had published an
editorial clearly setting out the rights and duties of the
press and criticizing the White Houses request to the
television networks to censor Bin Ladens messages. All
Americans understand that, in wartime, certain information must be protected The security of American
troops and the confidentiality of the means of espionage must not be compromised by the sudden publication of sensitive and classified information much
other information, however, which the government
would prefer to suppress in order to avoid debate, belongs in the public domain. This principle is at the heart
of the American system of government. And it is in the
interest of the Administration to respect it; for a democracy, if it is to build and sustain a consensus in wartime, needs an informed citizenry.
A Test for Journalism

This war against terrorism is a test for journalism; a
test of its claim to guarantee free, accurate and plural
information-gathering which allows citizens to choose
and helps those who govern to avoid mistakes; and a
test, also, of its capacity to demonstrate that human rights
in general and freedom of the press in particular are the
most effective weapons in the fight against terrorism
and for the protection of our societies.
We should always mistrust appearances; whatever the
revisionist historians of wartime journalism may assert
to the contrary, freedom of the press and freedom of
expression are an advantage, not a handicap, in emergencies. Lies and self-censorship, as the history of the
Vietnam and Algerian wars have eloquently proved, are
most often poor counsellors, and contribute to the national disasters they claim to prevent. Indeed, as with a
ships captain, a democracys press freedom ought not
to be judged when the sea is calm, but right in the middle of the storm, when the familiar guides to navigation
disappear and panic is setting in.
The responsibility of American journalists, particularly,
is at stake. We know, says the Committee to Protect
References
1
BAYART, J.F. ; HIBOU, B. and KHIARI, S. 2002. Aprs le 11 septembre,

Effets daubaine [After 11 September, Windfall Effects], Critique
Internationale, January, p.11.
2
Is the Human Rignts Era Ending ?, The New York Times, 5 February
2002.
3
DIEHL, J. 2002. U.S. again supports unsavoury dictators, The Washington Post, published in the International Herald Tribune, 20 March.
4
See Attacks on the Press in 2001, Introduction, p.xii.
5
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Homefront Confidential, How the War on Terrorism Affects Access to Information and the Publics Right to
Know, Washington, March 2002.
6
See www.ombwatch.org
7
HICKEY, N. Access Denied, Columbia Journalism Review, January 2002.

JARREAU, P. Relations entre le Pentagone et la presse se dgradent
[Relations worsen between the Pentagon and the press], Le Monde, 10 November 2001, p. 6.
9
GRVISSE, B. 2001, Guerres et Faits [Wars and Facts], Mdiatiques,
Autumn, p. 6.
10
LATRIVE, F. 2001. La Toile en libert trs surveille [The Web: freedom under very close surveillance], Libration, 2 November.
8
RSF, Entre tentation patriotique et autocensure : les mdias amricains

dans la tourment de laprs-11 septembre [Temptations of patriotism and
self-censorship: the American media in turmoil after 11 September], October 2001, Paris.
12
International Herald Tribune, summary by the European Journalism
Centre, 3 April 2002.
13
See www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/
antiterrorism_chill.html.
14
WHITAKER, B.Muslim websites targeted by Justice, The
Guardian, No. 568, September 20-26, 2001.
15
BAYART, J.F.; HIBOU, B.; KHIARI, S., 2002. Effets daubaine, Les
rgimes autoritaires librs des conditionnalits [Its an ill wind :
authoritarian regimes freed from constraints], Critique Internationale,
Presses des Sciences Po, CERI, Paris, January, pp. 7-11.
16
Tehelka.com, Anti-terrorism ordinance: muzzling the media, New Delhi, 29
October 2001.
17
Quoted in Critique Internationale, op. cit., p.7.
18
Human Rights Watch, European Union: Security Proposals Threaten Human
Rights, 6 November 2001. See also Brian Hayes, EU anti-terrorism action
plan: legislative measures in justice and home affairs policy, Statewatch, London.
19
See Index on Censorship, Bug them all and let Echelon sort them out,
8 November 2001.
20
NOULHAT, L. 2002. La Toile alternative en ordre de bataille [The
alternative Web in battle order], Libration, 29 January.
21
CRABB, A. 2002. Media chief takes aim at Howard, The Age, 28
February.
22
CJFE, Not a Balancing Act, Security and Free Expression, a submission to
the draft NGO Human Rights Consultations, 26 February 2002.
23
CASTELLO, F. 2001. Depredadores de la libertad de prensa
[Robbers of Press Freedom], El Pais, 23 November.
24
Un envoy special du Washington Post en Afghanistan mis en joue par
des soldats amricains [A Washington Post special correspondent in
Afghanistan targeted by American soldiers], RSF, 12 February 2002.
25
GARCIN-MARROU, I. 2001. Ter rorisme, Mdias et Dmocratie
[Terrorism, Media and Democracy], Presses Universitaires de Lyon,
Collection Passerelles, p. 135.
26
CPJ, International Press Freedom Awards 2001, Joseph Lelyvelds
Acceptance Remarks, 6 December 2001.
27
CPJ, as above.
11
57
Journalists,27 that we are going through periods of extraordinary peril, and that there are responsible people
who can find heavyweight arguments for the measures
that have been taken. But let us go back to the fundamental subject of the journalists duty. It is our duty to
try to find out what is really going on, and to take our
publication and information decisions in complete independence, asserting that to publish and inform is our
raison dtre in a free society. It is our duty to provide the
means of revealing what has been improperly held back
in the name of national security.
58
Brothers
With
No
Arms
CHAPTER 5
Ten Years of Living Dangerously

Within a month in 2001, eight prominent reporters were killed in Afghanistan. With
each conflict, the price paid by press correspondents is getting heavier. After respect
has been paid to the victims for their courage, people are asking increasingly urgent
questions. Have the countries, the international organisations, the media and the
editors themselves put in place all the possible means to limit the risks incurred by
war correspondents? Can reporters be efficiently prepared, and by whom, to face
the dangers?
In the past 10 years, 243 journalists have been killed in conflict zones. Forty-six
journalists died on the battlefield in the Balkan wars alone, 14 in Sierra Leone, 12 in
Chechnya, and 10 in Afghanistan. Last year, 10 journalists died in Colombia. 70 per
cent of these reporters were deliberately assaulted or gunned down after they had
been identified as media personnel. The rest of them fell victims of shelling, mine
explosions or other acts of war.
To us, at RSF, this continuing and expanding bloodshed is simply unbearable. Being
a war reporter involves a great deal of risk, including the one of not coming home.
We are all aware of this and so are the journalists who accept such an assignment.
But there may be ways to create better working conditions and a greater risk awareness to lessen the suffering of war correspondents and their families.
Let us have a look at some of the dangers reporters face in conflict zones and the
new threats to media personnel that have recently emerged. We will then try to
identify how journalists themselves and editors might act to prevent, or at least significantly reduce, the risks of becoming part of the collateral damage figures.
Wrong Place, Wrong Time

On the battlefield or in any trouble zone, let us remember that we have neither
friends nor enemies, not even the right to be respected, ordinarily the right of a
referee. For most of the actors in a conflict, reporters, be they local journalists or
foreign correspondents, simply should not be there, let alone witness whatever violent actions they might be willing to perpetrate. This has been expressed relentlessly
by military officers, rarely on primetime TV, but often during private conversations
on the field.
Most of us will agree it is not our duty to take sides or be judgemental. At least
general ethics says so. On the other hand, a lack of financial resources and means of
communication or transport, often lead journalists to use the logistics of the
belligerents, NGOs, international organisations or other actors on the ground. This
increases the risk of being caught in the crossfire or not being able to leave a place
when danger is approaching.
Philippe Latour
South East Asia

Representative for Reporters
Sans Frontires (RSF)
Let me give you a very good example. On 18 March 2002, my colleague Olivier
Weber, a Special Envoy for Le Point and one of the best French specialists of Afghanistan, decided to hit the road instead of flying from Kabul to Islamabad, because the UN-chartered flight was outrageously expensive, US $ 1,200 for a roundtrip.
Despite the fact that he had received recent threats over a book he had just published
about Afghanistan, he hired a Toyota taxi and left for Torkham, the border-town
with Pakistan, with three Afghan men also on board. When travelling through the
Kabul gorges, where four journalists were killed back in November 2001, his car was
attacked several times by Afghan gunmen. Thanks to his driver, who chose to speed
up and escape the attackers banging on his car with their AK47s, Olivier is still alive
today. More than 10 journalists were attacked on this road during that period, many
59
of them for the same reason. They could not afford to

pay for the flight.
CHAPTER 5
60
Before going further, I wish to emphasize that I am not

only talking about western journalists. Of course, much
publicity is concentrated around the misadventures of
western correspondents in areas of conflict. We all have
in mind the plight of three French TV journalists who
were kept hostages for weeks on Jolo Island by the Abu
Sayaf guerrilla group. But who knows about the two
Philippine journalists who were kidnapped along with
them? Three out of four journalists killed in conflict
zones are locals and more and more journalists from the
developing world are sent to conflict zones. For instance,
Philippine and Thai journalists were sent to Afghanistan last year and some were attacked. So, when looking
at solutions to improve the safety of reporters working
in trouble areas, we must bear in mind these facts.
In a war situation, overconfidence, a lack of experience,
and misplaced trust in assistants or intermediaries are
often the reasons that lead a journalist to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. The attractive idea of being the
first to know and scoop the pool sometimes induces
reckless behaviour. I remember myself going up to the
frontline between government forces and the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia in 1994, driving alone on a motorbike in poor condition, on a muddy path between two
fields which could well have been minefields, hearing,
with an undisguised pleasure, shelling ahead in the mountains. My only thought was for the good story I could
send to Le Point in Paris on my first assignment for such
a prestigious magazine. Only months later did I realise
how foolish I had been. In that case, I must acknowledge that the editor in Paris had never asked me to risk
my life. Nonetheless, it is our duty, it seems, to be as
close as possible to the action and the limit between the
necessity to see for ourselves and the will to stay alive is
always difficult to assess. This dilemma is a fact of everyday life for most journalists living dangerously and we
should salute their courage. Competition and strict deadlines imposed by desk editors only add to the pressure.
But battlefields or guerrilla zones are no longer the only
places where journalists might directly or indirectly suffer the consequences of an armed conflict.
Terrorists, by this I mean people who wish to inspire
terror, can strike anywhere. They can kidnap journalists,
like Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, bomb media buildings like
a radio station in Mindanao, southern Philippines, in 2000.
Terrorists can also directly target journalists who do not
please them. In such a context, both the army and the
terrorist group they are fighting can both be a threat to
journalists. In May last year, Philippine radio announcer
Candelario Cayona was gunned down by unidentified
gunmen after he had received a death threat from a

spokesman of the Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group. But some
reports also suggest the army, unhappy about Cayonas
reports, might have played a role in the killing. In Nepal,
after a State of Emergency was declared on 26 November last year, security forces arrested more than 100 journalists to gather information about their contacts with
Maoist rebels. At least 27 reporters and media contributors are still being detained. Worse still, at least three
journalists have been tortured by security forces while in
custody.
Impunity for those who attack journalists, whether they
are terrorists, militias or military personnel, is a factor
which increases the threat to journalists at work. In Israel and Palestine, an Italian photographer was killed and
nearly 40 journalists injured since September 2000. For
some of them, it was not a mistake. They were shot by
Israeli soldiers although they were far from any Palestinian protesters. Investigations led by the Israeli government on these incidents were biased and superficial and
very few soldiers were actually sanctioned for their acts.
This leads to a climate of impunity where a soldier knows
that he has nothing to fear if he chooses to shoot the
messenger.
Unfortunately, preventing terror attacks is almost impossible and, within the media, nothing but an increased
awareness from those at risk can diminish the casualty
figures. Journalists and editors could accept to stoop to
toning down and self-censoring themselves, but this
unacceptable solution would mean that the enemies of
press freedom would have won the battle.
Reporters: a Little Company for

a Greater Safety
Do you know the Afghan Explorer? It is the media
equivalent of a drone plane, a robot recently invented by
the MITs Media Lab. This remote-controlled device on
wheels could go and shoot videos of a battle at close
range and even conduct interviews. It might be a solution for journalists eager to cover danger areas without
risking their lives. But I am afraid the Afghan Explorer,
like satellite transmission devices a decade ago, will not
be available to the average journalist for a number of
years. In the meantime, how can reporters improve their
own safety?
In war zones or danger areas, journalists must first learn
to share information with their colleagues and editors.
By consulting each other, they can assess and reduce the
risks of an unstable situation. Many young journalists,
often without a firm assignment, choose to cover wars
or guerrilla zones to make a name for themselves and be
noticed by editors. More experienced journalists have a
Building pools, as I have experienced myself, does not

necessarily lead to carbon-copy reports. Each newspaper, radio or TV uses its own different formats, has a
different audience and above all, each reporter has a different perception of the situation and a different mind.
Those who choose to go it alone should think twice
about the dangers lying ahead and the advantages of
having a little company.
Talking about company, it is also essential for reporters
to take special care when hiring local fixing agents,
guides or interpreters, since journalists, especially if it is
their first stay in the area, rely totally on their assistants
for the knowledge of the country, its culture and customs, and the hazards of the conflict at hand. Working
with a local journalist or stringer is also a valuable option.
As for those journalists who enjoy wearing camouflage
clothes or other military outfits or find them fashionable, I would like to repeat the words of Ronald Koven
of the World Press Freedom Committee, who recently
participated in an RSF discussion about the safety of
journalists. Mr. Koven said: Journalists must under no
circumstances wear camouflage uniforms, in whole or
in part, or wear a suit that could be construed as a uniform. This is first to avoid being a target. It is also because, in case of capture, they could be considered as
combatants or spies, and would not benefit from the
protection of the Geneva conventions.
As far as security gear is concerned, reporters should be
reminded that helmets could be painted in non-military
colours and bullet-proof jackets also exist in different
colours.
Finally, journalists should not bow to any demand from
their editors, who, far from the realities on the ground,
might sometimes have unrealistic expectations. War reporters should made their voices heard and claim the
right to say no and the right to withdraw if they can not
stand the pressure or the fear anymore.
This leads us to the issue of the editors responsibilities.
Editors: To Protect and Let Live

A widely accepted if not always respected principle is
the free will of media workers. Editors should respect
the decision of a journalist who refuses an assignment
to cover a war situation or expresses the will to withdraw. They should favour a frank dialogue with report-
ers on the ground and refrain from exerting any kind of

pressure on them to take additional risks. In short, we
believe that the human factor should prevail over hot
news.
As I mentioned earlier, experience provides the best
possible protection against the hazards of reporting in a
hostile environment. How do you tell the direction and
the distance of shelling or explosions, the kind of ammunition used and how could you know it is coming
closer to you if you have never experienced such a situation before? How far can you go when asking an armed
patrol access to a prohibited area?
A sense of danger can only be acquired after a number
of assignments and editors should be aware of this when
sending a reporter to a conflict zone for the first time.
They should make sure that he or she will be accompanied by a more experienced colleague, from their own
staff or from another media organisation. A security
debriefing should be systematic when the reporters return. Access to psychological counselling should also be
available to those who feel the need for support after
returning from dangerous areas or having witnessed
shocking events.
Experience can partly be acquired through training sessions provided by the media themselves or national and
international bodies. At the BBC and Reuters, for instance, reporters and local correspondents must undergo
compulsory risk-awareness training. In France, such
workshops were created in collaboration with the French
army during the war in Bosnia. The aim was essentially
to sensitise the reporters to the specific aspects of a theatre of military operations: the various weapons used,
how to identify anti-personal mines and explosives, how
to protect oneself and which mistakes to avoid. Editors
should inform staff and freelancers of any special training available to them and make every possible effort to
finance their participation. We encourage governments
and international organisations to consider setting up
formal and permanent facilities and provide human resources for such training sessions.
Editors also have a responsibility to provide and ensure
the maintenance of the security gear I have already mentioned, helmets and bullet-proof jackets among others.
Reliable communication equipment, including locator
beacons, although expensive, add a very important level
of security to the lives of journalists in danger zones.
First-aid kits and survival equipment including, for instance, a filter to purify water, would complete the package every reporter should carry on the ground.
Finally, editors and media owners must ensure that staff
dispatched to conflict areas have an appropriate insur-
61
Brothers With No Arms
duty to assist their younger colleagues and help them

out when they find themselves in a difficult situation.
Experience, it is often said, is the best shield against risks.
CHAPTER 5
62
ance policy. This avoids adding expensive medical care

or repatriation costs to the grief and pain of the families. It may seem obvious to you but unfortunately it is
not always the case even for the largest media companies. Our colleague Maria Grazia Cutuli, a reporter for
the Corriere della Serra who was killed in Afghanistan
last year, was not insured. Some may argue that such
insurance policies are much too expensive. Our insurance experts suggest that a collective contract covering
the whole editorial staff offers the best formula, amounting to less than half a per cent of journalists salaries.
The thorniest issue regards freelance reporters. They
often work for a number of different media organisations for a flat rate income which does not include any
additional social benefits. Some have suggested the establishment of a professional fund which would be dedicated to providing assistance to those journalists with a
particular status. As you will probably agree, this could
only be worked out on a country-by-country basis. That
is why we are asking national media organisations to
engage in discussions in order to establish new protective mechanisms for independent journalists.
A Charter for the better

All the principles I have just mentioned have been gathered following a number of discussions initiated by RSF
between war correspondents, editors, media owners,
government officials and representatives of international
organisations. We have put them together into a Charter
for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones or Dangerous
Areas. This Charter is aimed at averting, or at least reducing, the risks that war reporters run in the course of
their work.
Organisations which helped to draft the Charter include

the French Foreign and Defence ministries, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, UNESCO, the World Press Freedom Committee and the IPS Bellini-Gutenberg insurance group.
Although no war zone is absolutely safe, the Charter
makes a number of useful proposals in the form of
eight principles. These are a commitment by the media,
public authorities and journalists to systematically seek
ways to assess and reduce the risks involved, not forcing
journalists to cover wars against their will, using only
experienced journalists, providing adequate preparation,
equipment and insurance, offering post-mission psychological counselling if requested, and giving journalists
international legal protection.
Charter
for the Safety of Journalists Working
in War Zones or Dangerous Areas
The safety of journalists working on dangerous assignments is not always guaranteed, even if international law
provides adequate protection on paper, because warring parties these days are showing less and less respect for that
law. News-gatherers cannot get assurances from belligerents that they will be fully protected. Because of the risks
they run to keep the public informed, media workers, journalists and their assistants (whether permanent staff or
freelance) working in war zones or dangerous areas are entitled to basic protection, compensation and guarantees
from their employers, though protection must never be taken to mean supervision by local military and governmental authorities. Media management also have their own responsibility to make every effort to prevent and reduce the
risks involved. The following eight principles shall apply:
Principle 5 - Equipment
The media, public authorities and journalists themselves

shall systematically seek ways to assess and reduce the
risks in war zones or dangerous areas by consulting each
other and exchanging all useful information. Risks to be
taken by staff or freelance journalists, their assistants,
local employees and support personnel require adequate
preparation, information, insurance and equipment.
Editors should provide special correspondents working

in dangerous areas with reliable safety equipment (bullet-proof jackets, helmets and, if possible, armoured
vehicles), communication equipment (locator beacons)
and survival and first-aid kits.
Principle 2 - Free will

Covering wars involves an acceptance by media workers
of the risks attached and also a personal commitment
which means they go on a strictly voluntary basis. Because of the risks, they should have the right to refuse
such assignments without explanation and without there
being any finding of unprofessionnal conduct. In the
field, the assignment can be terminated at the request of
the reporter or the editors after each side has consulted
the other and taken into account their mutual responsibilities. Editors should be aware of exerting any kind of
pressure on special correspondents to take additional
risks.
Principle 6 - Insurance
Journalists and their assistants working in war zones or
dangerous areas should have insurance to cover illness,
repatriation, disability and loss of life. Media management should take all necessary steps to provide this before sending or employing personnal on dangerous assignments. They should strictly comply with all applicable professional conventions and agreements.
Principle 7 - Psychological counselling

Media management should ensure that journalists and
their assistants who so desire have access to psychological counselling after returning from dangerous areas or
reporting on shocking events.
Principle 8 - Legal protection

Principle 3 - Experience
War reporting requires special skills and experience, so
editors should choose staff or freelances who are mature and used to crisis situations. Journalists covering a
war for the first time should not be sent there alone, but
be accompanied by a more experienced reporter. Teamwork in the field should be encouraged. Editors should
systematically debrief staff when they return so as to
learn from their experiences.
Principle 4 - Preparation
Regular training in how to cope in war zones or dangerous areas will help reduce the risk to journalists. Editors
should inform staff and freelances of any special training offered by nationally or internationally qualified bodies and give them access to it. All journalists called upon
to work in a hostile environment should have first-aid
training. Every accredited journalism school should familiarise its students with these issues.
Journalists on dangerous assignments are considered civilians under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I of the
Geneva Conventions, provided they do not do anything
or behave in any way that might compromise this status,
such as directly helping a war, bearing arms or spying.
Any deliberate attack on a journalist that causes death or
serious physical injury is a major breach of this Protocol
and deemed a war crime.
63
Brothers With No Arms
Principle 1 - Commitment
64
I. General
Remarks
on
Terrorism
and
Media
CHAPTER 6:
General Overview
Definition of Terrorism
There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism or indeed of terrorist. One
definition of terrorism comes from the U.S. Department of Defense: the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or to
intimidate governments or societies in pursuit of goals that are generally political,
religious or ideological. Other definitions of terrorism require that the violence be
directed at innocent parties; the terrorist not be a nation state; and the act of terrorism should be very public or symbolic so as to use media coverage to maximize fear.
International organizations seek to ensure that their definitions of terrorism exclude authorised governmental action taken against its citizens whether or not such
actions cause terror amongst the same group. Terrorists have generally concluded
that elections are an ineffectual technique for changing government policy and so
apply pressure through violence to achieve political change. If terrorists achieve
their ends then their description may become elevated to that of freedom fighter.
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. The Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, the Chinese Revolution were all started by groups of citizens deciding to change
government policy through the pressure of violence. The Boston Tea Party of 1773
could be described as a terrorist act, the slave rebellions of the 1800s in the Caribbean might then qualify as terrorism. But today these events would be looked at in
quite another light.
The Red Army Faction (the Baader-Meinhof gang) killed 31 persons, carried out 25
bombings and generally terrorised Western Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. The
objectives of this gang was to target American imperialism. The Red Brigades of
Italy were inspired by communist ideals and fought to encourage a workers revolution. The 30-year prolonged struggle in Northern Ireland has produced another
classic example of how religious differences fanned by border realignments, affecting a relatively small number of people and in a minute geographical area, can continue to create a caldron of violent incidents over an extended period. This situation
is replicated by the current violence of the Israel-Palestine conflicts that have produced HAMAS, the PLO, as well as the often-excessive response of the Israelis.
From the days of the Crusades, it has been difficult to build rational solutions in
long-standing conflicts between adversaries who both believe they are beneficiaries
of their Gods endorsement.
Terrorists Need the Media
Oliver F. Clarke
Managing Director,
The Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica,
Chairperson, Jury for the 2002
UNESCO/Guillermo Cano
World Press Freedom Prize
Terrorist acts are designed to create fear amongst the many. A terrorist act, which is
unreported, may be supremely violent but will cause no widespread fear and so be
regarded as a failure by the terrorist group. So the terrorist must create an incident
that will demand media coverage. Attacking Olympic athletes in 1972; blowing up
TWA Flight 800; kidnapping the American NATO Commando; blowing up the
World Trade Center; killing journalists in Colombia, Mexico, or Spain (ETA); blowing up American diplomatic missions; the activities of Abu Sayyaf; dispensing biologically lethal gases on subway transport systems are all actions which compel worldwide media coverage.
So the terrorist needs the media. The media have to report incidents of public
interest and importance especially when the terrorist act is unique, unexpected, and
politically effective. The bombing of the World Trade Center was such an event.
America had never been attacked by a foreign force on its domestic territory since
the British during the American Independence. For Americans the concept of domestic security was destroyed by the bombing of the World Trade Center.
65
The act of terrorism then creates a path of its own. The

attacked seeks to demonize and isolate the attacker in
the public mind. This allows the constituents of the
terroree to rally behind its leaders and support measures
that in normal times would be regarded as severe and
unacceptably restrictive of civil rights.
CHAPTER 6: General Overview
66
One terrorist act may produce many months of media

coverage. The terrorist act is covered. Then the often
extended hostage negotiations. The public response to
these actions takes a long time to play out. The continuous action of terrorists can lead to severe reductions of
civil liberties, liberties that have been built up over many
years. The media are obliged to cover the ensuing debate of the conflict between security priorities, personal
freedoms and privacy concerns. Frequently the media
get pressured not to report on such issues. The U.S.
media, for example, were asked not to run tapes of
Osama Bin Laden sitting in front of an Afghan cave.
Al-Jazeera in Qatar was pressured not to run its exclusive
interviews with the terrorists.
Domestic terrorism is now thought to be fought best by
intelligence and surveillance. The German response to
the Baader-Meinhof gang was to increase wire-tapping,
ban membership of predetermined terrorist groups,
encourage plea-bargaining to facilitate terrorist informants, mobilise special anti-terrorist police squads and
authorize anonymous court evidence. In Colombia, it
has been necessary to allow the anonymity of judges.
Arising from the recent terrorist actions on domestic

United States soil, the U.S. fight against terrorism has
been extended beyond trying to eliminate the terrorists
themselves to seeking to punish those states that allow
terrorists residence. The Axis of Evil appears to include the seven states named by America as sponsoring
terrorism, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan
and Syria. This Axis is a new development in the fight
against terrorism and is one that has caused concern
within the U.S. coalition.
Terrorists need the media to spread the fear that the
terrorist wishes to create. But at the same time terrorists
generally stand for intolerance and do not support openness. Terrorists fear new ideas, new religions and they
see the modern world as a threat, not an opportunity. It
is the role of the media to create a more open world.
The terrorist who manipulates the media in the short
run will come to be fearful of the media as they seek to
better inform the public about the narrowness of terrorist ambition.
II. Fairness
is the
Best
Defense
CHAPTER 6:
General Overview
The upsurge of rebel organizations that practice terrorism, meaning, in my view, the
violent intimidation of civilian populations, was probably inevitable after the Cold
War. The major powers who were the main actors of the Cold War had a great
interest in keeping conflicts within manageable limits that would not escalate into
all-out international warfare. So they clientalized those involved in local conflicts,
and they worked hard to circumscribe the actions of those client states or groups so
that their violence would serve superpower interests, confining regional wars or
uprisings to reasonable proportions.
The end of the superpower confrontation seemed at first to mean that there were
no longer the same reasons for the great powers to work so hard to contain regional
conflicts. Clearly, this analysis was behind the Bush Administrations initial reluctance to involve itself in regional disputes. 11 September, 2001 changed all that.
But the unleashing of local actors in conflicts below the threshold of world war
creates new challenges for press coverage and new dangers for the journalists involved. We have spoken here largely as if dangers come almost exclusively from
non-state actors that are commonly considered to be terrorists. This neglects the
ugly fact that the greatest danger to journalists in recent years has come from governments and that that is likely to continue to be the case.
Governments are quick to accuse journalists of irresponsibility. But there is no
reasonable comparison between any conceivable journalistic irresponsibility and
the scale and effect of governmental irresponsibility. I refer not only to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. Think of Serbia, of post-Communist Russia in Chechnya,
of Iraq gassing Kurdish villages, of Syria wiping out virtually the whole population
of one of its own cities, of Pol Pots massacre in Cambodia, of the famines provoked by the Ethiopian government, of the northern governments war against the
southern Sudan, and so forth.
Those examples were all forms of terrorism. And they share a common characteristic. Contrary to the assertions we have heard so often here that terrorism needs
publicity and seeks a kind of involuntary objective complicity from the press, each
of those examples was being publicly denied by its perpetrators. They tried very
hard to hide their terrorist acts, and the press had to dig very hard to uncover them.
So, the largest-scale, generally most murderous forms of terrorism thrive on secrecy, not on publicity. The distinction, of course, is between state sponsors of
terrorism and non-state actors. But even guerrillas who carry out what the late 19th
Century Anarchists called propaganda by the deed, generally meaning assassinations, are often in fact secretly manipulated by state actors who seek to hide their
hand which the press must try to uncover.
Ronald Koven
European Representative,
World Press Freedom Committee
In the future, as in the past, the dangerous job of journalists will also include revealing things that states try to hide. The presence of free, independent journalists is
often a guarantee against state-sponsored terrorism. That is one reason why states
jail so many journalists in countries like Turkey, China and Ethiopia. Those journalists were defying the classic philosophical notion that if a tree fell in the forest and
nobody heard it, it must have made no detectable noise. Journalists go into the
forest to see fallen trees, and they deduce that there was indeed noise. One form of
noise we have trouble hearing is the demands of disaffected groups whose voices
are stifled by undemocratic governments. At least some of todays terrorist groups
come from frustration over making their voices heard democratically.
And the too-often successful efforts of governments to stifle such voices may explain the very genuine astonishment of the American public after 11 September.
The question Why do they hate us? was a very sincere one based on simply not
67
knowing that there were radically disaffected groups out

there whose demands had been muffled by governments
and to which a responsible press had not paid enough
attention. What is going on in the southern Philippines
is hard for outsiders to understand. It is a special case.
But every violent situation in every country is a special
case that needs a lot of explaining. Discouraging the press
from talking about it poses a real danger, to the press
itself, to the national society, and to the international
community. We should not make laws of responsible
behavior on the basis of special cases. Let us remember
the legal dictum, hard cases make bad law.
CHAPTER 6: General Overview
68
Just confining the press to factual reporting, as we have

heard suggested here as a solution, does not work either.
In the United States, the Hutchins Commission on the
press back in 1947 concluded that a major trouble with
the U.S. press of the day was that it did not tell the
truth about the facts. In other words, it did not give
enough analysis and context to its reporting. The quality
press all over the world has improved a great deal since
then. Any governmentally-inspired effort to put the clock
back endangers everyones understanding and, therefore,
their security. Ultimately, the best security for the press
is general public recognition that we try to be as fair as
possible in our reporting. If publics and governments,
and, indeed, rebel groups, feel that, then we can generally do our job. The actors, the parties to conflicts, might
not always like our reporting, but if they are forced to
respect it, our safety will be enhanced.
The trouble for the press generally comes when one of

the parties to a conflict, and it is usually a government,
forces or cajoles us to lean too far in its own direction.
The other party or parties then perceive the press as an
adversary, ripe for targeting. The best defense for the
press is for us to stick to our principles of fair coverage,
and not to let anyone assign to us any other roles, missions, or obligations, no matter how high-sounding they
may be in the name of peace, harmony, conflict resolution, development or the like. We journalists must resist
all attempts, both by our friends and adversaries, to enlist us to their causes, either openly or covertly. Our best
defense (in addition to common-sense safety procedures)
is to try tell it like it is.
PART II
Media and T
errorism: Case S
tudies
Terrorism:
Studies
69
70
Case Studies
in Africa
and
Arab
States
CHAPTER 7:
CASE STUDY I
11 September: Consequences for Freedom of Information
in South Africa
Raymond Louw,
Editor and Publisher of Southern Africa Report
Mr Jean-Paul Marthoz has already described how there has been a tightening up of
the channels of official communication in the United States, for example, how there
are restrictions on the media covering the war in Afghanistan and so on, and the
misguided attempt by the Americans to introduce a mechanism for falsifying the
news, providing disinformation, as a means of combating terrorism. We in South
Africa are experiencing variations of such official conduct, in some cases not so
blatant, but with echoes, nevertheless, of the American scene. The high degree of
openness that characterised South African society after its accession to democratic
governance has been slowly eroding as the new rulers have realised how difficult it
is to govern, especially after the kind of autocratic government we had endured
before, and how embarrassing disclosures in the media of incompetence and maladministration can be.
But this increasing reticence has been accelerated since 11 September and with it, no
doubt inspired by the misguided American suggestion about managing and falsifying information, has been a much more blatant disregard for the facts, a facile approach to truth by simply denying what had been said even when it was recorded on
TV or tape, or in certain instances lying. We all know that politicians are frequently
economical with the truth but in South Africa some politicians have reduced it to
budget zero proportions.
However, let me briefly sketch one aspect of the scene in South Africa against
which one discusses the topic. That is crime and security. South Africa has a high
crime rate which is accentuated by its viciousness and the ease with which robbers
and others murder sometimes for no gain at all. And this is interlaced with low level
terror campaigns with bombs and sometimes drive-by shootings. For some years
the police appeared to be losing the battle but now appear to be stabilising the
situation. But this is the climate in which administrative repression breeds rapidly.
This is reflected by proposals for legislation by the politicians, arbitrary actions frequently with strong-arm methods by the security authorities and the police.
When people are living behind electric fences, setting electronic burglar alarms at
night and have dogs in their gardens and armed response security companies
patrolling their suburbs, it is very difficult to impress on them the values of freedom
of expression and freedom of the media. And it is even less so with a government
still grappling to shed its bush war liberation struggle authoritarianism and heavily
influenced by the concerns of the security forces.
So, in this environment repressive legislation such as a Terrorism Bill and an Interception and Monitoring Law have a ready genesis. It may seem strange that just
eight years after our present rulers were expressing outrage at the draconian laws
used by the previous apartheid government to control their insurgency, they should
now be intent on introducing similar restrictive laws, all in the name, of course, of
defending democracy.
The Terrorism Bill contains such dreadful mechanisms as detention without trial
which, of course, can be used to seriously inhibit peoples freedom of expression.
There are other provisions which are restrictive but let me leave it there because the
law is with our Law Commissioners, who review controversial legislation before it is
71
submitted to parliament and who have decreed that portions of this legislation contravenes the Constitution. I
understand it is now in a redrafting process and we should
wait to see what occurs. However, there is also the Interception and Monitoring Bill which appears to have been
influenced by similar instruments being forged in countries such as Britain, for example. The aims of the Bill
are pretty explicit:
1. To regulate the interception and monitoring of
certain communications (mostly on the Internet, but
nowdays that can apply to almost anybody who writes).
CHAPTER 7: Africa and Arab States
72
2. To provide for the monitoring of communications

in the case of a serious offence or if security or other
compelling national interests are threatened.
3. To provide for the interception of postal articles
and communications.
4. To prohibit the provision of certain telecommunication services which cannot be monitored.
5. To regulate authorised telecommunications monitoring.
There is also a provision for call-related information
to be provided by the service provider to the authorities.
That includes the name of the user, the destination and
duration of the communication. And the service provider has to spend the money required to buy the equipment to provide this information. Phone bugging is
normally authorised by a judge but in certain circumstances a police officer of police assistant commissioner
rank or a major in the military can do this.
Well, these laws were making laborious progress through
the usual processing channels when 11 September occurred. That hardened public opinion against terrorism
and gave the ministries involved a huge boost and the
process was speeded up. It is indeed fortunate that we
have an instrument to keep the government in line, the
Constitution and the Constitutional Court, but the other
Bill appears not to have been caught in this safety net
despite vigilance also being exercised by vociferous civil
society organisations such as the Freedom of Expression Institute, and others.
It appears that invasions of privacy do not evoke as powerful a deterrent as imprisonment without trial. Maybe
the medias insistence on privacy, particularly of political
and other civil society leaders, not being sacrosanct may
have something to do with this. There is certainly little
opposition to the Bill among the general public. 11 September and the arrival of similar legislation overseas
appear to be having an effect and the legislation is likely
to go through. However, to give a practical example of

how security paranoia has pervaded government, or
should I say, the Presidency, let me tell you about the
attempts to set up a Presidential Press Corps, ostensibly
modelled on the American example.
In America, journalists apply to join the White House
Press corps, some 1,600 have, and they fill in a questionnaire which is not too probing and then receive their
accreditation. Sometimes, it is suspected that the security services investigate the reporter but they do not question him further. In South Africa, however, it is different. After the questionnaire, National Intelligence agents
have questioned journalists about their sex lives, if married whether they have indulged in extra marital sex, and
whether they have had homosexual relationships. Then
whether they have been treated by a psychiatrist, whether
they have been jailed. They must also provide copies of
their bank statements and be prepared to undergo a lie
detectors test, a polygraph test.
There has been uproar over this but despite being told
that the American system, which I believe is similar to
that in other Western countries, does not involve any of
these procedures, the questioning will continue but without the sex questions and the polygraph test.
The government has been quite unabashed over being
caught lying in saying that it based its procedures on the
U.S. system. It also lied over the sex questions, a minister
saying that they were never part of the procedure and
ascribing it to over-zealousness by an agent and then a
senior departmental official describing the questions as
an essential part of the procedure, which illustrates what
I said earlier.
But finally, despite 11 September, there was one victory.
For some years the prosecuting authorities have been
using every legal means, and some illegal, to try to get
journalists who were present at the spectacular murder
of a gang leader in 1996 in Cape Town to supply their
video tapes or pictures or to give evidence in the case
against the alleged murderers, all members of Pagad (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, a vicious vigilante
group which was suspected of turning into gangsters
themselves). They had subpoenaed a photographer to
tell what he saw and he refused on grounds that his
Constitutional media freedom rights were being breached
and because he had been threatened with death on more
than one occasion. But at the last minute the police withdrew the summons. Fifty policemen who witnessed the
killing refused to give evidence. We regarded that as a
victory for the media.
But let me leave you with another controversy that is
developing, the national interest versus the public interest. The government wants journalists to pursue the
CASE STUDY II
Terrorism and Media in Zimbabwe
Geoffrey Nyarota,
Editor-in-Chief of The Daily News,
Zimbabwe
As the government of the United States and its allies
intensified their crackdown on terrorism in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, the government of
Zimbabwe waged a war of its own on terrorism. The
targets of this onslaught by the authorities in Harare
were, however, terrorists of a totally different nature.
The terrorists referred to in rather incongruous terms
by the regime of Mr Robert Mugabe were the journalists working for the countrys small, but increasingly vibrant and popular, privately owned, independent press.
Also listed by government among the ranks of Zimbabwes special breed of terrorists were members, especially the leadership, of the major opposition political
party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The partys leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, lost an election in March 2002 to President Mugabe in a poll that
was embroiled in controversy and allegedly fraught with
irregularities. Mr Mugabe has openly been accused of
winning through fraudulent means.
More than 100 supporters of the MDC were killed by
militants and agents of the ruling Zanu PF party and
government. Scores were arrested. The MDC was accused in the run-up to the presidential election 2002 and
its members were locked up by the government of Mr
Mugabe on murder and terrorism charges following the
death of activists of the ruling Zanu PF party. Also to
bear the brunt of the governments so-called onslaught
on terrorism were members of the small white commercial farming community who, since 2000, have been
the victims of a vicious land expropriation and redistribution programme which has left more than 12 people
dead, with many more displaced or arrested on various
spurious charges. While no journalist has paid the supreme sacrifice yet, death threats have been issued and
journalists on each of Zimbabwes three weekly and one
daily privately owned newspapers have been arrested.
Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, one of Mugabes
top aides, accused the countrys small population of 4000
white commercial farmes of colluding with journalists
to commit what he described as economic terrorism.
Moyo made this accusation when an elderly farmer and
20 of his workers were arrested and hauled before the
courts on accusations that during clashes with supporters of the ruling party who raided his farm, John Bibby,
the farmer, caused the death of two of the invaders.
Taking up the cudgel on behalf of government, The
Chronicle, a pro-government daily newspaper, stated in
an editorial comment that the ongoing foreign-sponsored political thuggery that has raised its ugly head
should not be allowed to go unchecked. We would like
to urge the government to use the state security machinery to deal with these acts of terrorism before they get
out of hand.
As if in direct response, President Mugabe soon after
his re-election in March signed the controversial and
draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill, which seeks to silence Zimbabwean journalists
through licensing, through the prosecution and handing
down of stiff penalties on those whose writings are
deemed to be disruptive, the barring of foreign journalists from working in the country and the prevention of
foreigners from having a stake in any Zimbabwe media
organisation.
The government will use the law to bring to book MDC
terrorists and their media supporters without fear or favour, enthused Moyo in The Sunday Mail, another government-owned newspaper. No terrorist or terrorist
sponsor will find comfort in Zimbabwe. The use of the
media, whether local or international, will not suffice as
a cover for terrorism.
Despite the ministers assertions that the government
will apply the new law without fear or favour, evidence
abounds to the contrary. Since it became law in March
2002, Zimbabwes Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill has been selectively used to haunt
journalists working for the countrys independent press.
They were obviously the prime target of the new legislation, anyway.
I now hold the dubious distinction of being the first
Zimbabwean journalist ever to taste the wrath of government under the provisions of this repressive and
obnoxious legislation, which is aimed at gagging the quality of information reaching the public of Zimbabwe. I
was arrested on 15 April, 2002 and charged with violating the Access to Information Act. My arrest followed
the publication in The Daily News which stated that there
was a discrepancy between the figures of election results broadcast live by Zimbabwes Registrar General and
the actual figures.
The basis of the story was a tape containing the live
recording. Also arrested were Iden Wtherell, the Editor
of the privately-owned weekly, The Zimbabwe Independent
and his chief reporter, Dumisani Muleya. The two were
73
Case Studies in Africa and Arab States
national interest and forgets that many opposition papers during the apartheid era did exactly the opposite. If
they had pursued the national interest they would have
propagated apartheid; instead they pursued the public
interest by opposing the dreadful policy.
detained following publication in their paper of a story

linking the First Lady of Zimbabwe, Mrs. Grace Mugabe,
to a labour dispute between a white-owned company
and an employee alleged to be her brother.
For journalists arrested by the government of Zimbabwe what is usually more painful than the arrest itself is
the wholesale condemnation, normally unwarranted, by
the state-owned media. The Daily News story was described as a preposterous and deliberate falsehood consistent with many previous claims made by theBritish
sponsored paperbehind the disinformation campaign
on behalf of the MDC. The Daily News is not British
sponsored.
74
The international media watchdog Reporters Sans

Frontires (RSF) was not spared the wrath or the sharp
tongue of the government of Zimbabwe on this occasion. Information Minister Moyo launched a scathing
and vitriolic attack on RSF, which he accused of promoting lawlessness in Zimbabwe. RSF had written to
Moyo expressing concern over the arrest of the three
journalists. Moyo described the appeal as nothing but a
shameless partisan voice for imperial Europe deserving
of the greatest contempt.
If the strict definition of terrorism is applied, it is obvious that the journalists of Zimbabwe are not, in any
way, engaged in terrorist activity as alleged by the government. It would be nearer the truth to suggest that it
is the independent journalists of Zimbabwe, along with
the commercial farming community and the leadership
of the major opposition party, who have become the
victims of state-sponsored acts of terrorism during Zimbabwes descent into the state of lawlessness and anarchy which has prevailed in the country since the run-up
to the parliamentary elections, held in June 2000.
During that period The Daily News experienced a bomb
attack on its offices in April 2000; a bomb attack on its
printing press in January 2001 which completely ruined
the newspapers printing press; the arrest and other harassment on numerous occasions of its journalists and
newspaper vendors; two death-threats against me; the
seizure and destruction of thousands of copies of the
newspaper; and the banning of the paper in certain areas, especially the rural areas, which are the stronghold
of the ruling party.
Through their tireless effort to provide information to
the public, the media of Zimbabwe could, in a way, be
guilty of promoting acts of terrorism in the country,
especially pertaining to the illegal invasion of whiteowned commercial farming land by the so-called war
veterans. Critics, some of them within the media, argue
that if the media had not provided wide publicity to the
farm invaders, who became instant celebrities, especially

in ruling party circles and among certain landless peasants in the rural areas, land invasions might not have
become as prevalent as is the case now, with rather devastating consequences for food security and the general
economy of Zimbabwe.
As the war vets, some of them too young to have
made any meaningful contribution to Zimbabwes war
of liberation from colonialism, marched onto the commercial farms to evict the farmers, invaded private sector companies, some of which immediately closed and
stormed into the chambers of Supreme Court judges
seeking to evict them, hordes of local and foreign journalists were in attendance. The perpetrators of these
outrages then watched themselves being paraded as heroes on state-sponsored television. They saw their pictures, AKs held aloft, gracing the front pages of the
newspapers. This fawning adoration and adulation by
the state media of young men who, with impunity tantamount to state protection, went about committing acts
of lawlessness and wreaking general havoc, must have
served as an incentive to further acts of terrorism. But
then this concern must be addressed in the context of
the need by Zimbabwes media, especially the private
press, to inform the public on all matters of interest and
relevance to them.
CASE STUDY III

Aftermath of 11 September:
An Arab Perspective
Nedal Mansour
Editor-in-Chief, Al-Hadath,
President of the Center for Defending the Freedom of
Journalists, Amman, Jordan
I would like to start by saying that I would have preferred that this event could have been held in an Arab
country so that you would be able to closely view how
the public there interprets the word terrorism after its
repeated use everywhere after 11 September, 2001. I hope
you will excuse me for speaking to you in Arabic. It is
the language that best expresses how deeply frustrated
we are in the Arab world that our language and the color
of our skins have become enough to draw suspicion
and accusations of terrorism. I hope that the Arabic
language will be considered as an official language in
such Conferences as this in order to achieve The Dialogue of Civilizations.
I am standing here as an Arab. The scarf around my
neck is the one which people defending themselves and
their land usually wear and it is not the same one that socalled terrorists wear. To speak frankly, let us stop beating around the bush and stop ignoring the American
whip above our backs driving us, and the entire world,
We should begin by asking the following questions. What

is terrorism? and Who is a terrorist? Again, before attempting to answer those questions, let me remind you
that, as an Arab, I am against bloodshed. I believe in life,
not death and destruction. So, what is terrorism? Is resisting occupation terrorism? Is throwing a stone at
armed tank terrorism? Is asking and demanding safety,
independence and liberty terrorism? Is rejecting injustice and tyranny terrorism? And, most importantly, is
state terrorism also not terrorism?
What we, in the Arab world, feel is going wrong relates
to the obscure blurring of concepts as well as double
standards when dealing with us. Do you think that there
will be a day when Arab people will be willing to condemn martyrdom attacks? If you think that this will happen before the end of the Israeli occupation and the
withdrawal from Palestinian lands and the establishment
of an independent Palestinian state, then it is unreal to
think so. Also, if you think that Arab media will refer to
those martyrdom attacks as terrorist attacks, then that is
unreal too. It is important to know that it is impossible
to call on Arab people and Arab media to take no sides
in this conflict. It has become even more impossible
after Sharons massacre in Jenin refugee camp on the
West Bank.
We should carefully look at the scene and not become
selective. You should keep an eye on the Israeli media
and even some so-called prestigious American media organizations when they cover the conflict. They consider
the assassination of Palestinian leaders as being preventive operations. They consider that throwing a stone at a
tank is violence by both parties. And they justify massive
killings of Palestinians as attempts to destroy terrorists.
Once again, the real problem is of a conceptual nature,
and as long as we do not agree, then debate and argument will go on and on and will be in turn transmitted to
the media which remain the voice of the nature of conflict within society. In the same context, Arab governments as well as the media have condemned what happened on 11 September, while many think-tanks and
political figures have publicly condemned the killing of
innocent civilians in the United States in those attacks.
But the public in the Arab world has always experienced
bitterness and frustration over U.S. policies and positions, and in a way there was some hope that those events
would possibly make the U.S. rethink its policies and use
its powers to deeply search for the roots and causes of
terrorism.
Moreover, months after the 11 September attacks, the
media in the Arab world focused on many issues that
produces or have produced terrorism including the following: occupation. Absence of economic development,
and the spread of poverty, unemployment and hunger.
Absence of standards of rights and justice.
But what happened was that no attention was paid to
those reminders, when the U.S. administration and its
allies announced the war on terrorism. That consequently
led to the killing of a large number of innocent people
which was justified as the search for terrorists. During
this campaign against terrorism, many countries in the
world seized it as an opportunity to restrict the media
and the press. This set us back years after it became clear
that the campaign against terrorism was also a war on
freedom of the press and expression, as well as on individual liberties.
For instance, in my country Jordan, the government saw
an opportunity in the campaign against terrorism to enact a new Penal Code legislation that severely punishes
the press. According to Article 150 of that Penal Code,
terrorism and the media were linked. Using that law, the
government is now capable of ordering accused journalists to appear before State Security Courts. For the
first time those courts have the legal right to close down
newspapers temporarily or even permanently.
We should be aware that the billions of dollars that have
been spent on the war against terrorism could have been
spent on sustainable development and eradicating the
roots of violence and hatred. This is a task that Cruise
missiles are not able to do. Whats more, we should also
take care that the media and the press are not the first to
pay the price for this war with their liberty and freedom.
As for covering terrorism, the Afghani experience is
worth studying. While the U.S. administration was capable of rallying its own media, and, indeed the Western
media in general, to its side throughout this campaign,
developments in the field of communications meant that
the U.S. was incapable of holding on to the advantage.
This is where the Al-Jazeera satellite channel made its
presence felt and even beat CNN. It was also interesting
to see those accused of terrorism, Al-Qaeda, inventing
new media tools that enabled them to communicate their
views through the use of recorded video tapes of Bin
Laden which were sent to Al-Jazeera.
It is also true that press coverage of hot spots in the
world puts those who work for media organizations in a
dangerous position. This has been the case regarding
the atrocities and brutality Israeli troops and Israeli authorities carried out against journalists and cameramen
when preventing them access to the Jenin refugee camp
in the first days after the event so that they could not
cover the Israeli war crimes that took place there. The
75
Case Studies in Africa and Arab States
to its own destination and according to its sole vision.
been spent on the war against terrorism could have been

spent on sustainable development and eradicating the
roots of violence and hatred. This is a task that Cruise
missiles are not able to do. Whats more, we should also
take care that the media and the press are not the first to
pay the price for this war with their liberty and freedom.
76
As for covering terrorism, the Afghani experience is

worth studying. While the U.S. administration was capable of rallying its own media, and, indeed the Western
media in general, to its side throughout this campaign,
developments in the field of communications meant that
the U.S. was incapable of holding on to the advantage.
This is where the Al-Jazeera satellite channel made its
presence felt and even beat CNN. It was also interesting
to see those accused of terrorism, Al-Qaeda, inventing
new media tools that enabled them to communicate their
views through the use of recorded video tapes of Bin
Laden which were sent to Al-Jazeera.
The media, in the overall process, should not only examine the surface of the terrorism issue, but they should
also look more deeply into the issue. The media should
be looking into what this is really all about and whether
it belongs to a religion or even a language. The media
should also think twice before firing accusations, and it
might also take some time to answer why young men
and women prefer to die rather than to live. It is probably a message that the world should know about. Could
it be that death and life have the same meaning when all
windows of hope are closed?
There is a line for Ibrahim Nassarallah, a Jordanian poet
portraying feelings of a commando that has chosen to
die. The line says:
I do not like Death But it is the stairs that I am going
to take up to LIFE.
Case Studies
in Asia
and
the Pacific
CHAPTER 8:
Asia and the Pacific
CASE STUDIES I
I. Terrorism and Journalists in Afghanistan
Faheem Dashty,
Chief Editor, Kabul Weekly,
Kabul, Afghanistan
Terrorism and journalism have nothing in common, but journalists and the principles they stand for are often terrorisms targets. Terrorism has always threatened
defenders of freedom and opponents of tyranny in Afghanistan. In September
2001, Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghan National Resistance, first against the communists and then the architects of global terror, was
killed by two Arab terrorists posing as journalists.
I spent nine days with these men in a house in Khawaja Bahawodin in north-east
Afghanistan. Yet right up to the moment that the suicide bombers detonated their
hidden explosives, killing Commander Massoud and injuring me, neither I nor anyone else imagined that they were anybody else other than who they said they were.
None of us had any idea that they were using the freedoms of the journalist to
strike as terrorists.
But we must not forget that journalists have a decisive part to play in the future of
Afghanistan. This is the reason I have continued to work in journalism. I can
continue to work towards Massouds objectives of national unity, democracy and
human rights for all, especially for women, to defy the terrorists threats and defend
the integrity of the nation. I have done this despite my experiences and the psychological shock of witnessing the murder of my leader. And even though my injuries
from that day made it difficult for me to work, this is why I began the process of relaunching the long banned Kabul Weekly newspaper last year with the cooperation
of friends from Paris.
The Kabul Weekly was first published between 1993 and 1996 during some terrible
years of war in and around the city, yet it was widely distributed across the country
and often abroad. It was eventually banned by the government in 1996 after it
published controversial articles about the Afghan embassy in New Delhi. The paper
finally returned to the streets in early January 2002, produced by some of the staff
of the old weekly together with new journalists with new visions. Last Thursday we
published the 13th issue of the new paper, printing 4,000 copies, carrying reports in
Afghanistans two national languages and two international ones.
The Kabul Weekly was the first independent newspaper to emerge after the fall of
the Taliban. Since then we have been joined by many more. According to the records
of the Ministry of Information and Culture, there are now 87 independent publications in the country. Without doubt, if we want to move forward as a peoples
government, we need freedom of the press. But in Afghanistan today the independent press faces the following problems: a lack of professionally experienced
journalists, which is why there are no great publications in Afghanistan as yet; a lack
of equipment; and a lack of funds and of guarantees of economic independence.
In normal situations an independent publication can pay its way through sales of
advertising and copies of its editions. But 23 years of war has taken away much of
its readership. Fewer people can read these days, and of those who can, few can
afford to buy a newspaper. Papers have to be sold cheaply and produced on low
revenues. One useful source of income for a paper in the developed world is its Jobs
Vacant pages. Yet though there are job vacancies in Afghanistan, there are not enough
of them and most of them pay too little to justify the cost of an advertisement. Still,
independent, professional, properly equipped and economically independent media
77
are strongly needed in Afghanistan. Terrorisms roots

run deeper in Afghanistan than anywhere else. It has
not been long since its grip on our country has been
loosened. But with all I have said in mind, the possibility
always remains that it may yet return.
We need to open the windows in the peoples mind. Terrorism came to Afghanistan disguised as religion, just as
I saw it once come in the disguise of journalism. Too
many of our people still cannot tell the difference between the message of religion and the message of terrorism. We need to separate those messages and remove
the disguises.
CHAPTER 8: Asia and Pacific
78
All media organisations in Afghanistan, but especially

the independent press, need support. This is why we
seek the assistance of the international community. We
do not ask for a long-term financial commitment. We
believe that the independent press can become self-sustaining in three years. In the meantime we will remain a
front line defence against terrorism and all it seeks to
achieve and destroy.
CASE STUDIES II
Is the Safety of Journalists in Timor
Leste Guaranteed?
Hugo Fernandes,
Deputy President of Timor Lorosae Journalists Association (TLJA), Editor-in-Chief of Talitakum Weekly,
Dili, East Timor
The history of the Timor Leste independence movement over 24 years began with the death of five Australian journalists and a new Zealand journalist on 16 October, 1975. Roger East, an Australian journalist, was killed
on invasion day, 7 December, 1975. Kamal Bamadah,
an activist from new Zealand was killed on 12 November, 1991. And a number of journalists were wounded
as a result of Indonesian military violence.
When the referendum was held on 30 August, 1999, three
journalists experienced the same fate. Bedinho Guetrre,
a Radio Matebian journalist, was shot by Indonesian
police when he was covering the pro-independence campaign on 25 August, 1999. Sanders Thoenes, a Dutch
journalist, was murdered by the Indonesian military on
21 September, 1999. And Agus Maulyawan, an Indonesian journalist who worked for the Japanese press, was
killed on 25 September, 1999 in Lospalos by the SAKA
militia. This does not include the journalists who received
threats and ill-treatment from the Indonesian military
apparatus.
The above information is the history of journalists involvement and the beginning of threats to their safety in
Timor Leste. Despite victory in the referendum and two
years of UN presence in Timor Leste, the safety of journalists is still under threat. Journalists have been threatened and subjected to acts of violence. The Timor
Larosae Journalists Association (TLJA) has recorded a
number of attacks, beatings, forced removals, and the
destruction of journalists offices and equipment over
the past two years.
For 24 years threats to the safety of journalists came
from the military and the Indonesian government. However, in independent Timor Leste, the threats and violence that journalists are currently experiencing come
from civilians, rather than the military or the police. Several cases recorded by the TLJA between January 2001
and April 2002 indicate who is threatening the safety of
journalists and carrying out violent acts.
These include physical attacks and the forced removal
of reporters and cameraman from TV Timor Lorosae
when they were covering student orientation. A case is
still at the judicial stage involving the forced removal of
journalists from the National Council room resulting in
the destruction of cameras and video cameras. Threats
came from the head of the mass organization CPDRDTL that it would burn down the Lian Maubere Weekly
news magazine because it reported that the CPD-RDTL
was working in collaboration with the Indonesian military. Xanana Gusmaos guard used the government office car for their own personal use. The CPD-RDTL
group attacked and broke the doors and windows of
the Radio Timor Kmanek station. A Japanese journalists camera was destroyed by Serio Vieirra de Mello, a
bodyguard of the Special Representative of Secretary
General (SRSG) of the UN. Takhesi won this case in a
Dili court against the SRSG. The same journalist, Takhesi,
was put in jail for 11 days as a result of false accusations
from several of Xanana Gusmaos staff about attempts
to murder him.
Other threats have come from Armando da Silva, the
president of the Liberal Party who is now in the Legislative Assembly. Armando da Silva threatened that the
masses from FITUN, a clandestine youth organization
during the time of Indonesian occupation, would attack
the Talitakum weekly newsmagazine because this magazine was reporting about the involvement of Armanda
da Silva in a number of Indonesian military operations
which resulted in the death of many FALINTIL members in 1991.
Talitakum investigations prove that FITUN itself had
officially fired Armando da Silva from the board of this
organisation because he was working in collaborationwith
KOPASSUS, the Indonesian Special Forces. The latest
acts of violence experienced by journalists occurred at
the time of the Timor Leste presidential candidates de-
The Reasons Behind the Threats and

Attacks on Journalists
The cases of violence and threats against journalists
mentioned above can be categorized by the origin of
the threats, namely movement leaders and their followers; bureaucrats within the new government; party leaders; the leaders and members of mass organizations; and
students.
In the case of movement leader, Xanana Gusmao, the
attacks carried out by his bodyguards and followers appear to be driven by the need to protect the reputation
of a leader who was revered for 24 years. The acts carried out by people close to Xanana Gusmao are generally committed without his knowledge. Excessive protection of his reputation has caused Xananas bodyguard
and followers to act irrationally. As a result, Xanana
Gusmaos reputation could falter in the eyes of local
journalists.
Threats and acts of violence from the leaders of various
mass organizations or political parties attempt to cover
up the mistakes they made throughout the 24 years of
struggle. The known followers of these leaders are the
masses who fail to understand ideologically, and these
are the people who are ready to react when political discourse cannot be reconciled. Journalists who reveal the
facts surrounding these leaders often receive support
from the masses who want justice. Revelations in the
media of facts about a number of new bureaucrats is
demanded by the masses who are dissatisfied with certain people because of their political affiliation with the
Indonesian era.
A number of the threats and acts of violence experienced by journalists are basically due to efforts to ensure
the success of bad policies, as developed by government
bureaucrats, party leaders, mass organization leaders and
movement leaders. It is easy for these leaders to mobilize the masses to support them. These leaders are very
clever at manipulating the mentality of the masses in a
post-conflict area like Timor Leste. One aspect of the
mentality of the masses, which is easily manipulated by
politicians or leaders, is revenge. This is linked to the
post-referendum mass destruction of the social and economic landscape carried out by the militias and the Indonesia military. However, up until now there has not
been a single journalist in Timor Leste who has died as a
result of the violence, but journalists have been threatened. This does not guarantee that journalists in Timor
Leste will not become victims of violence in the near

future.
The critical post-conflict mentality of the masses is finding a new identity and there has indeed been a massive
change. On the other hand, the majority of the masses
still continue to revere past leaders of the masses. The
low level of education in Timor Leste has caused a low
level of understanding about the meaning of a free press.
After looking at these cases, how can the safety of Timor
Leste journalists be guaranteed? In the Timor Leste
Constitution, there are two articles, Article 40 and Article 41, which guarantee freedom of expression, freedom of information and press freedom. Unfortunately
these two articles are flawed. In Article 40, regarding
freedom of expression and freedom to information, the
first point clearly states that Every person has the right
to freedom of expression and the freedom to seek and
spread information. The second point goes on to state
that The exercise of these rights cant be restricted by
forms of censorship. However, point three, states that,
The exercise of these rights and freedoms are regulated by law based on respect for the constitution and
individual values. Point three of this article is the biggest threat to those who use the right to express, provide and find information. This third point opens up
the opportunity for the government to create a press
law which will protect government policy and interests.
Article 41 specifically addresses press freedom and social communication in six points. Points 1 to 5 are adequate. Point 6, however, limits the operations of radio
and television stations. It states that radio and television
stations can only operate with a license and this is based
on the law. Once again this point does not clearly state
what kind of license is needed. Do they need a license to
start up or a license to get a frequency? In addition it
does not mention which institution they can get the license from. The biggest threat comes from the phrase
based on the law.
So, what about the real conditions of the mass media
and journalists in Timor Leste? All media organizations
are still dependent on donor assistance. There is yet to
be a mass media organization, either print or broadcast,
which is financially independent. These conditions mean
that the safety of journalists which should be addressed
by publishing companies, can not be addressed. Growth
in the private sector in Timor Leste has not attracted
entrepreneurs with large sums of capital to invest their
money in the media industry. We can assess the characteristics of the future government in the light of the
above two Articles of the Constitution. In the past two
years, various policies from the transitional government
have been criticized by the mass media. Still, Timor Leste
79
Case Studies in Asia and the Pacific
bate at the National University of Timor Leste on 12

April, 2002. A student who did not have a place in the
debating room beat a Radio Untaet journalist and ruined his tape recorder.
80
bureaucrats say that the situation is still tolerable because

the UN and they believe that recent policies which have
been adopted are not their responsibility. As a result, if
the mass media criticize public policy, the government
responds that they will examine the situation after 20
May.
meeting houses. Pacific Island States, in the hope of

encouraging tourism after 11 September, 2001, believed
and wanted to promote the South Pacific as the Safe
Pacific. But that does not necessarily mean that journalists in the Pacific are safe and free from the impacts of
terrorism and related risks to their lives.
Besides the weakness in the Constitutions ability to guarantee the safety of journalists, another matter which could
become a threat to the safety of journalists is the bureaucratic mentality of the Indonesia New Order, which
is still strong within the minds of Timor Leste bureaucrats. Bureaucrats in Timor Leste are very protective of
their policies. This means that they do not want any policies to be criticised.
There are strands of terrorism in the region. Pacific

Islanders call them coups detat and mutinies. Such is
the case in Fiji. They are called ethnic uprisings in the
case of Solomon Islands and Bougainville in Papua New
Guinea, or student protests, as in the University of PNGled bloody street protests of June 2001 in Port Moresby.
The third strand of Pacific terrorism is corruption in
the corridors of power, in the public service system and
in the high offices of business. All of these are dangerous for the working journalist.
What can be done under these conditions and how can

the safety of journalists be guaranteed while they are
working? Over the past two years and possibly the next
five years the only tool which can be used for protection
is Press ID. This is the only guarantee which has been
given to journalists from publishing companies. The journalists have to avoid reporting the minority issues which
could lead them to become a majority community enemy (such as reporting on the returnees from Indonesia, reporting reconciliation issues, or even criticizing the
government policy about Muslims). They also have to
avoid writing sensational stories which are hard to understand by common people.
By looking at these conditions what can Timor Larosae
Journalists Association do? It is hoped that journalists
will adhere to the code of ethics which has been mutually agreed upon. For specific events such as the election, the TLJA is working together with IEC to produce
a code of conduct for covering the campaign and the
election day. The TLJA can provide advocacy for journalists who are experiencing problems with other parties. It can continue to campaign for freedom of press
in the framework of raising peoples awareness. It can
often implement self-censorship even though this is
sometimes in conflict with the instinct of journalists. It
can establish cordial relations with both the ruling and
opposition leaders. And the TLJA can provide more
training for journalists in terms of covering and presenting the stories to the public.
CASE STUDY III

The Safety of Journalists in the Pacific
Justin Kili
Pina Radio Group, Pacific Islands
Let me begin my short presentation by just saying that
the word terrorism is not one that is readily included in
the vocabulary of ordinary Pacific Islanders as they tell
their stories round their camp-fires at night or at their
South Pacific journalists have had their share of harassment and threats from the perpetrators of these illegal
acts. My regional colleague from the Samoa Observer, Publisher Savea Sano Malifa, persevered and persisted in
printing the truth even though the very survival of his
newspaper and Sanos own professional career as a newsman was strongly threatened by outside political preasure.
The Publisher of the Solomon Star and owner of PAOA
FM in Honiara, John Lamani, also suffered political harassment. His two media companies were threatened with
imminent closure unless he apologized and paid a hefty
sum of money as compensation to the leader who was
alledgedly defamed. This was because the Solomon Star
printed what it believed to be the truth. Both of these
publishers have between them a number of Media Freedom Awards from many news organizations in the world
including our own Pacific Islands News Association
(PIMA).
There are many stories about the safety, or rather the
lack of safety, of Pacific journalists. Journalists risked
their lives reporting live from military zones without protective gear during the coups and mutiny in the Fiji Islands. Honiara journalists dodged bullets as they tried to
report on the ethnic clashes that brought a government
down.
I would like to concentrate on the Papua New Guinea
experience, the Bougainville Crisis, for example. This was
a landowner protest that successfully shut down the second largest open-cut copper mine in the world,
Bougainville Copper. The perpetrators of this ethnic
uprising called themselves the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), who, at the height of the 10-year uprising, did not recognise or respect journalists of the
local media accusing them of being pro-Government
spies and working with the government forces. However, they had no problem with overseas media person-
In this situation, you will understand, our journalists were

like meat in a sandwich with the BRA on one side and
government forces on the other. Danger was always
present for the journalists reporting from the jungles of
Bougainville. But as time wore on, the media found the
means to develop a unique relationship with the rebels,
on one hand, and government forces, on the other, while
reporting the viewpoints of both sides. Needless to say,
there were casualties and deaths on both sides. But we
did not lose a journalist.
There is also the meaningless but nevertheless dangerous assault and harassment of reporters and the destruction of their tools during protest marches or political
rallies. This is becoming synonymous with rent-a-crowd
style marches or gatherings which cause general destruction to property under the guise of the claim that those
taking part represent the silent majority. The danger to
reporters covering the one week stand-off between the
government and university students in June last year was
staring them in the face everyday. There were deaths and
casualties as a result of this protest.
Another incident of terrorism in the corridors of power
happened during a prime ministerial press conference
when a politician singled out a TV cameraman and
shouted there he is, get him, while advancing towards
our newsman. This was recorded and broadcast on national television. The incident was apparently based on
a TV report the previous day which criticized the rather
dubious financial dealings of the government of the day
and its leader did not agree with it. The politician who
openly threatened the TV newsman eventually was appointed Police Minister.
We in PNG fear that incidents of assault, harassment
and destruction of property could increase for our journalists, especially after the Media Council of Papua New
Guinea declared an all-out War Against Corruption as
the country braces itself for national elections in June.
We sought and got the support of all concerned citizens, church groups, NGOs, chambers of commerce,
and various councils to carry forward the campaign which
effectively took the focus away from the media and their
workers thereby minimizing the risk of danger of what
we in PNG call payback. Journalists who are covering
the campaign trails for candidates or individual political
parties run the personal risk of being attacked or abused
by supporters of a rival candidate or party, merely for

being the one that reports the views of the other side.
The PNG Media Council is very mindful of the number
of high-powered weapons now in the hands of certain
candidates or their supporters. These were allegedly
brought into the country or stolen from armories of the
army or the police specifically for the campaign trail.
The danger in the face of duty for our journalists will be
very real in some parts of the country during the coming national elections.
Another unique danger that PNG journalists risk is based
on culture and tradition. They can not write to expose
the wrongs and sins of a wantok, a prominent citizen
and member of their tribe. Tribal or traditional law decrees that they must respect their elders and must never
ever raise their voices against them for fear of repercussions which could affect immediate family or relatives.
So how are we addressing this problem? The Media
Council of PNG is working closely with the Pacific Islands News Association to find answers. For example,
PINA and the Media Council of PNG are running a
regional workshop in Madang on Training the Trainers
in Crisis Reporting, a program we began last year as a
result of identifying the many dangers Pacific Islands
journalists face these days. These include the experiences
of the three Fiji coups, the Solomons Ethnic Conflict
and coup, the Bougainville Secessionist war, the PNGSolomons border conflict, and the continuing conflict
of the West Papuan people. With the support of
UNESCO, we are also developing a handbook on peace
reporting. This gives examples of how the media in these
Pacific countries have promoted reconciliation and peace
in these conflicts and have moved another step closer to
make it a Safe Pacific for our journalists to carry out
their work.
CASE STUDY IV
Media and Terrorism in the Philippines
Melinda Quintos de Jesus
Executive Director of the Center for Media Freedom
and Responsibility (CMFR), the Philippines
The constitutional protection of freedom of expression
and press freedom adds to the complexity of the Philippine experience of media and terrorism. The context of
issues also includes the activities of insurgent rebel groups
as well as the use by government, military, and police of
terror tactics against the population. However, the brevity of this paper limits its focus on the analysis of media
coverage of terrorism in the Philippines.
General Background
The Philippine press has enjoyed a long tradition of au-
81
nel who entered Bougainville from the Solomon Islands,

and interviewed them for overseas publications. Also at
this time, a turn of events further endangered the lives
of local journalists as some of them actually walked into
the jungles and up into the mountains conducting exclusive interviews with rebel leaders and recording on film
rebels in their element, the jungle.
tonomy from government control. Its newspapers are

noted for a freewheeling, in-your-face treatment of
news, an unrelenting criticism of government and politics, and a flamboyant editorial style. The trend toward
entertainment news highlights the commercialism of
press enterprise whether in TV, radio or print, all three
of which are dominated by the private sector. At present,
the Philippine constitution provides that no law shall
be passed that will abridge the freedom of expression
and with it the freedom of the press. Libel laws do
provide recourse for those unfairly aggrieved by the press
but the courts have construed the law liberally to favor
the press.
82
The broad arena for press activities assures that the institution has enduring power and influence. The press
generally enjoys public support. But the press mirrors
all the problems of society. Poverty, the culture of corruption, patronage politics and the decline of the educational system have all affected the conduct and character
of journalism. Media practice does not always assist
democratic growth. Content analysis of news coverage
reveals flaws of Philippine journalism: sensationalism,
the surrender to political and corporate patrons, and the
lack of reporting and editorial skills.
Terrorism Reviewed
Global mapping of terrorism has drawn the Philippines,
along with three other countries in Southeast Asia, as
part of a terrorist front operating in four regional capitals: Manila, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The
network has been linked to Al-Qaeda. In 1993, investigations in Manila led to the capture of Ramzi Yousef who
is now in jail in the U.S. for his involvement in the first
bombing of the World Trade Center. In November 2001,
the arrest of two Palestinians and one Jordanian gave
more credence to the Philippines usefulness for AlQaedas plans. Time Magazine reported that the three are
part of an Al-Qaeda cell which includes members of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Even more recently in
March 2002, an Indonesian terrorist suspect was arrested
in Manila who, police reported, had admitted his role in
the bombing of the citys Light Rail Transit (LRT) in
December 2000 in which 22 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
But this terrorist front is not as visible as the terrorist
scourge of the Abu Sayaf (AS), a small band of Muslim
militants who have taken to kidnapping and hostagetaking for ransom in Southern Mindanao. The groups
connection to Al-Qaeda remains sketchy and their ideology is vague, but their activities have constituted a greater
terror in the public mind. In the last two years, the Abu
Sayaf group, operating from bases in southern islands
of Jolo and Basilan, have raided three exclusive beach
resorts, the Sipadan in Malaysia in 2000 and Dos Palmas

and Pearl Farm in the Philippines in 2001, taking Filipinos and foreigners as hostages. Past raids of the Abu
Sayaf had taken foreign and Filipino priests and nuns,
teachers and students in Basilan. One raid seized 42 people from a ferry crossing the strait between Basilan and
Zamboanga.
A joint campaign called Balikatan 2002 was billed by
the Macapagal-Arroyo government as a response to the
threat of domestic terrorism. It joined the AFP (Armed
Forces of the Philippines) and U.S. Special Forces in
training exercises. These efforts were focused only on
capacity-building against the Abu Sayaf whose activities
have been limited to the Philippine South.
Unfettered Coverage
In most cases, few restrictions have prevented journalists from covering the Abu Sayaf or any other group,
for that matter. Government did call for a news blackout on the AS raids in 2001 but different organizations
decided their own coverage policy accordingly; with some
following government instructions and others ignoring
them. In fact, the coverage of these incidents yielded a
smaller number of reports compared to coverage in 2000.
But the public did not complain that they did not know
what was going on.
Of all the armed groups confronting government, the
press has given the most coverage to the Abu Sayaf.
During then President Joseph Estradas military offensive against the dissident Moro Independent Liberation
Front (MILF) in 2000, the press gave extensive coverage to AS raid of the Sipadan resort in Malaysia and
their hostage-taking of 19 foreigners. The military began attacking MILF camps on 28 April and claimed victory on 16 May. In the period surveyed for analysis
(March June 2000), five major Manila dailies showed
670 reports on the AS hostages/kidnapping and 434
reports on the military/MILF, out of a total number
1633 articles on Mindanao.
Closer analysis showed media stretching the hostage story
beyond the storys actual development, playing up pictures and other related aspects of the victims and relatives. The MILF has been a more significant political
reality, having sustained its rebellion for longer than the
existence of Abu Sayaf. But the press did not deepen
war reporting by examining the related issues of conflict. Defense correspondents basically reported military
statements about the war and did not explore the story
from behind enemy lines. On the Abu Sayaf front,
journalist excursions explored the groups territory and
a number of journalists themselves were taken hostage
by their news sources. Interestingly, the arrests of for-
The greater news attention given to the Abu Sayaf follows traditional news values. The story had more drama
and more excitement than the largely invisible international terrorist cells. The press exploited the victims
plight, playing up the beheading of victims or the possibilities of more beheadings. In the 2000 raids, the media
gave the gangs colorful leader Commander Robot
prime space and time as he played up to the media, issuing statements on radio and managing to hold media
attention even when the story lagged. The competition
for scoops was so sharp that TV correspondents complained of not being allowed to return to Manila for as
long as the competing networks team remained in Jolo.
News Blackout
The coverage of the raids the following year were more
muted. In 2001, Abu Sayaf raids of Pearl Farm in Davao
on 23 May and of Dos Palmas in Palawan on 27 May
received 326 articles in all.
The publics negative feedback on the sensationalistic
treatment and media over-exposure may have been one
reason. The government also appealed to the press to
exercise restraint in the coverage and to treat tactical
military information with sensitivity, pointing out that
media exposure serves AS purposes; that certain information could compromise search and rescue operations,
and that media could be used for disinformation. But
the president unfortunately used news blackout during the press conference and the term provoked protests from some media sectors. Radio Mindanao Networks Zamboanga station continued to broadcast interviews with AS spokesperson Abu Sabaya and to air
appeals from hostages for the military to back off.
Many media sources agreed that coverage was motivated
primarily by the desire to scoop the competition.
In reality, the news blackout was taken as no more
than a cautionary appeal for responsible reporting, a reminder that groups like the AS actually use media as part
of the array of weapons in fighting their war. After the
experience of 2000, some journalists also felt that it was
just too dangerous to get too close to the AS. The protection of journalists is a societal question. Where government cannot assure protection for ordinary citizens,
it is unrealistic to ask for special treatment of journalists.
There have been efforts in the past to legislate attacks
against journalist as a heinous crime and a way of deterring journalist killings, but the press community felt it
improper to be set aside as a special community among
their fellow citizens.
Sources
In covering terrorist incidents, the press relies on government sources, the military or police, local officials
and Malacanang. In the same CMFR study on Mindanao
coverage, the military dominated all other sources, including the coverage of the military offensive against
the MILF. But the coverage gave the Abu Sayaf group
ample space with which to reveal their real nature to the
public. Nationwide, the AS has lost any public sympathy
they may have had. But people fear the AS and this has
been cited as a reason for the decline of tourism in
Mindanao. However, community support (or fear) in the
groups island base is still cited as a reason they can hide
so well.
Level of Awareness
Extensive as the reporting on AS has been, coverage
does not indicate a high level of journalistic awareness
of terrorism as a movement or as a tactic of war. Reports did not use the term terrorist or terrorism in
describing AS and its activities. When the word appears,
it is in a quote from a military source or in an opinion
piece. The word is not used in reports on dissident groups
employing tactics such as bombing and kidnappings, or
when military uses terrorism against civilians. In covering terrorist incidents, the press reports as they do any
other crime story.
After the 11 September attacks on the World Trade
Center, the press covered the course of the war in Afghanistan but it has shown little interest in international
developments after the fall of the Taliban. The re-alignment of global interests to fight terrorism has not become a major thematic concern in the news or in commentary. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was not
timid. Her critics say she was too eager to give all-out
support for the U.S. campaign to fight terrorism. But
the press has not examined the global change that others claim is re-casting geopolitical realities.
Recommendation
The issues raised by the relationship of media to terrorism cannot be fully understood without some kind of
background training in the development of terrorism,
its use by marginalized and aggrieved communities, and
its application everywhere. The media must recognize
the method as a different way of making war or fighting
for a cause, which can be used by criminals, by mischief
makers, by dissidents as well as freedom fighters. Without such a framework of analysis, the press can not serve
its purpose, which is to shine the light of truth on what
can easily be used to confuse and to mislead.
83
eign nationals suspected of having Al-Qaeda links and

maintaining its Southeast Asian front have received only
scant space in local media.
Journalist education can then lead to the formulation of

meaningful guidelines or guiding principles. These should
be set and adopted either at the newsroom level or industry-wide. It is important, however, that such guidance emerges from within an informed news community and arises from a broad understanding of the impact of news on the course of events.
CASE STUDY V
Media in Danger:
South East Asia at a Glance
Chavarong Limpattaamapanee,
Acting Chairperson, South East Asian Press Alliance
84
South East Asia is one of the most dynamic regions in

the world, in terms of social, economic and political
development. The fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the
ouster of Estrada in the Philippines and political reform
in Thailand are all events which have had an impact on
demands for free expression in Malaysia and the development of the press in Cambodia. There is also the
emerging press in the new state of East Timor. However, the media in the South East Asian region are not
completely secure, especially in more open societies such
as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, due to the
fact that media organizations are still the target of accusations whenever there is political, economic and social
turmoil. The threats to media freedom in South East
Asia are not only physical in nature. They also take the
form of advertising pressure, closure of newspapers,
control through ownership and the corruption of journalists. The threats come not just from governments
but from big business, and, in Indonesia, there is the
threat of mob violence.
Threats to the Media in the Region
Indonesia
After the fall of Suharto in 1998, the media in Indonesia
became free overnight. Since then, over 200 new newspapers and magazines have opened. A new press law
was introduced in 1999. It states that the media in Indonesia are completely free from legal constraints. But
Indonesia is facing a new threat from social pressure
groups. Mobs composed of Islamic militants have attacked the offices of newspapers and TV stations because they were angry about their reporting. Journalists
face threats not only from the government but also from
unruly mobs.
The Philippines
The Philippines has one of the freest presses in Asia,
but it also has one of the highest casualty counts. Some
35 Philippine journalists have been killed since the restoration of democracy in 1986. Many Philippine journalists, especially in the provinces, face threats and harassment in the course of their work. Former President
Joseph Estrada tried to muzzle the press by forcing the
closure of a critical newspaper and initiating an advertising boycott of an influential daily that ran critical reports about his presidency. He also used
envelopmental journalism, distributing money to ensure that he got good coverage.
Malaysia
The media in Malaysia are under the tight control of the
ruling party in different ways, including strong press regulations and ownership control. On 3 May, 2000, an extraordinary movement developed when some 1,000
Malaysian journalists, regardless of race and religion,
signed a petition to the Home Minister demanding a
change in the press law. This coincided with the advent
of alternative media in Malaysia with Malaysiakini.com
as their pioneer. Since then, various group of journalists
in the mainstream and in the alternative media have been
trying to work their way towards a freer media environment. However, there is still no sign from the government that the journalists demands will be met. Because
most of the media in Malaysia are owned by companies
linked to the ruling coalition, the Malaysian government
has exercised media control through ownership. Earlier
this year, key journalists and editors of the Sun newspaper were fired, after the newspaper ran a story that displeased Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad.
Cambodia
The media in Cambodia are considered freer than their
neighbors in Laos and Vietnam. But Cambodias press
law still has a loophole allowing the government to issue
a restricted subdecree to control the press. Political interference is still rampant and it is one of the problems
that makes the Cambodian press vulnerable to threats.
Thailand
Thai media are considered completely free, according to
a rating by Freedom House in 2002. But since Prime
Minister Thaksin Sinnawattra took power in early 2001
with a landslide election victory, the media have been
under pressure. After only a few months in power, the
new government started to put tight controls on the
broadcast media which are still in government hands.
Several radio and television programs that aired different views to the governments had been withdrawn. The
new government is also accused of using advertising
power to put pressure on the print media, which are all
Concluding Remarks
If we consider all the incidents referred to above as threats
to the media, we can simply say that the media in South
East Asian countries are in danger. In addition, after 11
September, some of the countries in the region have
come up with new measures and legislation to muzzle
the media and limit civil liberty. All of this is done in the
name of the campaign against terrorism.
Therefore, whenever the media are under threat, press
freedom is also under threat. When that happens, the
citizens ears, eyes and mouth will be shut, and that is the
end of democracy.
85
privately owned, to be friendly to the government. The

situation became worse when the Anti-Money Laundering Agency launched an investigation into the bank transactions of media people, especially those from newspapers that heavily criticized the government. This was
condemned by academics, civil society and media associations because it was clearly against the human rights
principles enshrined in the constitution. So far, the
Thaksin government has not listened to the demand of
the media profession to issue a policy guaranteeing that
no radio or television programs would be banned without proper reason and without going through a certain
process of investigation.
86
Case
Studies
in
Europe
CHAPTER 9:
Europe
CASE STUDY I
To Die for Being a Journalist in the Basque Region
Carmen Gurruchaga Basurto,
Journalist, El Mundo,
Spain
In the Basque region at present, simply being a journalist can cost you your life,
particularly if you defend freedom of expression. To explain how this situation has
come about, I shall briefly review the history of ETA in terms of its relationship
with the media. In this region of Spain, this terrorist organization has existed for 40
years and, in the last 15 to 20 years, it has gradually become a totalitarian movement.
Anyone who does not think exactly like the leaders of this armed group immediately
becomes its enemy and therefore a target for attack.
Journalists have not always been the targets of ETA attacks during the 40 or so years
of its existence. This was because, among other reasons, much of the Basque and
Spanish media regarded that armed organization for many years as a revolutionary
group that had fought against Francos dictatorship. In that context, the bad guys
were General Francisco Franco and his dictatorship and the good guys were ETA
and its campaign against Spains dictatorial system of government.
The problem arose when Franco died in 1975 and Spain became a parliamentary
democracy with a constitutional monarch. ETA did not accept this and carried on
killing, kidnapping and blackmailing, but with a new excuse. It acknowledged that
Franco had gone and that all prisoners belonging to its organization had been amnestied, but it considered that it made no difference to the Basque people (ETA
claims the word Basque for itself) what type of government there was in Spain
since no government, either democratic or fascist, would acknowledge that the Basque
people had historic rights on account of which they should be a nation independent
from Spain. In other words, the terrorist organization said that it was struggling,
now in a democratic context, to win independence for the Basque country. Some of
its long-standing activists did not support the new strategy and left. Others took the
opposite view and, on the strength of this new justification, a new ETA, much more
radical than before, emerged in 1977. However, practically no one was aware of this
situation at the time and several years elapsed before it came to be regarded as a
terrorist organization by some of the sectors of society that had supported it during
the dictatorship: the left, part of society, the Church, France and the media.
However, just in case any journalist intended to treat it as a terrorist organization, in
June 1978 an ETA unit murdered Bilbao journalist Jos Mara Portell and, two years
later, tried to kill the editor of the most important newspaper in Navarra, Jos Javier
Uranga, who was shot 10 times, but survived. In both cases, the terrorist group
issued a press release in which it justified the attacks so as to legitimize its action to
society, something which it would attempt to do throughout its existence. Legitimacy is vital to a terrorist organization that pursues political goals and bases its
existence on the support of society. At that time, whenever an attack occurred, a
large part of the population believed that the victim had done something to deserve
being a target of the terrorist organization. Those two selective strikes meant that
many journalists became subconsciously afraid of being murdered by ETA. That is
the reason why during the many years in which ETA did not target the media,
journalists lived in a state of respect bordering on fear of the terrorists.
Furthermore, during those early years of democracy, Spanish society, Basque society and journalists as members of those societies could not quite believe that Spain
was just another Western democracy. They were therefore unable to call a spade a
spade and used euphemisms to write or speak about anything relating to the terror-
87
CHAPTER 9: Europe
88
ist organization. Thus, instead of using the word murder they spoke of death. Nor did they call ETA members terrorists, but referred to them as militants.
The organization itself was described as an armed organization rather than a terrorist organization. Blackmail to obtain money from businessmen was called a
revolutionary tax, and so on. Under those circumstances, ETA felt that the media were serving its propaganda purposes. If anyone strayed from the path and
openly criticized terrorists activities, a leader of its political wing (Herri Batasuna) would call the journalist in
question and make him see that, in his opinion, he had
gone too far on this or that news item. Or they would
use Egin, the publication owned by the political arm but
sold as a commercial newspaper, to criticize the journalist who had dared to speak out frankly. A campaign would
be launched immediately against the journalist in question, who would be accused of being in the pay of the
Spanish Ministry of the Interior, of being a centralist
(a supporter of the Spanish state and an enemy of the
Basque country) and, furthermore, of lacking objectivity, which is the worst thing that could be said about a
journalist. It was all lies, but that did not matter because
the desired goal was achieved. Its supporters, Egin readers, believed what was said about the reporter. Those
journalists who did not dare to disagree were described
as objective and good professionals as compared with
the one criticized who, in many cases, kept quiet because
he or she felt isolated. For one reason or another selfcensorship had been imposed.
The 1980s passed in this way and some journalists began to lose their fear of ETA because in none of the
documents that the security forces seized from the terrorists were journalists listed among the organizations
targets. But there was a reason for that. The media were
being used to let people know about their activities, which
is the aim of terrorism. According to the most generally
accepted definitions, terrorism is the use of violence to
spread fear and to disseminate terror beyond the actual
victim to the sections of the community to which the
victim belongs or even to the whole of society. Therefore, for a long time, ETA used the media to spread its
message of terror, although most of the information
was couched in terms that were hostile to the terrorists.
According to Schmid and de Graaf, what matters to
terrorists is not whether the information is positive or
negative, but just the amount of information. To them,
a lot of information is good, and a little is bad. The
other message, the political one, which is the one that
they want to reach their own audience in exactly the way
in which it is published, is disseminated by their own
media, minor publications, the Internet, and other means.
Despite this division, which suits ETA and its entire
politico-social network, there are some journalists who
do not apply self-censorship and who dare to break these

established rules. They conduct investigative journalism
and publish what they have found out about the clandestine terrorist organization or about the other organizations that make up the network. At first, the terrorists
used intimidation against them as described above, but
when they found that it was unsuccessful, they decided
upon a complete change of direction. ETA had already
radicalized its strategy in 1995 when it initiated what it
euphemistically described as the socialization of suffering, which consisted in extending violent action to
wider and wider sectors of society. Thus, political representatives of non-nationalist parties, university professors, judges and so on became ETA targets. The terrorists believe that the greater the number of people who
feel targeted by the terrorist group, the greater the pressure exerted on the government, which would ultimately
have to agree to negotiate with the organization on the
latters terms. In accordance with such a strategy, it was
vital to keep a tight rein on the media. It was against this
background that evidence emerged in the mid-1990s of
the existence of a document on the expediency of attacking the media and journalists. In 1996, when the
content of that document became known, ETAs support network asserted that it was merely a contribution
to the strategic debate. Whether journalists really believed
it or merely wished to believe it, the fact is that, from
that time on, terrorist acts of aggression and coercion
against the media and its representatives rose sharply.
ETA has a youth group that practises street violence,
which is known in Basque as kale borroka. That group
was the first one to begin to take action against journalists and newspaper buildings by throwing Molotov cocktails, breaking windows, and other similar action.
I had the dubious honour of being the first woman journalist to undergo an attack for which they subsequently
claimed responsibility, justifying themselves by saying that
she wrote for a Spanish newspaper. That happened
on 22 December, 1997 and since then I have been protected by two bodyguards. The year before that, young
apprentice terrorists had thrown Molotov cocktails at
my San Sebastian office and had punctured the tyres of
my car; the 21 members of the Herri Batasuna leadership had gathered in front of my home and that same
party had organized several marches against me from
the centre of San Sebastian to the newspaper building. I
am relating this to give an idea of the pressure that can
be put on journalists who try to practise their profession
freely in the Basque region and who are considered to
be non-nationalists by that group. Jos Luis Lpez de la
Calle, a colleague on my newspaper, suffered similar experiences before he was killed in May 2000 in front of
his home. Jos Luis had waged a lifelong battle against
totalitarianism. He had been imprisoned under Franco
and 40 years later ETA killed him. At present, in Spain,
It is clear that ETA now needs more than ever to legitimize its activities to that part of Basque society that still
supports it today. That accounts for somewhat less than
10 per cent of Basque society. Some 150,000 people vote
for the political arm of the organization. The Basque
terrorist organization, therefore, legitimizes its action
against the media by claiming that they are part of the
media arm of the State, directly linked to the centres
of Spains economic and political power. It compares
journalists with army spokespersons when it says, no
one would say that that kind of work is the expression
of the right to information or that they must remain on
the sidelines of the conflict. In pursuit of this policy, it
uses its own media, its newspaper, its radio stations,
Internet pages, its magazines, book publishers, in which
the organizations targets have been described as enemies of the Basque people and of the nationalist cause,
and collaborators of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior. ETA, therefore, usurps the term Basque as if
the people who have been targets of its attacks are less
Basque than its supporters because they do not share its
ideas and, above all, because they are against the means
it uses (murder, blackmail and coercion) to achieve its
political ends. In any event, the audience for whom this
crude message is intended believes it, and that is all that
matters to ETA. For, paradoxical though it may be, the
other message, that of terror, continues to be disseminated by the media that are the targets of its actions
because, independently of the terrorist campaign, or
precisely because of it, journalists and the media continue to feel obliged to defend freedom of expression
and to provide information to satisfy the peoples right,
and their own right, to be informed.
I should like to stress that, despite the difficult conditions under which journalists write about politics and, in
that context, about Basque nationalism and violence, we
feel obliged to carry on our profession and we have a
formal commitment to defend, in whatever circumstances, freedom in the Basque region and, more specifically, freedom of expression. I suppose that you all
know that in the Basque region there is a considerable
lack of freedom at present. Many of those who make
up civil society, business people, university staff and
judges, for example, live under police protection, as do
members of the non-nationalist parties (the Popular Party
and the Socialist Party) that form the opposition to the
regional Basque government. In the last few years, about
20 elected officials belonging to these two parties have
been assassinated and the two parties, which are main-
stream parties in Spain, will find it difficult to fill their

electoral lists in the Basque region for the municipal elections in 2003. There are town councils in the Basque
region in which practically half of the members have
resigned out of fear of being assassinated. The situation
is really very difficult, and, as we have just seen, not only
for journalists. ETA is trying to undermine the very foundations of the rule of law by attacking the legislative,
executive and the judicial powers and what is known as
the fourth estate, namely the media. ETA is acting just
like the Nazis when it murders journalists, but also when
it burns bookshops, as it did recently in San Sebastian
because some books that were not to its liking were displayed in the shop windows or because the shop owners
had taken part in a demonstration against terrorism and
in support of democracy and peace.
CASE STUDY II
War, Terrorism and Journalists:
the Chechen Experience
Anna Politkovskaya,
Journalist, Novaya Gazeta,
Russian Federation
At the time of writing, the second Chechen war had
already been under way for two and a half years, May 2002
will be its 31st month. It is officially known as an antiterrorist operation, just like the American war in Afghanistan. What is it like to work as a journalist in
Chechnya? In a situation in which all illusions have long
since been lost, it has become clear that what we have is
in no way a fight against terrorism. Instead, on the
one hand, we have complete military anarchy. This has
the blessings of the highest authorities in Russia. It takes
the form of such absolutely unacceptable methods as
endless marauding in towns and villages, the murder of
civilians, punishment without trial, a slave trade and even
a trade in corpses on the part of federal troops. On the
other hand, we have a growing number of people seeking to avenge the death or disappearance of relatives, in
other words the de facto recruitment of resistance fighters, and hence the reproduction of terrorism.
From the very beginning of the second Chechen war,
the administration of President Putin issued instructions
regulating the work of all the news media. Initially, these
instructions were contrary to the Russian legislation.
However, the Presidents administration did not make
any concessions. To begin with, each journalist had to
have accreditation from the office of President Putins
top aide, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who was made responsible for the so-called ideological component of the
antiterrorist operation.
Then, after obtaining accreditation, each journalist had
to report to the main federal military base in Chechnya,
89
Case Studies in Europe
more than 100 media professionals carry on their work

accompanied by bodyguards to protect them, while others look under their cars each day to check for bombs,
they change their routes and their timetable, and rarely
say where they are going.
CHAPTER 9: Europe
90
known as Khankala, on the outskirts of Grozny, and be

registered once again with the Armys press service and
stay put at the military base. In other words, they had to
place themselves at the complete disposal of the Armys
press service. Journalists thus found themselves in a trap.
The conditions of work were dictated by military personnel. It was forbidden, on penalty of losing ones accreditation, to meet civilians, to visit towns and villages
independently, or even simply to leave the military base
unaccompanied by military personnel, who were also
unwilling to leave it and, as they put it, risk their lives in
order to enable journalists to do their work. Consequently,
the only information that journalists working in Chechnya
could get was from military press releases. They contained more ideology than information, and too much
blatantly false information. It was forbidden to check it
against other sources.
Most Russian publications and journalists, not wishing
to take risks (the Presidents administration was constantly
trying to frighten recalcitrant media), accepted such working conditions. Both newspaper columns and the
airwaves carried a flood of bare-faced lies about the war
in Chechnya. The Armys failures, and the incapacity and
unwillingness of the secret services, to ferret out and
take custody of the real terrorists were presented as military victories and successful operations. Civilians killed
were said to be resistance fighters. Local inhabitants living under regular fire and bombardment were exclusively
described as accomplices of the resistance fighters,
thereby fully justifying the harsh reprisals against them.
Accommodating, obedient journalists who worked exclusively with military personnel received ample rewards
for their services from the Ministry of Defence and the
President of the country. Less docile journalists who
attempted to follow proper journalistic practices, the most
important of which is to collect the fullest possible information about an event, were treated to constant public denigration and insults.
Now, two and a half years later, it seems that the Governments brainwashing campaign to ensure the right
image for the war in Chechnya has been completely successful. The proportion of Russian citizens who are
convinced that Chechnya is the scene of a real war with
terrorism, who do not know and do not wish to know
the truth of the matter, and who therefore support the
anti-terrorist operation, remains high at 30-45 per cent
of the population. And thanks to the Government- and
Army-controlled media, the Chechens have been branded
a nation of bandits bearing collective responsibility for
the acts of a handful of Chechen individuals.
Those journalists and media that have not submitted to
the rules imposed by the Presidents administration and
the General Staff, and have travelled independently
around Chechen towns and villages, in order to gather

full information on the events taking place in Chechnya,
have had a very difficult time.
One such publication is Novaya Gazeta. Throughout the
entire war, we have pursued a line of active support for
the group that has suffered most from the war, the civilian population. For this position, our newspaper has been
under constant attack from the Presidents administration. Indeed, it has become a tradition for the military to
make regular, public threats against the lives of those
who continue to investigate and write about war crimes
in Chechnya and protest in the newspapers against the
way the war is being conducted and the Armys arbitrary
methods. These threats became particularly harsh in the
autumn of 2001, following the events of 11 September
in New York, when President Putin received a kind of
papal indulgence from Western leaders for his operations in Chechnya.
It has now become all but impossible for an independent journalist, even with all the necessary authorization,
to get past a military checkpoint in Chechnya. There are
soldiers taunts, threats to shoot, imitations of shooting,
and constant arrests and detentions, with the result that
the journalists work has become that of a spy in enemy
territory. What is really needed is to be able to gather
information inconspicuously and disappear in time, without attracting attention. Chechnya today is the scene of
a topsy-turvy war, in which terrorism has become confused with anti-terrorism, and non-state terrorism is in
fact being fought with state terrorism. Journalists who
seek to be objective are deemed to be enemies of Russia, who should be destroyed. We are in the middle of
an acute crisis of civilization.
PART III
Media and T
errorism: Status of Research
Terrorism
91
92
Media,
Violence
and
Terrorism
in Africa
CHAPTER 10
Introduction
In the last few years, acts of violence and terrorist incidents have occurred with such
regularity to attract extensive media attention and coverage. Like most continents,
Africa has not been immune or spared from the explosive nature of violence and
terrorist acts that become a daily staple in the news media. The acts of violence and
terrorism include kidnapping of foreign nationals, ethno-political conflicts, and state
sponsored violence. Often, most of these incidents serve as lead-in and front-page
stories for television evening news and newspapers. For better or worse, the contexts and framing of news stories about violence and terrorism do impact on global
and regional perceptions of Africa, as either an ally of those at the forefront of the
war on terrorism or as enemy nations that provide refuge and comfort for terrorists
and their operatives. This is what is now known as the Bush doctrine no distinction exists between terrorists and those who harbor them.
The perception of a nation as an ally or collaborator appears to influence foreign
policy imperatives, as most enemy or rogue nations are severely punished while
those who support the U.S.-led effort to combat terrorism are rewarded. Therefore,
for most African countries, it matters how the media cover terrorist incidents within
their territories and it is important how their role in the war on terrorism is packaged
or framed for world consumption. The conflation of media coverage of violence
and terrorism, the resulting perception and the unequal dependency relationship
that exists between Western and African countries can earn them a status that enables world isolation or even military action. Consequently, the so-called war on terrorism has compelled the leadership in most African countries to present themselves as supportive of the U.S.-led effort to rid the world of terrorism.
In this research, we are concerned with how violent acts and terrorist incidents in
Africa are reported in the media. This is also an attempt to document scholarly
analysis of such coverage. In the process, we hope to review the focus of each study
and the research questions addressed as well as their conceptual or theoretical frameworks. All of these studies are examined within the context of the extent, if any,
they contribute to knowledge and understanding about violence and terrorism in
Africa. To set the stage for this research, however, it is important to examine the
definitional problems associated with the discourse of terrorism so as to assist readers to understand the concept as used in this discussion.
Understanding Terrorism as a Concept
Andy O. Alali
Department of Communications
California State University,
Bakersfield, U.S.A.
While definitional consensus has eluded most students of terrorism, there has not
been any reluctance on their part to understand terrorism. One such effort is that of
Laqueur (1987) who, in his book The Age of Terrorism, grapples with the intricacies
of the term terrorism and the label terrorist as he traces their origin and meaning over the years to contemporary usage. In his view, terrorism has undergone
changes in character over the last century and these changes compound the
definitional problems one faces in dealing with it.
Understanding terrorism has meant trying to define it. One of the most serious
attempts at scholarly definition and classification of types of terrorism has been
that of Paul Wilkinson (1974). First, Wilkinson makes a distinction between four
types of terrorism (criminal, psychic, war, and political) before defining political
terrorism as the systematic use or threat of violence to secure political ends (p.
17). He further distinguishes political terrorism into three broad types: revolutionary, sub-revolutionary, and repressive. According to Wilkinson, the first type,
revolutionary terrorism, is a systematic use of violence with the ultimate goal being to
obtain a radical change in the political order. The second type, sub-revolutionary terror-
93
CHAPTER 10
94
ism, is the use of terroristic violence to effect a change in

public policy without altering the political order. The third
type, repressive terrorism, involves the use of violence to
suppress or restrain certain individuals or groups from
forms of behavior considered undesirable by the state.
Whereas the first two types are used by individuals and
non-state actors against target states, the latter is used by
states to maintain a status quo that may be advantageous
to those belonging to a particular class, ethnic or racial
group, or religious faith. States that practice this form of
terrorism usually explain their repressive actions as being in the interest of national security even though the
real purpose of their actions may have been to maintain
regime security. Iraq is a good example of a nation in
which this form of terrorism is practiced; to some extent, pre-Mandela South Africa fits this category.
In his contribution to our understanding of terrorism,
Andrew Pierre (l984) focuses on terrorism of the international variety. Although conceding the difficulty of
endowing international terrorism with a universally acceptable definition, he sees it as acts of violence outside national boundaries, or with clear international repercussions (p. 85). He goes on to list factors that motivate international terrorists. According to Pierre:
1. The terrorist is dedicated to a political goal which
he sees as one of transcendent merit;
2. The terrorist seeks attention and publicity for his
cause;
3. The terrorist aims to erode support for the established political leadership or to undermine the authority of the State by destroying normality, creating uncertainty, polarizing a country, fostering economic discord
and generally weakening the fabric of society;
4. The terrorists actions can be a measure of deep
frustration where there is no legitimate way to redress
grievances;
5. The terrorist may seek to liberate his colleagues in
foreign jails; and
6. Finally, the terrorist may desire money so as to buy
arms and finance his organization (pp. 86-87).
Research Method
The focus of the report presented here was a desk research to identify the kinds of research studies and scholarly publications about media, violence and terrorism in
Africa during the period of January 1998 to December
2001. To collect information for the report, I relied heavily
on electronic library search engines to identify scholarly
literature about media, violence and terrorism in Africa

between 1998 and 2001. I also looked for case studies,
qualitative and quantitative analyses that provide perspectives on media coverage of violence and terrorism in
Africa. A comprehensive content analysis of available
materials was conducted. What emerged was alarming:
even though Africa had experienced over 160 terrorist
attacks, with 5,331 wounded and over 485 deaths during
the period under study (U.S. Department of State, 2001;
2000; 1999; 1998), there was a dearth in scholarly literature on media coverage of violence and terrorism in
Africa. The lack of published research in this subject
area is alarming because one would expect that the high
incidence of violence and terrorism in the African continent would warrant serious scholarly endeavor to determine how reports in the media are framed. Consequently, the conclusions here are based on the authors
analysis rather than published research.
Global Analysis and Critical Assessment

The analysis here covers the extent of terrorist threat, if
any, in Africa; patterns of violence and terrorism in Africa; and media framing of the context of violence and
terrorism in Africa.
Terrorist Threat in Africa

There is no doubt that terrorism is a new challenge worldwide. Terrorist assaults claim human lives and have rocked
the military and economic foundation of countries, as
seen in the 11 September, 2001 terrorist incidents in the
United States. The anti-terrorist agenda of the United
States has placed African countries in the spotlight, particularly Sudan and Somalia because of the alleged
connection between Osama bin Laden and these nations. Given this background, we ask the question: Is
there a terrorist threat in Africa? We discuss this question in the next few paragraphs.
Two recent incidents have given people reason to believe that there is a terrorist threat in Africa. First is the
11 September terrorism, when the two World Trade
Center buildings were reduced to rubble and parts of
the Pentagon destroyed. Second is the 1998 bombings
of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania. These two incidents enabled focus on
Africa as public celebrations that displayed strong antiWestern (particularly, anti-American) sentiments in Nigeria, the Sudan and Somalia were broadcast to the entire world. Coupled with these incidents is the fact that
Osama bin Laden is no stranger to Africa. It is no secret
that he took shelter in Sudan between 1991 and 1996.
He has been charged with his operatives with the 1998
bombings of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
It is important to note that reports about the history

and talks about radical Islamist terrorism can be traced
back to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the seizure of
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November of that year
(Boroumand and Boroumand, 2002). Since then,
Boroumand and Boroumand (2002) observe that its
presence is global, and its influence is felt not only in the
lands of the cast Islamic crescent that extends from
Morocco and Nigeria in the west to Malaysia and
Mindanao in the east but also in many corners of Europe, India, the former Soviet world, the Americas and
even parts of western China (p. 6).
Clearly, Africa is an important piece in the global war on
terrorism. The terrorist threat is complex and a serious
challenge in the Horn of Africa because of bin Ladens
connection to Sudan and Somalia. Sudan was his home
from 1991 until early 1996, and his al-Qaeda organization enjoys a level of popularity and support within the
northern Sudanese society. The connection to Somalia
is that it is home of mujaheddin veterans, operating under
the mantle of al-Itihaad. In his report on Somalis and
Sudans race to the force in Africa, Morrison (2002) concludes that Sudan and Somalia will remain credible potential havens for al-Qaeda (p. 194), thereby posing a
serious threat to the war against terrorism.
Africas connection to terrorism is also substantiated by
the presence of al-Qaeda cells in some of the countries.
For example, al-Qaeda cells exist in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa, the Sudan, and Somalia. In Cape Town,
the cells are alleged to have established affiliation with
two movements People Against Gangsterism and Drug
(Pagad) and Qibla. Pagad was accused of launching a
bombing campaign and terrorist assaults upon U.S. interests and others in Cape Town in 1998. The two movements, Pagad and Qibla, are on the official U.S. list of
terrorist organizations.
Lastly, the fact that terror groups such as the al-Qaeda
and Hizballah, are linked to illicit diamond trafficking in

West Africa indicates the serious threat of terrorism in
Africa. In November 2001, the Washington Post reported
that with the funds generated from this trade and resale
of diamonds purchased from rebel movements, they are
able to fund some of their operations as well as preying
on the poor to execute some of their attacks. The argument here, therefore, is that there is a terrorist threat in
Africa. If that is the case, what then are the patterns of
violence and terrorism in Africa? The question is addressed in the next section.
Patterns of Violence and Terrorism in

Africa
Between 1998 and 2001, Africa experienced a wave of
violence and terrorist incidents, resulting in the deaths
of hundreds of people and countless number of
wounded. Most violence in Africa has ethnic and/or
religious dimensions while terrorism is often political in
nature. Yet, even though terrorism is a form of political
violence, no group describes itself as terrorists; they often describe themselves as freedom fighters. A typical
example is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) of the mid1970s, an organization led by Mangosuthu Buthelezi;
Pagad and Qibla in South Africa, and al-Itihaad in Somalia.
Terrorism, as we know it, is not restricted to small groups.
States are also predators and perpetrators of violence. A
good example is the violent acts perpetrated on blacks
by the apartheid-era government of South Africa. Such
acts are replicated in African countries where dictatorship is the norm, as in the case of Nigeria under the
leadership of late General Sani Abacha. In most cases,
state-linked violence is a means of regulating human relations within a countrys borders. It is also a mechanism
used to control insurgency from opposition outside of
the states territory. Concretely, the patterns of violence
and terrorism in Africa can be placed within the following three categories:
Kidnapping of Foreign Nationals

Most reports on violence and terrorism in Africa emphasize the casualties suffered by foreign nationals. For
example, between 1998 and 2001 alone, the U.S. Department of State data indicate that a number of Western nationals, particularly French, Austrian, Italian, Portuguese, United States, German, Belgian, Norwegian, and
Swiss were either abducted or kidnapped in Africa. It is
not uncommon for foreign nationals to be kidnapped
or abducted in Africa because of the continued European exploration of the continent without due regard to
the economic and ecological situation of the people. Following are recent incidents in Africa:
95
It is also a belief, at least one that is widely held in Western countries, that there is a threat of terrorism in Africa
because one-third of its 700 million citizens are Muslims, some of whom are said to be associated with bin
Ladens al-Qaeda. It has been reported that al-Qaeda operatives sought refuge in Somalia and they have done so
in concert with al-Itihaad al-Islami, a Somali organization
dedicated to creating a radical Islamist state in Somalia.
Even though the organization operates its own schools
and provides services normally associated with government, it has also been accused of conducting terrorist
operations in neighboring Ethiopia. In fact, Al-Ittihaad
al-Islami earned a mention in President George Bushs
23 September, 2001 Executive Order blocking property
of and prohibiting transactions with terrorists.
1. Four French nationals were kidnapped in February 1998 by the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF)
in Manda National Park in Moyen-Chari Prefecture,
Chad;
2. Austrian nationals were kidnapped in February
1998 by the Ogaden National Liberation Front
(ONLF);
3. Six French and two Italian nationals in the Tibesti
region of Chad were kidnapped by the National Front
for the Renewal of Chad (FNTR);
CHAPTER 10
96
4. Two Portuguese citizens were abducted in Cabinda

by the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda EnclaveCabinda Armed Forces (FLEC-FAC); and
5. The widely reported abduction of nine Red Crescent workers at an airstrip north of Mogadishu, Somalia. The hostages included a U.S. citizen, a German, a Belgian, a French, a Norwegian, two Swiss,
and one Somali.
Civil Wars or Internal Strife

A significant part of violence seen in Africa pertain to
civil wars and the internal strife that continue to besiege
the continent. It is evident that the mass media have
replayed the various wars in Africa, particularly in Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sierra Leone. Also, such reports include some of the rebel
activities and military struggles, as seen in Senegal and
Guinea-Bissau.
Ethno-Political Conflicts
Africas image in the media have also been framed within
ethno-political perspective, which is indicative of how
actions by dominant groups prompt minority groups
toward secession and invigorate movements aimed at
autonomy. The struggles of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the case of Biafra in Nigeria, the
Casamance in Senegal, and the Hutu and Tutsis in
Burundi and Rwanda, are typical examples of ethnopolitical conflicts replayed in Western media.
what Mark Fishman (1980, p. 143) describes as the principle of bureaucratic affinity where the media often
depend and gravitate toward official sources as a means
of quenching their thirst for news. Yet, because of the
media failure to adequately report or cover Africa, incidents of violence and terrorism in the region are
underreported, unless the incidents result in an American or European casualty or effects Westerner or Western interests.
Even though Africa is still underreported in the media,
the images associated with Africa are often framed within
the context of an embattled continent that is besieged
by violence. The few reports about Africa is intended to
remind audiences that the continent has had more than
its share of a variety of violence that ranges from conflicts with historical roots to actions of badly behaved
dictators.
The representation of instability of African states as a
product of badly behaved dictators is often equated with
pre-modern tribalism and that the only solution is the
institution of democratic elections and nation-state building based on the Western model and experience. Unfortunately, these reports are not embedded in national or
ethnic/tribal histories, which may offer explanations for
the public violence that permeates the region, nor do
they include peoples interpretation of the cause of violence and the conditions and circumstances that precipitated such acts.
Richard A. Giggs (1995) argues that the construction of
this image of violence in Africa is intended to absolve
the West from the structural damages imposed by colonialism. He suggests a list of these structural damages
that include: (i) irrational boundaries that contribute to
endemic instability; (ii) export-oriented infrastructure that
marginalizes Africa within the world economic system;
(iii) Western cultural hegemony that has weakened African tradition; and (iv) bureaucratic systems of governance that concentrated political power and favored certain ethnic groups over others.
This perspective dovetails with what Africans have long
argued that the Western media emphasize more on
the negative than confronting the factors that precipitated the current condition in the region.
Media Framing of the Context of

Violence and Terrorism in Africa
Suggestions for Further Studies
Analysis of news about Africa indicates that the mass

media often depend on government officials for most
of their reports and highlights about violence and terrorism in Africa. There is tendency for media dependency on official versions, often from countries remote
from where the incident occurred. Such dependency is
The dearth of research attention to how violence and

terrorism in Africa are replayed in the news media is
particularly surprising because of the incessant appetite
to portray the worst of Africa to the world. Equally interesting is the fact that Africanist communication scholars have done little analysis or serious research on media
There is no question that the lack of research effort about

media, violence and terrorism in Africa has created a
vacuum in contemporary scholarly literature. As researchers, we have an obligation to the academic community
to offer prescriptive measures and recommend ways this
dearth in literature can be remedied. The first step is to
prescribe themes that would guide future research in the
subject-area. Therefore, it is my recommendation that
researchers interested in media, violence and terrorism
in Africa focus their work on four general themes: factors contributing to violence and terrorism in Africa;
perpetrators and victims of violence and terrorism; media
representations of violence and terrorism in Africa; and
perceptions created by media coverage. A brief explanation of each theme is presented here.
Factors Contributing to Violence and

Terrorism in Africa
The first theme for further investigation requires researchers to ascertain the root causes and factors that
contribute to violence and terrorism in Africa. Here, research should focus on a number of issues, including
the structure and nature of conflicts and the factors perpetuating conflicts, examination of these issues would
make available to other researchers answers to the why,
who, and what questions that are often missing in most
discourse of this nature. For example, we need to know
the extent, if any, to which ethnic class divisions and
religion impact on conflicts, violence and terrorism in
Africa.
There is no question that, though ethnicity or religion is
not the sole cause of conflicts, Africas problems are
often attributed to its myriad of ethnic identities and
religion, particularly in the context of Islam one of
the predominant religions in the continent. In his analysis of the Ugandan conflict, Mark Leopold (1999) observed that news about the so-called war in the north
is as misleading as some international reporting, often
doing more than elaborating ethnic ideologies than the
real issues. One can argue that the focus on ethnicity
appears to be a deliberate act aimed at exonerating the
West from their culpability for the violence and conflict
that take place in Africa. We need to seriously examine
these issues by asking ourselves the following questions:
Is it possible that ethnic and religious labels influence
bias and news interpretations of violence in Africa? Is it

possible that some conflicts start with no ethnic or religious dimensions and develop ethnic and religious overtones? Why does this occur? Is it possible that state and
non-state leaders manipulate these concepts to stir conflicts and violence?
Additionally, we must consider the economic conditions
and human rights abuses that may influence violence
and terrorism in Africa. Often times, the economic conditions people are subjected to in Africa result from governmental or institutional abrogation of their responsibilities and agreements. Is it possible that these factors
trigger violence and terrorism? It is equally important to
examine how Western interests may impact on violence
and terrorism in Africa. Within these lines of research is
the need to determine whether the factors that nurture
these conditions in one country may, or may not, serve
as threat to violence and terrorism in other African countries.
Perpetrators and Victims of

Violence and Terrorism
The second suggested theme for further research deals
with a need to identify the who alluded to earlier in the
discussion. For example, we need to answer questions
such as: Who are the perpetrators of violence and terrorism? Who are the key political actors in the violence
and terrorism that take place in Africa? What about the
extra-regional actors the outsiders who influence and
seek to ameliorate or exploit conditions in the conflict
area? Who are the victims? Are African victims treated
as important as those from Western countries? Are these
acts of violence aimed at only Western interests or are
African interests equally targeted? What is the ratio of
African versus Western victims of violence and terrorism? Here, we believe research that answers these questions would add immensely to our understanding of the
context and victims of violence and terrorism in Africa.
Media Representations of
Violence and Terrorism in Africa
The third set of issues suggested for further research
concerns media representations of the violence and terrorism that emanate from Africa. The media, particularly those outside of the African continent, have been
accused of presenting their interpretations of violence
and terrorism from a Western viewpoint. Often times,
violence and terrorism are indexed within the concept
of winners and losers, or seen as acts perpetrated on
Western interests by people who ought to be appreciative of Western humanitarian efforts in their respective
countries. In the process, acts of violence and terrorism
are framed within perspectives that give meaning and
credence to the Western view, without adequately ad-
97
coverage of violence and terrorism in the continent.

Clearly, research on this subject-area and the quality of
findings that result from such endeavor would offer
scholars and other interested parties governmental and
non-governmental significant grounds for reflecting
on how Africa is covered, the competing influences that
shape such coverage, to predict future coverage of the
region and the perceptions of Africas role in violence
and terrorism.
CHAPTER 10
98
dressing or providing realistic interpretations of the actions and motivations of perpetrators of violence and
terrorism. This is not to suggest that we provide refuge
to those who commit violent and illegal acts, rather, we
need to provide a well-rounded picture of what happened, why it happened, and how to go about addressing the issues or factors that precipitated these acts of
violence and terrorism.
index violence and terrorism. We must identify the types

of discourse that constraint or promote violence and
terrorism and how market forces impact on press coverage of these issues. It is our belief that a research agenda
that focuses on these issues would provide a picture of
the role of the media independent and state-controlled and how they replay for the world the violence and
terrorism that takes place in Africa.
Most scholars, especially those who study media representation of Africa, would agree that there are obvious
contradictions between domestic and foreign media reporting of Africa, particularly as it relates to violence
and terrorism. We believe these contradictions exist because the context of news and the framing of opinions
are defined within different ethical standards when it
comes to Africa. Here, the journalistic ends justify the
means and the importance of accuracy and fairness is
somehow forgotten. Therefore, any research in this subject-area must focus on a set of issues that provide the
public and policy makers a picture of the context of
media framing and the potential impact it would have
on society. Research about media representation of violence and terrorism in Africa should consider some of
the following questions: Who are the sources (governmental and non-governmental) of the perspective that
is advanced in the media? We need to determine what
sources say about violence and terrorism and how the
media interpret them. What language do journalists use
to describe violence and terrorism in Africa? What are
the general themes and issues covered, or not covered,
by the media? Do the media cover the reactions of Africans to violence and terrorist attacks? Are local journalists employed to feed international news agencies or are
journalists remote from what or where they report? How
does such arrangement affect the news content? Clearly,
the goal here is to determine whether coverage about
Africa is responsible or misleading.
Perceptions Created by
Media Coverage
Assessment of media coverage would not be complete

without analysis of the symbolic referents used in representing Africa to the world. For example, researchers
should try to identify the connotations and symbolic
referents of the language used in discourse about violence and terrorism in Africa. Are the same terms applied in context of violence and terrorism in Africa and
elsewhere?
Lastly, researchers would contribute immensely to the
research literature if studies were to examine the perspectives advanced. For example, it makes a difference
in news content if the perspectives advanced are either
those of the journalist, government, victim, or of those
who perpetrate violence and acts of terrorism. It would
be useful to determine the perspectives of international
versus domestic and regional media, especially how each
The last important theme is research that documents

the perceptions created by media reconstruction of violence and terrorism in Africa. The question, How is
Africa perceived by the world community? must be
answered. Are Africans countries seen as nations that
provide safe haven to terrorist? Are their leaders seen as
individuals who condemn or support violence and terrorism? What is Africas contribution to international
terrorism? What is the level of African governments
commitment on cooperation in the fight against terrorism?
Concluding Remarks
The globalization of violence and terrorism appears to
be a challenge to nation-state building in Africa. And,
while the U.S.-led anti-terrorism effort has placed Africa
in the spotlight, U.S. preoccupation with al-Qaeda displaces attention to many other concerns in Africa
(Morrison, 2002, p. 196).
There is no doubt that the bombings of U.S. Embassies
in the region and the 11 September incidents have
strengthened cooperation between some African governments and the U.S. Most noteworthy is the cooperation between U.S. and Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa
and Nigeria. All of these countries have pledged to work
with the United States to:
1. remove the terrorist threat extant in Africa and
ensure against the use of African countries as a terrorist base;
2. prevent developments in regions of rogue nations
from threatening regional peace and stability; and
3. overcome the long-term governance challenges that
terrorists exploit to make African countries their base.
The media have responsibility to explain violence and
frame conflicts within the contexts that precipitate such
acts: that violence and conflicts are invariably tangled up
with power plays in the African political landscape.
BOROUMAND, L. 2002. Terror, Islam, and democracy. Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 5-20.
FISHMAN, M. 1980. Manufacturing the news. Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press.
GIGGS, R.A. 1995. The boundaries of a new Africa. Boundary and Security Bulletin, Vol. 2, No.4.
LAQUEUR, W. 1987. The Age of Terrorism. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
LEOPOLD, M. 1999. The war in the north: Ethnicity in Ugandan press
explanations of conflict, 1996-97. In T. Allen & J. Senton, Eds. In The
Media of Conflict: War Reporting and Representations of Ethnic Violence. London:
Zed Books, pp. 219-243.
MORRISON, J.S. 2002. Somalis and Sudans race to the force in Africa.
The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 191-205.
PIERRE, A.J. 1984. The politics of international terrorism. In C. Kegley
& E. Wittkopt, Eds. The Global Agenda. New York: Random House.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 2001. Patterns of Global Terrorism. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State.
___. 2000. Patterns of Global Terrorism. Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of State.
of State.
of State.
WILKINSON, P. 1974. Political Terrorism. London: Macmillan.
99
References
100
Media,
Violence
and
Terrorism in
the Arab
World
CHAPTER 11
Introduction
At the beginning of the 21st Century terrorism has come to be regarded by government officials as the most important issue facing the world. It has also earned the
attention of media, public opinion and social scientists especially after September
11, 2001. In response to this terrorist event, the international community has witnessed a huge number of conferences, seminars, websites and publications on global terrorism. While these activities have dealt with terrorism in all of its complexities, there is yet to be an agreement on what terrorism is. The definition of terrorism
has an impact on whether or not the perpetrators of an act of violence are labeled
criminals terrorists or freedom fighters (Eke and Alali, 1991, p. 3). More
importantly is the complex relationship between media, violence and terrorism.
Communication scholars have yet to reach a theoretical framework for better understanding of the dynamic and intricate media-terrorism relationship and media
policy options towards terrorism coverage.
In this respect, the Arab world has obviously occupied a special place in the international debate on terrorism. Many of the more dramatic and violent incidents of
recent decades have been perpetrated either in the Middle East or elsewhere by
groups involved in the domestic and inter-state conflicts in that region. Some Palestinian groups and others in the Arab world are defined by their opponents as terrorist bodies and, therefore, any act of legitimate resistance to liberate their occupied
land from Israel must be terrorism by definition. Others, however, especially those
who sympathise with their just cause, would regard them as freedom fighters (Shiva,
2001). Prior to September 11, the Western media successfully created and perpetuated the impression that terrorism is rooted in Muslims and Arab Muslim people.
Accordingly, national, regional and international counterterrorism cooperation remained a key element in the local as well as in foreign policy for many Arab states
throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the third millennium.
It is worth, at the beginning of this report, to empathize three facts:
1. The terrorist attacks against Western countries are receiving a lot of attention
in media and international public opinion as well as in the UN and international
bodies. However, the terrorist attacks on civilian targets belonging to other, less
powerful nations, especially in the Arab Palestinian occupied lands, have not received the same amount of international interest (Shukri, 1991);
2. Terrorism and violence are the most sensitive issues in the Arab world. They
are related to the instability of the Arab social, political and economic environment, the Israeli occupation of Arab lands in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon as well
as the interference of the U.S. in local affairs of the region; and,
Basyouni Ibrahim
Hamada
Department of
Mass Communication
United Arab Emirates University
3. A significant gap exists between the importance of terrorism in the Arab

world and the rarity of scholarly work on this subject in general and in the field of
communication in particular.
This report reveals that in the Arab world few studies have tried to describe media
coverage of violence and terrorism and none attempted to investigate terrorism.
The importance of the present report stems from the fact that in the majority of
terrorist and violent acts, the most important element in communication about
terrorist acts is not the acts themselves but the meaning assigned to the acts by the
media, authorities, and the populace. What is said about the acts and how the acts
are interpreted play a greater role in determining the impact and significance than
does the terrorism itself (Robert, 1993, p. 19).
101
Research Methods
CHAPTER 11
102
The purpose of this report is to present global synthesis

and critical assessment of studies and publications on
media, violence and terrorism in the Arab world during
the four- year period of January 1998 to December 2001.
Relevant research studies as well as scholarly publications carried out on media, violence and terrorism in the
Arab world from January 1998 to December 2001 were
collected and reviewed. Although this report is dedicated
to reviewing Arab published studies during this period,
we reviewed other scholarly works published either before 1998 or in 2002 because of their relevance. Also,
most relevant Arab communication publications on the
subject appeared in 2002. Three types of data were used
in this report. First, relevant literature on terrorism, written in English, was collected and analyzed. The second
kind of data covers the literature on violence and the
third consists of a few research papers and publications
which deal with media and terrorism and violence. The
sources of this scholarly work include refereed journals,
books, conference papers, library databases, and online
documents. This report is based on the assumption that,
whereas the Arab world has been shown as an environment which produces violence and terrorism, Arab communication scholars have yet to participate in any type
of research that seriously examines the communication
implications of violence and terrorism. This situation
has resulted in an obvious failure to deal with some critical questions concerning the distortion of the Arab image in the West and the coordination of counter-terrorism efforts.
Arab Political Research on

Violence and Terrorism
For better understanding of media-terrorism literature
in the Arab world, it is essential to critically examine the
Arab official political position on terrorism as well as
some of the political research on terrorism. Ibrahim
(1999) sees the concept of political violence as comprising different types of behaviors and practices that imply
the real use or threat to use power to cause any injury or
harm to individuals or to damage public and private
possessions in order to attain political, economic, social
or cultural goals. These actions can be individual, or collective, declared or undercover, organized or random. It
might be either an official violence practised by governments against their citizens, manifested in actions such
as: detention, imprisonment or termination or a popular
violence practised by the citizens against the ruling regime such as events of riots, rebellion, assassination,
coups detat and revolutions. Despite the plausibility of
this concept and its applicability to different forms of
political violence and terrorism acts, it does not cover
the forms of organized international political violence
induced and encouraged by the state against one another

and their inhabitants. As a result, the concept tends to
be confined to domestic political violence. Accordingly,
it does not give an explanation for the roots of the internal Arab violence which to a large extent are symptoms
of external factors such as the Israeli political violence
against the Palestinians and the intended absence of the
global justice in managing the Middle East question. It is
this question that perpetuates the hostility between Arab
and Muslim world and the West.
Most significant for the present discussion is the official
Islamic position toward terrorism and violence as reflected in the Islamic Summit Conference held in Casablanca December 1994. The conference announced a
code of conduct, including the following: (i) to declare
that Islam is innocent of all forms of terrorism that
involves the assassination of innocent people as it is prohibited by God, (ii) to strongly condemn the perpetrators of those serious crimes which are committed under
the plea of implementing Islam or any other justification; (iii) to confirm that the struggle of peoples under
colonial or foreign control or occupation for realization
of their right to self-determination does not constitute
an act of terrorism. Islam condemns any person who is
fanatical or extremist and insists on moderation, and
tolerance towards one another and other non-Muslims.
In the Quran, the only permissible war is one of self
defense. Muslims may not begin hostilities (Taher, 1997,
p. 67).
Media, Violence and Terrorism:

Is There a Relationship?
As incidents of terrorism have risen, so has the interest
of communication scholars all over the world - except
in the Arab world - who have attempted to understand
medias relations to terrorism. This is partially attributable to the fact that many have come to view terrorism
as a form of communication. Thus, it is necessary to
examine the communicative impact of terrorism. This
is primarily done by investigating the manner in which
the media report terrorist acts. Both terrorists and researchers have vested interests in determining which labels are positively perceived, and when each is used
(Simmons, 1991). The interest of communication scholars in examining the communication implications of terrorism is based on the notion that terrorism can best be
understood as a violent communication strategy. The
nature of the terrorist act, its atrocity, its location and
the identity of its victim serve as generators for the power
of the message. Violence, to become terroristic, requires
witnesses (Robert, 1993).
Whereas there seems to be no argument about the impact of media coverage of news on its audiences, the
The second major school of thought argues that there

is no clear evidence that publicity (by the media) is responsible for significantly affecting the occurrence of
terrorism. When carefully analysing the terrorism literature, one finds that it contains no credible evidence that
media are an important factor in inducing and diffusing
terrorist acts. As one reviews the literature, it becomes
clear that not a single study, based on accepted social
science research methods, has established a cause-effect
relationship between media coverage and the spread of
terrorism. Yet public officials, scholars, editors, reporters, and columnists continually link the two elements
and present their relationship as proven (Simmons, 1991).
A few writers from diverse quarters oppose placing blame
on the media. They instead support the view that the
media are victims of terrorism. They argue that erasing
terrorism is a juridical and ethical question, not a question of the media (Barnhurst, 1991). Still, there is another school of thought claiming that media coverage
may actually reduce the possibility of future violent action on the part of those who engage in terroristic violence by removing the need for individuals and groups
to resort to violence in order to gain coverage (Simmons,
1991).

As stated earlier, a significant gap exists between two
phenomena: (i) the proliferation and intensity of terrorism and violence acts in recent decades with an international emphasis on the Arab world as the source of this
phenomenon and damage, and (ii) the rarity of the

number of research studies devoted to understanding
the complexity of the incidents of terrorism from the
Arab point of view. This gap represents the first feature
of Arab media and terrorism literature. The second is
that it has recently received some limited academic attention initiated by some communication researchers in
the Arab region. The focus of Arab literature is on the
question of how media cover the violent and terrorist
acts, and the how Western media portray Arab image.
The Aqsa Intifada has received some attention from both
Arab and American researchers. In her research on
Egyptian Newspaper Coverage of Palestinian Intifada,
El Tarabishi (2002) analyzed three Egyptian leading newspapers from the period of September 2000 to May 2001.
The content analysis focuses on the variables of news
stories, investigative reports, editorial articles, interviews,
cartoons, and columns among other writings forms, in
addition to sources used in stories and event actors, types
of issues. El Tarabishi concludes that the three newspapers, Al Ahram, AL Wafad and Al Osbooa, place great
emphasis on the developments of the Israeli terrorist
and aggressive military attacks against the Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories. Daniel (1997) found
that several interrelated frames were used to present the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the news media, including the cold war frame, the terrorist frame, the Jew
as historical victim, and the dichotomous good/evil
framework. As symbols of Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
the steady stream of negative images affects American
public opinion and subsequently U. S. foreign policy
(Daniel, 1997).
Arab Image Research:

Misleading Terrorist Image
The stereotypical image that Western media present
about Arabs has had dangerous effects on justifying aggressive acts against Arabs, including military aggression,
and on mobilizing international public opinion to accept any allegations - whether they are true or false against Arabs. It also affects the diffusion of the American media perspective toward Arabs among other European media without attempts to maintain a neutral,
critical and independent position (Baek, 2002). Pollock
and Artz (1997) found that public support for the American offensive in the Persian Gulf was promoted by media employment of culturally acceptable anti-Arab images. This claim is based on a survey of headlines, photographs, captions, and cartoon regarding the Gulf conflict and more specifically on editorial cartoons published
in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times,
the New York Times, and Newsweek from August to December 1990. A rhetorical analysis of the dominant images in these media supports the above claim. First, the
103
same is not true concerning its impact on terrorists.

On this matter, there are at least two major schools of
thought. Proponents of the first school contend that
media coverage of terrorist events has a contagion effect. Reporting terrorism is likely to increase terrorist
activities; without communication there can be no terrorism (Eke and Alali, 1991). The effects of media, according to the first school, can be classified as awareness, contagion, and interference. Interference may involve direct physical involvement in an event, such as a
reporter mediating between terrorists and police, or indirect pressure on officials to end the violence or threat.
The second type is the contagion effect which implies
that terrorism spreads, sometimes by other means but
most often through the media. The third type is awareness. The diffusion concept of media would seem to
support the idea that media coverage increases public
awareness of terrorism. There are also those who accept general diffusion theory as having relevance to the
spread of terrorism. In this case, one has to hypothesize
that the media may play a role in the awareness aspect of
the adoption process of terrorism, but only a minor part
in the evaluative, acceptance, and adoption portions of
the diffusion of terrorist techniques (Simmons, 1991).
CHAPTER 11
104
media reduced a complex, geopolitical situation to the

motives of Saddam Hussein. Second, to demonize
Hussein, the media simply retrieved standard anti -Arab
stereotypes from popular culture and the medias symbolic image conditioned the American public for the
military aggression that was to follow. Kamalipour (1997)
draws the same conclusion in his research on media images of Arabs, Muslims, and the Middle East in the U.S.
He found that violence and terrorist acts such as the
TWA explosion, the Oklahoma City bombing, the U.S.
embassy bombings, and the 1996 Olympic bombing
provide many lessons of the relationship between media, terrorism and violence acts. These lessons include
media dependency on the government and vice versa;
propaganda techniques aimed at manipulating public
opinion, reinforcing and globalizing stereotypical images
of the Arabs and manufacturing or altering public perception; and media portrayals of peoples, places, and
events become perceptions, and perceptions become
realities. These stereotypes or mindsets then become the
bases for human interactions.
In his study of Arab image in the minds of Western
image-makers, Hamada (2001) found a dominance of
negative Arab image among Western image - makers
(media professionals). For example, 85.7 per cent said
that Arabs are fundamentalists, 78 per cent perceives
Arabs as anti-West, and 69 per cent claimed that Arabs
are aggressive. As for the values Western image - makers
think Arabs are promoting, the findings show that 97
per cent of Western image makers see that fundamentalism is the main value Arabs are promoting, 54 per
cent, said that violence is the basic value of Arabs, while
40 per cent notes terrorism as the value that Arabs promote. Most important is the negative consequences of
the Arab image. Western image - makers were asked:
what do you personally think are the negative consequences of a distorted Arab image? The majority (87
per cent) said that a distorted Arab image justifies any
armed aggression against Arabs, and 81 per cent said it
may mobilize international public opinion to act against
Arabs. Slightly more than three-quarters of the surveyed
Western journalists reported the threat to Arab security
and the isolation of Arabs as negative consequences
of the biased image.
Salah El-Deins research (2002) seeks to examine the intricacies underlying the relation between Egyptian media and the cognitions and attitudes of public opinion.
His research reveals a positive correlation between intensive exposure to the news media and (i) the knowledge of the audience about terrorism in general and 11
September, 2001 in particular; (ii) the attitudes toward
terrorism in general and 11 September, 2001 in particular; (iii) and the favorable evaluation of the performance
of the Egyptian authorities with regard to terrorism.
Abd El-Ghaffar (2002) found that Egyptian universities students relied heavily on CNN as the main international source of information about 11 September
while Al Jazeera TV was the main regional source for
these events, followed by Egyptian television and Egyptian national press as major information sources in Egypt.
Iseed (2001) notes that Western media consciously attempt to damage and distort Islamic values and civilization in a very systematic way and its negative impact will
remain until Arab media develop a strategic plan capable of addressing Arab issues according to the Islamic
culture heritage. Gallall (2002) argues, in his research on
Arab and Islamic issues in Arab media, that, if we seek
to understand how Western media portray Arab and Islamic issues, it is important to study how Arab media
cover Arab Islamic issues. He believes that a strong relationship exists between Arab medias coverage of Arab
and Islamic issues and that of the Western media. The
author who uses the news framing theory as a theoretical framework concludes that the Arab-Israeli conflict
represents the most salient issue in all Arab media (print
and electronic). He also notes that, although Arab newspapers and TV channels differ in their news values, the
general attitude of Arab media toward the Arab-Israel
conflict and the main issues discussed are similar.
Siddiqi (2002) addresses four questions: (i) how extensively did the selected newspapers cover the issue of
terrorism, (ii) how did each newspaper treat the events
of 11 September, 2001; (iii) to what extent the newspapers agree or disagree with the cause of terrorism, and
about combating it; and (iv) what primary national and
or international sources did the newspapers rely on? The
newspapers that were selected are The New York Times,
The Times of London, The China Daily, Saudi Gazette, The
Strait Times of Singapore, Friday Report of Pakistan, and
Dawat, an Indian newspaper. The time frame for the
study was the three-month period of September - December 2001. Siddiqi revealed two important findings:
(i) while The Times, The Strait Times, Saudi Gazette and China
Daily disagree somewhat with the positions taken by The
New York Times on the question of causes of terrorism
and counter-terrorism efforts, Dawat and Friday Report
disagreed considerably with the position taken by The
New York Times, and (ii) there are significant differences
in the way terrorism is defined and understood in various cultures. Terrorism in the U.S. referred to any action
by a group or individual that threatens the hegemony of
the U.S., whereas in other cultures, especially in the Middle East and Asia, the emphasis seems to be on a broader
definition of terrorism.
Amer and El Metwally (2002) focus on how the opposition press in Egypt presents the position of both the
U.S. and Egypt toward the events of 11 September, 2001.
Two hypotheses were tested: (i) press coverage of crisis
Policy Options on Media Coverage

of Terrorism
With the general belief that media coverage of terrorism has a contagion effect, it comes as no surprise that
the media are seen as having an important role to play in
any effort to combat terrorism. The debate around the
relation between media and terrorism arouses many questions including: What form should the medias role take?
And at whose behest should the necessary policing of
the media come? (Eke and Alali, 1991). Terrorist acts
throughout the world have resulted in bans and limitations on news reporting in many countries. These have
ranged from temporary suspension of liberties to strict
censorship of the press. Much of the controversy over
press coverage of terrorism revolves around who should
control the news and on the basis of what objectives.
However, we cannot regard suppression of such reporting as being justified. To suppress the news for whatever
reason, good or bad, violates the fundamental principle
that govern a free press in a free society (Gerbner, 1988).
It has been certain that the role of media in forming
public opinion towards any type of conflict - wars, terrorist and violent acts, crises, etc. is problematic. In October 2001, it was reported that the U.S. Secretary of the
State, Colin Powel, met with the Emir of Qatar and asked
him to restrain Al Jazeera Satellite Television, citing specifically the channels rebroadcast of the 1998 bin Laden
interview and charging that it invited anti-American
guests, who point to U. S. foreign policy as being behind
the 11 September attack (Al Mirazi, 2002). Israel has
denied access to journalists and media people to report
its massacres of Palestinians. This measure has occurred
many times during the second Intifada. Moreover, the
Palestinian television building has been destroyed by the
Israeli airstrike with a justification that it tends to encourage and support potential terrorists. In the Arab
world, temporary terrorist acts give Arab governments
an opportunity to justify the continuity of press restrictions with the purpose of protecting the national security interests as well as combating terrorism. However, it
seems that analyses of how the media should and should

not respond to terrorism will continue as long as such
activities take place, and we may never come up with
satisfactory answers. Anderson (1993) believes that the
press must fulfill its duty to expose and present information objectively, thereby serving the public good. Censorship by government officials would be a grievous
mistake, and so-called general guidelines are too often
vague or unsuited to particular events to be useful in
these kinds of situations.
What are the major policy options for a democratic society with regard to the medias response to terrorism?
First, there is a policy of laissez faire. This assumes that
no specific steps should be taken with regard to media
coverage of terrorism. A second policy option is some
form of media censorship or statuary regulation. The
third option and the approach most favored by professional media organizations is voluntary self-restraint to
try to avoid the dangers of manipulations and exploitation by terrorist groups (Wilkinson, 1997). For several
reasons, it is certainly difficult to disallow media from
uncovering the truth regarding the violation of any international law under the guise of misleading allegations.
The forms of the global injustice as well as the terrorist
acts of the colonial occupier must form the base and
substance of any free press in a free and democratic
society. Media people have to report these issues to the
fullest extent possible to make the people aware of dangerous effects of these forms of terrorism. On the other
hand, dealing with terrorist acts perpetrated by individuals or groups is a matter of a journalists sense of social
responsibility and self-judgment.

While the literature on media and terrorism provides
some general findings on how media portray violence
and terrorism and how the Western media in particular
contribute to mobilizing international public opinion
against Arabs and Muslims, it does not offer a comprehensive approach to understanding media-terrorism relationship. The problems of violence and terrorism are
of a cultural and ideological sensitivity as there are many
perspectives that define and interpret these phenomena
and different media as well as different persons will have
different positions and attitudes. Bearing this in mind, I
suggest that future Arab research on violence and terrorism should deal with such issues as: (i) how and why
terrorists use the media; (ii) how Arab media characterize acts and perpetrators of political violence and terrorism; (iii) what is the impact of media coverage of
violence and terrorism on public opinion; (iv) how the
opponents and supporters of terrorists use Internet to
manipulate the audiences (v) what is the impact of media coverage of terrorism on crisis management and
105
contribute to formulate an urgent and distorted images

about what the crisis is, its causes and consequences,
and (ii) the image of Arabs as presented in the Egyptian
opposition press is positive and capable to manage the
crisis and its aftermath while the image of U.S. is depicted negatively. They found that the media ignore the
historical, and social context of the terroristic acts and
concentrate on the events per se. In other words, the
press isolates the incidents from the environment that
produces them, the causes and the potential impact. The
research offers strong support to the first hypothesis
but does not lend the same support to the second hypothesis.
decision making, (vi) what is the credibility of local and

international sources of news media for the Arab people in times of terrorism; and (vii) how American, Israeli and Arab media portray the violence of Arab-Israeli conflict.
Conclusions
CHAPTER 11
106
This report has reviewed and evaluated the current Arab

literature on media, violence and terrorism and presented
global synthesis and critical assessment of research and
scholarly studies. The report has shown the rarity of
serious scholarly work in the area of media and terrorism in the Arab region. It has also highlighted the need
for serious academic research projects through which
Arab communication scholars are required to contribute to the understanding of the most critical issues facing the international system.
References
ABD EL-GHAFFAR, A. 2002. Sources of Information for the Egyptian
Universities Students about September 11 and its Aftermath. Paper presented at the Conference on Media and Terrorism, Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University, Egypt, April.
AL MIRAZI, H. 2002. Middle East Insight, http://www.mideastinsight.org.
AMER, M. and AMAL EL METWALLY. 2002. Arab Image vs. Western
Image in the Egyptian Partisan Press: A Comparative Study of September
11, 2001. Paper presented at the Conference of Media and Terrorism,
Faculty on Mass Communication, Cairo University, Egypt, April.
ANDERSON, T. 1993. Terrorism and Censorship: The Media in Chains.
Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 47, No.1.
BAEK, S. G. 2002. Coverage Patterns of Korean Mass Media on Sept.11
Disater of U.S. and their Ideological Preference. Paper presented at the
23rd Conference and General Assembly of IAMCR, Barcelona, Spain, July
21-26.
DANIEL, A. M. A. 1997. U.S. Media Coverage of the Intifada and American Public Opinion. In Kamalipour, Yahya R. (Ed), The U.S. Media and the
Middle East: Images and Perception, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
EKE, K. K. and ODASUO, A. A. 1991. Introduction: Critical Issues in
Media Coverage of Terrorism. In Eke, K. Kelvin, and Alali, A. Odasuo.
Media Coverage of Terrorism, Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
EL TARABISHI, M. 2002. Egyptian Newspaper Coverage of Palestinian

Intifada. Egyptian Journal of Public Opinion Research, Vol.3, No.1 pp: 1-38.
GALLLAL, A. 2002. Arab and Islamic Issues in Arab Mass Media. Paper
presented at the Conference on Media and Terrorism, Faculty of Mass
Communication, Cairo University, Egypt, April.
GERBNER, G. 1988. Violence and Terror in the Mass Media. Reports and Papers
on Mass Communication, No. 102, Paris, UNESCO.
HAMADA, B. 2001. Arab Image in the Minds of Western Image Makers. The Journal of International Communication, Volume.7, No.1, pp. 7-35.
IBRAHIM, H. F. 1999. Political Violence in the Arab World. Strategies. Monthly
Monograph Series, Vol. 4, No. 21. The Arab Centre for Strategic Studies.
ISEED, M. 2001. The Role of Media in Expanding Deviation in the Age
of Globalization and Internet. Paper presented at the Conference on
Combating Crime in the Age of Globalization, Law Faculty United Arab
Emirates University, May.
KAMALIPOUR, Y. R. 1997. Media Images of Arabs, Muslims, and the
Middle East in the United States. In Kamalipour, Yahya R. (Ed), The U.S.
Media and the Middle East: Images and Perception, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
POLLOCK, M. A. and ARTZ, L. W. 1997. Limiting the Options: AntiArab Images in U.S. Media Coverage of the Persian Gulf Crisis. In
Kamalipour, Yahya R. (Ed), The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Images and
Perception, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
ROBERT, G. P. 1993. Media Portrayals of Terrorism: Functions and Meaning of
News Coverage, Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.
SALAH EL- DEIN, K. 2002. The Role of Mass Media in Shaping Knowledge and Attitudes of the Egyptian Public Opinion Toward Terrorism: An
Integrative Approach. Paper presented at the Conference of Media and
Terrorism, Faculty on Mass Communication, Cairo University, Egypt, April.
SHIVA, S. K. 2001. Terrorism in the New Millennium, Delhi, India: Authors
Press.
SHUKRI, M. A. 1991. International Terrorism: A Legal Critique. Brattleboro,
Vermont: Amana Books.
SIDDIQI, A. M. 2002. Terrorism: A Cross - Cultural Perspective: A Comparative Study of Seven Newspaper from Around the World. Paper presented at 23rd Conference and General Assembly, International Association
for Media and Communication Research, Barcelona, Spain, July 2002.
SIMMONS, B. A. 1991. U.S. Newsmagazines Labeling of Terrorists. In
Eke, K. K. and Odasuo, A. A. (Eds.) Media Coverage of Terrorism, Newbury
Park: Sage Publications.
TAHER, H. 1997. Islam Between Truth and False Allegations, a Response to the
False Allegations Against Islam. Rabat, Morocco, Publications of the Islamic
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
WILKINSON, P. 1997. The Media and Terrorism: A Reassessment. Terrorism and Political Violence Journal, Vol.9, No.2, pp. 51-64.
Media,
Violence
and
Terrorism
in
Europe
CHAPTER 12
Introduction
This report presents an overview and critical assessment of research in the European region on media, violence and terrorism. We take the European dimension to
not only include work on political violence occurring in Europe but also work by
European scholars on the subject. We have not included the voluminous amount of
research on the subject of media and domestic violence, or violence in popular
culture, although such material was included in earlier bibliographic reviews for
UNESCO (especially Gerbner, 1988); these issues refer to different forms of politics than used here.
While the theoretical debates about the relationship between the media and terrorism were fiercely waged through the late 1970s and 1980s (Alexander, 1976; Schmid,
1981) and reviewed in more recent work (Alali and Eke, 1991; Paletz and Schmid,
1992; Weimann and Winn, 1994), the issue has not occupied center stage in European studies of the media. Also, there is a substantial body of work on the causes of
political conflict and the nature of political violence, yet the specific consideration
of the role of the media in such conflicts has not generated much sustained research attention in Europe, except in relation to the Balkans and the Kosovo crisis.
Research Methods
The timeframe was material published or presented during the four-year period of
January 1998-December 2001. UNESCO argued that this period has been chosen
mainly for pragmatic reasons and also to coincide with an observable increase in
political violence and terrorism in different parts of the world. However, this is not
a very accurate perspective for Europe. The Europe Overview of Patterns of Global
Terrorism, published by the U.S. State Department for the years 1998-2001 (see
www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1998Report/europe.html) suggests that for
1998 the number of terrorist incidents actually declined in Europe. The reasons for
this are in large part because of increased vigilance by security forces and the
recognition by some terrorist groups that longstanding political and ethnic controversies should be addressed in negotiations. The report identifies the main incidents of terrorism: terrorism in Spain was attributable almost entirely to the Basque
Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) group. In Turkey, most incidents were related to the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In Greece, a variety of anarchist and terrorist
groups continued to operate with virtual impunity. The deadliest terrorist act occurred in Omagh, Northern Ireland, when a splinter Irish Republican Army (IRA)
group exploded a 500-pound car bomb that killed 29 persons, including children.
Annabelle Sreberny and

Prasun Sonwalker
Centre for
Mass Communication Research
University of Leicester
England
Similarly, Europe experienced fewer terrorist incidents and casualties in 1999, and
Western Europe had the largest decline in the number of international terrorist
incidents of any region in 2000. Several European states moved to strengthen and
codify anti-terrorism legislation, and many signed the International Convention for
the Suppression of Terrorist Financing, which was opened for signature on 10
January 2000. In the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States,
European nations responded by offering immediate assistance to manage the crisis
and build the international coalition against terrorism, with Al-Qaida-related arrests
carried out in Belgium, Bosnia, France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. (www.state.gov/
s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2001/html/10240.htm)
Thus two points are clear. First, incidents of terrorism actually declined in Europe
during the UNESCO study period, and this was reflected in the discursive and
random nature of academic output. Second, academic output in this period was
dominated by the media dynamics of the Kosovan crisis. This reflects both the
centrality of the Balkans as the major political crisis during the period, but also
107
reflects the usual length of the academic research and

publishing cycle, which almost guarantees that no rapid
response to events can get published. While September
11 has clearly been a trigger for renewed interest in research on this topic, most of that has not yet filtered
into the public domain. Our sense is that a considerable
amount of relevant work will appear within the next
year or two, but this cannot be included here.
CHAPTER 12
108
Email and the Internet mean that the conduct of such

bibliographic research has certain advantages over earlier work. On-line bibliographic searches are faster, research activities are more transparent, individuals and
organizations are easier to locate than before. We posted
requests on numerous academic listservs in different
disciplines (Political Science, International Relations,
Communications, Media Studies). We made direct contact with individuals known to work in this area, and
with thinktanks, research institutes and university departments.
We used a variety of electronic databases including
BIDS/IBSS, INGENTA and others. There is undoubtedly a bias toward English-language materials, a bias that
is perhaps inherent in the very structure of the Net and
its tools. While substantial material has been accessed in
full, some has been retrieved electronically, and we are
dependent upon author-written abstracts, which often
lack detail about method and approach, for a sense of
the content of the research. Our searches generated
about 100 items, mainly in English.
We also found a few references in French, German, Serbian, Greek, Norwegian and Spanish. Yet without access to the complete texts, nor any available English translations or summaries, this material could not be included
here. The language barriers, lack of research coordination and lack of key research sites across Europe in this
area of media research are quite marked.
Synthesis and Critical Assessment
General Findings
The research we were able to identify was mainly written
in English and conducted in a limited number of countries. We found almost no work conducted in Italy, and
little in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. Research is not
necessarily triggered by instances of local violence, nor
does it necessarily focus on the local. It can develop as
much out of theoretical interests or interests in comparative media dynamics. In general, there is a lack of
sustained, large-scale projects, perhaps because of a lack
of sources of funding. There is also little evidence of
longitudinal studies of media coverage of political violence, although this is one area where tracking of pat-
terns of political and media response seems vitally important. None of the big organizations, including the
European Union and UNESCO, appear to have funded
work in this area.
Most of the research work was conducted on the press
in and across various countries. Yet different researchers
select different newspapers for analysis, again leading to
a randomness of subject matter and lack of building
upon and refinement of research questions. There was
very little work conducted on television, despite a general acknowledgement of its major role in opinion-formation and audience preference for its mode of information delivery. There was almost no work conducted
on radio, which often comes into its own during times
of crises and can be accessed in wireless mode when
electricity fails. Since some crises do surprise us, it is often very difficult to put a research project together quickly
enough; academic research is not noted for its rapid response modalities. Also, very few countries have anything like a television news archive, such as the Vanderbilt
News Archive in the U.S., from which to retrieve broadcast news content.
The preferred research approach was the use of rhetorical and discourse analysis and most research was content-driven. Not much work focused on the interface
between politics and the media, and even less focused
on the military-media interface, although both areas are
central for exploration of issues of agenda-setting, determination of the origins of discursive frames and issues of propaganda and surveillance. Research that involved interviews with journalists, politicians, government and military spokespeople was rarely used and there
was little attempt at triangulation.
Despite the widespread use of comparative method,
there was a lack of comparison between European and
U.S. media coverage to fully explore the potential CNN
effect. Whether there is an emerging global hegemony
constructed by the U.S. articulated in its media channels
and picked up by European media or whether a more
modulated European political consensus has developed
against American foreign policy seem valuable questions
for media analysis in this area. Not unsurprisingly, as
already mentioned, the bulk of European research work
during this time-period focuses on media and political
violence in the Balkans and Kosovo. The rest includes
such divergent foci and orientations, including terrorism, that it is hard to consider it as a sustained body of
academic research.
The Media and Political Violence in the

Balkans
The main, although not universal, finding across this body
Government-media Relations
Perhaps the most significant specific area of work focused on government-media relations in different locations. Hammond and Herman (2000) analysed the partisan and propagandistic role of Western media in reproducing official spin. Hryatin and Trampuz (2000)
discuss the manner in which the Serbian media nationalized, mobilized and emotionalized the public sphere with
the use of patriotic journalism, in the context of the
Serb authorities spreading Serbian nationalism and the
implementation of new media legislation in the 1990s
when abuse of the media began. Some analysts focused
on the general way in which new information technologies had changed the shape of warfare. Livingstone et.
al. (2000) analyse the changes for both military and foreign-policy establishments created by the new environment of global real-time media.
The CNN Effect: Media Coverage and

Humanitarian Intervention
A popular, if not very securely grounded, argument arose
after the Kosovo crisis that media coverage of suffering
could prompt so-called humanitarian intervention by
Western governments. Robinson (2000a, 2000b) looked
for evidence of media-driven intervention by examining U.S. policy responses to humanitarian crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and suggests that there is
some substance to the claims that media coverage can
trigger the deployment of airpower intervention during
humanitarian crisis but not ground troops. In another
article, Robinson (2000c) puts forward a policy-media
interaction model as a useful tool for testing the claim
that media coverage causes intervention during humanitarian crises; the suggestion is that media influence occurs when policy is uncertain and media coverage is critically framed and empathises with suffering.
Thussu (2000) examines the nature of CNNs presentation of NATOs bombing of Yugoslavia as humanitarian intervention, one of the few studies to take the
role of television seriously. Hammond (2000a) exam-
ines British media coverage and identifies a close relationship between the media and the military, a journalism of attachment, which helps to justify western military intervention as humanitarian. Keeble (2000) suggests government and media both function to hide the
horror of humanitarian warfare. Considerable critique
focuses on the role of U.S. media as a voice of NATO.
Allen and Seaton (1999) make very strong argument that
myths and falsehoods were deliberately perpetrated by
the U.S. in conjunction with the media so that action in
the name of humanitarianism actually obfuscated the
U.S. goal of global hegemony. Phillips (1999) argues that
the mainstream U.S. media knowingly passed on biased
and false information from the U.S. military and NATO
to the U.S. public, with the U.S. government creating the
International Public Information group to orchestrate
the news environment.
Comparative Research
Comparative method is popular in media analyses of
the coverage of political crises, yet researchers chose a
variety of other crises with which to compare Kosovo.
Robinson (2000c) examined Somalia, Bosnia and
Kosovo. Contributors to Allen and Seatons book (1999)
examined media representations of war in Greece, Iraq,
former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and
Kenya. Kuusisto (1999) compared the Western political
rhetoric used against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War
with that of the conflict in Bosnia. Keeble (2000) also
compared the Iraqi conflict of 1991 to the Kosovo crisis of 1999, examining the growth of a secret state in
Britain and the role of the media, explored through the
institutional and personal links between journalists and
security services.
A second form of comparison is the examination of
representation of a particular moment across a number
of different media systems. Kuusito (1999) compared
the political rhetoric of U.S., British and French political
leaders, while Grundmann, Smith and Wright (2000)
examined the discourses pertaining to the Balkan war in
the establishment press of France, Britain and Germany.
In Hammond and Herman (2000), various contributors
analyse how the war was reported in the U.S., Britain,
Germany, Greece, Russian and France. Nohrstedt et. al.
(2000) examine the discourses of the press in Greece,
Norway, Sweden and Britain and how specific national/
local contexts function in a context of globalization and
super-power dominance. Such comparisons suggest a
pragmatic logic of the availability of research colleagues
as much as an analytically driven argument for the choice
of comparators. Savarese (2000) examines 10 European
newspapers, looking at infosuasion, narrative structure and media logic. Nacos et. al.s publication (2000) is
one of the few volumes to make sustained comparison
109
of work are that the European media unabashedly toed

the NATO-government line and enlisted in the propaganda war. On the other hand, detailed comparative studies suggest that different European media systems reported Kosovo differently, both reflecting the European
Unions fragmented public sphere but also the manner
in which detailed rhetorical and discourse analysis produces difference. Analysis of the interface between mass
media and new technologies suggests that in the Kosovo
conflict the Web ensured that the media coverage was
seen as propaganda, in contrast to the good war perception during the Gulf crisis.
of public opinion in relation to both American and European foreign-policy establishments.

At third form of comparison is to explore the differences across a range of media channels within one country. Eilders and Luter (2000) examined Kosovo war discourse in the editorials of the five leading German newspapers and suggest a high degree of consent in the press
toward Germanys first military action since World War
Two. Vincent (2000) looks at nine different U.S. news
media and coverage of Milosevic and the Serbs and found
considerable agreement.
110
CHAPTER 12
Examining Television Coverage

There was not much research work conducted on television, despite it being the most popular medium for
the delivery of international news and the one perhaps
most driven by the visually exciting agenda of violent
events. Most countries still lack television news archives
so it takes a very enthusiastic researcher to tape television material in real-time for possible future research
analysis. Thussu (2000) looks at television news through
the coverage of CNN, arguing that it reproduced the
U.S. agenda to a global audience, molding public opinion in support of war. However recently and falling
outside the strict time-frame of this study - McLaughlin
(2002) examined a sample of British and American television newscasts in relation to NATO campaigns in
Serbia and Kosovo and concludes that the presentation
of NATO material was often treated with appropriate
professional scepticism. This is notable as one of the
few critiques of the media that suggests they did not
simply toe the NATO line.
Rhetorical and Discourse Analysis

Analyses of the rhetoric and discourses used in media
coverage were the most popular research methods used.
Penalva and Mateo (2000) conducted a semiotic analysis
of the coverage of NATO intervention in Kosovo by
the Spanish newspaper El Pais which revealed the tendency of the media to display events within a narrative
structure in which the actors are predetermined. Scott
(1999) examines the arguments about NATO intervention in Kosovo by cosmopolitans and their critics as presented by the broadsheet press in Germany, with some
comparisons to the differences in debate in Britain.
Goodwin and Hills (2001) examine the responses by
NATO to the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, as reported in Hong Kongs English-language
press; the focus is mainly on the perceptions that China
and Western nations have about each other and the contradiction between Chinas on-going economic interdependence with the West and its desire for political independence.
The Media Screen and Horror

One line of analysis running through this material is the
power of visual imagery of violence. Terrorism or hostage taking can provide dramatic visuals that attract huge
media audiences. Doubt (2000) looks at Bosnia as a global media screen for a horrifying moral tale. Hryatin
and Trampuz (2000) look at the film Wag the Dog,
and discuss medias role in not only reporting about but
also constructing war. Scanlon (2001) examined two incidents that attracted strong media attention: Waco, Texas
and the Air France highjacking and showed how escalating media coverage raised questions about effective responses and about political leadership. Haynes (1999)
examined a recent German docudrama on the Red Army
Faction and suggested that newspapers and film act as a
forum for debating the difficult issues which political
violence raises.
History and Memory

Media play the role of keepers of public memory, but
whose memories and which historical narrative is often
a site of contestation. Huyssen (2000) looks at discourses
of memory and focuses on Holocaust narratives that
were energized by genocidal politics in Rwanda, Bosnia
and Kosovo, examining media as transmitters of memory
and their possible influence on perception and temporality. Hammonds book review essay (2000b) examines
journalisms instantaneous production of history, and
its lack of perspective in the context of reporting on
war and conflict.
NATOs campaign in Kosovo triggered debate about
the virtualization of conflict with new technologies
rendering what was a distanced and de-realised experience. Carruthers (2001) questions the extent to which
conflict has been transformed in an age of virtual technology and virtuous motivations. Whine (2001) contrasts Islamism and totalitarianism, and argues that both
mobilise the masses to combat external threat and both
rely on mass communication and suppression of dissent to develop their own monopolistic ideologies.
Trauma Talk
Some work in this area grows out of psychological concern for mental health effects. Slone (2000) conducted
an experiment about media coverage of national threat
situations and anxiety. An experimental group was shown
television news clips of terrorism while the control group
was shown newsclips unrelated to national security, and
results supported the anxiety-inducing effect of the experimental condition, suggesting that further exploration of media coverage of political violence and psychological processes was needed. Hobart (2000) studied
Media and Terrorism

A small literature during the period of the research focused specifically on terrorism, although our sense is
that a considerable amount of research and writing that
has been triggered by 11 September is currently underway,
as reflected in conference presentations through 20012, and will soon appear in published form.
Kaminaris (2000) examines the interface of government,
media and terrorists in Greece, noting the minimal spread
of terrorism there but the considerable criticism heaped
upon the Greek government regarding its relationship
to terrorists. Both Silke (2001) and Merari (1999) essentially argue that terrorist events have had a very high
media profile, the latter arguing that essentially terrorism has not changed for many years and that, true to its
inherent characteristics as a mode of struggle, terrorism
cannot substantially change for better or for worse (written before 11 September). Gordon (2001) argues that
the scholarly communication system with respect to terrorism research is both open, with information coming
in from government, and media, but closed, with information flowing to the popular press. A more closed information system might help its maturation into an autonomous academic research discipline.
The ethical implications of the political framing in television (Iyengar, 1991) and more specifically the media
coverage of violence has generated a considerable theoretical literature (Tester, 1994; Boltanski, 1999; Moeller,
1999; Cohen, 2001). This has raised profound questions
about both the news production processes and audience responses, and this issue runs as an implicit theme
through much of the work cited here.
Political Violence and the Web

Surprising little work appeared during this period on the
function and use of the web at times of political crisis.
Again, it seems that post- 11 September work will, of
necessity, pay more attention to the role of the web as a
global news source. Hall (2000) examines Kosovo as the
first web war and the manner in which the information
war fought out on the Net between NATO and Serbia

mediated the real war in new ways, addressing readers
both in Serbia and around the world. Purcell and Kodras
(2001) examine Slovenias efforts at crafting an image of
itself via the Internet, trying to disassociate itself from
the Balkan moniker and persuade the European Union
and NATO of its readiness for accession. Bieber (2000)
suggested that while the Internet alleviated information
shortages in Yugoslavia, it helped the independent media as well as reaching a small user population. Tiryakian
(2001) offers a structural-functionalist analysis of the
dynamics of ethnic conflict and the responsibility of
democratic states to intervene to mitigate such conflict.
The modernity of virtual warfare also heightens the
responsibility of the media, particularly television.
With a more general focus, Watts (2001) argues that the
Internet has supported both the political and commercial growth of skinhead and right-wings culture, providing a means of support and growth. Crilley (2001) looks
at the use of the Internet by terrorists and extremists in
a new kind of information warfare, and argues that governments have to strike a balance between freedom of
speech and national security.
Herd (2000) focuses on the information warfare aspects
of the second Russo-Chechen campaign in 1999, including Chechen exploitation of the Internet and internal Russian press criticism of the war, providing a leitmotif of Russias systemic transformation. Watts (2001)
shows that bias crime has risen in Germany since unification while one-third of violent incidents come from
unaffiliated, informal groups of young men and not from
identifiable ideological groups as earlier. He suggests that
contemporary xenophobia is linked to aggressive elements of youth culture but also to international ideological networks supported by the Internet.
Suggestions for Further Research

It appears that the debates about the relationship between the media and terrorism that had been so fiercely
waged through the late 1970s and 1980s had pretty much
fallen out of the academic research agenda until the tragic
events of 11 September, 2001 put terrorism firmly back
onto the public political agenda. Our scanning of the
academic literature generated little work that focused on
definitions of terrorism, on the relationship between
symbolic violence and the media, or on media coverage
of terrorist acts. We anticipate a flurry of new work focusing on and reinterpreting these issues to be currently
in print, but falling outside the remit of this study.
It appears that academic work is not immediately reactive to external events as the underlying presumption
behind this study might imply. Research is slow to fund,
111
how ordinary people in Bali articulate the role of mass

media in maintaining the existing political order, where
before the riots that brought down the Soeharto regime,
they suggest that a new political and social order could
only emerge after apocalyptic violence. More recent work
by Skirrow et. al. (2002) investigated the influence of
media events on hallucinatory content of intensive care
unit patients and discovered that during the war in
Kosovo, patients, especially older adults, were more likely
to have hallucinatory experiences involving themes of
war or the military.
organize and undertake and the publishing cycle further

slows material appearing in the public domain, and thus
any potential impacts on policy-making or public opinion formation. Instead, academic work tries to refine
theoretical contsructs, test hypotheses, undertake comparative work. Indeed, much of the work uncovered here
is from doctoral research by individuals, suggesting the
difficulties for groups of academics to organize such
intensive work without adequate time and funding. The
cumulative difficulties of undertaking research work in
such a critical and contemporary area implies the need
for major institutional prioritizing and funding for such
work, a role that UNESCO and the Council of Europe
might take up.
CHAPTER 12
112
There are few longitudinal studies that seek to test

whether coverage of a particular conflict actually changes
over time within a media system, depending on the shifts
of governing group or changes in the ownership and
focus of the media. While there is a plethora of comparative studies, each compares different things: different countries, different media, different time frames. And
there is a lack of analysis of the benefits and drawbacks
of comparative analysis: if we are not comparing like
with like (and how do we define that?) then of what use
is comparative analysis?
The possible impact of media coverage needs better investigation. There is anecdotal evidence of political and
diplomatic elites rushing to watch CNN in order to understand world events; more research is needed on the
elite-media interface and the effects of mainstream coverage on policy-making. That is, as well as trying to understand how political elites try to influence and structure media coverage (the Pentagon controlling access to
press accreditation during the Gulf War; or the role of
NATO briefings) it is also vital to understand how these
elites are themselves influenced by media output. Access to sources is difficult, but perhaps more analysis
could be made of secondary sources, such as memoirs,
autobiographies, etc, as well as government documents;
declassification is a slow process, and this implies a historical approach to this area of work.
New areas of research would include analysis of the
coverage of the role of peacekeeping forces, both within
Europe and beyond, such as European forces deployed
in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. This would include
the blurring of the boundaries between military and
political activity as well as the relations between such
troops and the local peoples amongst whom they are
placed. We discovered no such research.
It seems an important time to open up the field of research, and to acknowledge different kinds of violence
with different causal patterns and different effects. Mini-
mally, it is possible to recognize domestic violence in the

private sphere, violence that stems from deprivation,
drugs and social exclusion, and more overtly political
forms of violence by proto-nations and schismatic
groups. While these forms of violence cannot be simply
collapsed together, they cannot be kept strictly separate
either. Hill (2001) is one of the few analysts to attempt
such a rereading of the debates. He examines the key
stages in the physical and moral amplification of the
risks of media violence, looking at the role of media,
politicians and anti-violence campaign groups. These
groups try to control the information flows about stigmatized examples of popular culture and media audiences, trying to create a safer moral and cultural environment.
We need a better definition of what constitutes political
violence, since all of these forms have political ramifications in one form or another. Ball-Rokeach (2001) has
written of the need to analyse political forces operative
in the study of media effects and of mediated violence
in particular, including the establishment of commissions and the writing of commission reports. This might
be the start of a rethinking and a recombination of the
fragmented field of media and violence within a revision of the understanding of politics.
A more sophisticated examination of the inter-locking
of different forms of violence would lead to a stronger
focus on the gendered nature of conflict and coverage
of conflict. This would not only include the gendered
nature of political conflict and the differential impacts
of political violence on men, women and children; it
would also examine the gendered nature of media coverage, exploring whether women journalists and editors
focus on different stories or different angles of stories,
and bring a different optic to their telling. Additionally,
political violence in theatres of war often has profound consequences for relations in the domestic theatre of family life, issues that have barely begun to be
recognised, let alone researched.
Despite the growing awareness of the gendered nature
of political conflict and its coverage, very little work even
remarked upon this issue. Some recent work like that by
Del Zotto (2002) argues that womens experiences of
war were highly misrepresented in mainstream media.
Using a content analysis model for media of 21 nations,
she suggests a news blackout of womens war experiences and distortions of these experiences, all of which
hide crucial issues that would otherwise improve the
public understanding of warfare. Also, in Playdons (2002)
interview with Eve-Ann Prentice, there is some discussion of the inflection that being a woman has given her
professional work as a journalist.
References
A major limitation to this study is the linguistic blinkering

within academic databases. While many of the databases
searched include non-English language materials, our
sense is that this is a miniscule amount of the totality of
references. We are acutely aware of the English-language
bias of this study, and the difficulties of trying to remedy that in the short-term. Indeed, there is probably a
strong English-language bias within academic research
as a whole. If this area of research is of policy and political significance, as we suggest it is, then a centre, perhaps located within a university, could be established as
an archive or clearing-house for the collection, annotation and on-going monitoring of this area of research.
Additionally, serious work needs to be supported by serious funding and time. These are possible future functions for UNESCO and the Council of Europe to take
up. Indeed, given that this very research is being undertaken by researchers outside Europe, who may well be
making similar recommendations about their own corners of the world, an archive that collected the global
literature on this topic would be welcome.
ALALI, O. and EKE, K. 1991. Media Coverage of Terrorism. California: Sage

Publications.
ALEXANDER, Y 1976. International Terrorism: National, Regional and Global
Perspectives. New York: Praeger.
ALLEN, T. and SEATON, J. 1999. The Media of Conflict: War Reporting and
Representations of Ethnic Violence. London: Zed.
BALL-ROKEACH, S. J. 2001. The Politics of Studying Media Violence:
Reflections 30 Years after the Violence Commission, Mass Communication
& Society, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 3-18.
BIEBER, F. 2000. Cyberwar or Sideshow? The Internet and the Balkan
Wars, Current History, Vol. 99, pp. 124-128.
BOLTANSKI, L. 1999. Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
CARRUTHERS, S. 2001. New Media, New War, International Affairs, Vol.
77, No. 3, p. 673.
COHEN, S. 2001. States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering, Cambridge, Polity Press
CRILLEY, K. 2001. Information Warfare: New Battle Fields Terrorists,
Propaganda and the Internet, Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives;
Vol. 53. No 7.
DEL ZOTTO, A.C. 2002. Weeping Women, Wringing Hands: How the
Mainstream Media Stereotyped Womens Experiences in Kosovo, Journal
of Gender Studies, Vol. 11 No 2; pp. 141-150(10).
DOUBT, K. 2000. Sociology After Bosnia and Kosovo: Recovering Justice: Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
EILDERS, C. and LUTER, A. 2000. Germany at War: Competing Framing Strategies in German Public Discourse. European Journal of Communication. Vol. 15, No. 3.
GERBNER, G. 1988. Violence and Terror in the Mass Media. Paris, UNESCO.
GOODWIN, J. and HILLS, K. 2001. A View from Hong Kong: Chinese
Representations of War, Violence and American Imperialism. Sociologica
Research Online; www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/socresonline
GORDON, A. 2001. Terrorism and the Scholarly Communication System, Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol.13, No. 4; 116-124 (9).
GRUNDMANN, R. SMITH, D. and WRIGHT, S. 2000. National Elites
and Transnational Discourses in the Balkan War: A Comparison between
the French, German and British Establishment Press. European Journal of
Communication, Vol. 15, No. 3.
HALL, J. 2000. The First Web War: Bad Things Happen in Unimportant
Places. Journalism Studies; Vol. 1. No.3, pp. 387-404(18).
HAMMOND, P. 2000a. Reporting Humanitarian Warfare: Propaganda,
Moralism and NATOs Kosovo War. Journalism Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3; pp.
365-386 (22).
HAMMOND, P. 2000b. Lessons of the First Draft of History; Media,
Culture and Society, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 847-851.
HAMMOND, P. and HERMAN, E. S. 2000. Degraded Capability: The Media
and the Kosovo Crisis. London, Pluto Press.
HAYNES, M. 1999. Todesspiel and the Terrorist Docu-Drama in Germany. German Politics, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 125-140.
HERD, G. 2000. The Counter-Terrorist Operation in Chechnya: Information Warfare Aspects. Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol.13, No.4, pp.
57-83.
HILL, A. 2001. Media Risks: The Social Amplification of Risk and the
Media Violence Debate. Journal of Risk Research, Vol. 4 No 3; pp. 209225(17).
HOBART, M. 2000. The End of the World News: Television and a Problem of Articulation in Bali. International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol.3,
No.1, pp.79-102.
HRYATTH, S.B.; TRAMPUZ, M. 2000. Enjoy Your Enemy or How the
Kosovo (Media) War Broke Out. Javnost/Public, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.77-85.
HUYSSEN, A. 2000. Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia. Public Culture, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 21-38.
IYENGAR, S. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
KAMINARIS, C. 2000. Terrorism in Greece and Governmental Responses (1974
- 1998). Thesis, University of Birmingham.
KEEBLE, R. 2000. Hiding the Horror of `Humanitarian` Warfare. Javnost/
Public; Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 87-97.
KUUSISTO, R. 1999. Western Definitions of War in the Gulf and in Bosnia: The
Rhetorical Frameworks of the United States, British and French Leaders in Action;
Helsinki: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.
LIVINGTON, S.; ROBBINS, C.; SHEA, J.; and STROBEL, W. P. 2000.
Partners or Partisans? NATO and the Media in Kosovo. Washington: USIP.
Given the range of European languages in which research is conducted, there is need to gather the material/data at one central site. For this purpose, an interactive website could be created, where researchers from
different European countries feed in data that could be
available to others working in the same field. Such an
initiative may be undertaken by an apex organisation such
as UNESCO or the Council of Europe, whose translation strengths could also be tapped for the purposes of
wider dissemination and utility to policy and research. A
conference of researchers working in this area could help
synthesise research across Europe, as well as highlight
the disjunctures between various theatres of conflict.
As we write this in October 2002, in the wake of new
terrorist violence against tourists in Bali, a new research
question imposes itself around the relationship between
the experience of risk and the role of media in increasing public fear. There is tension between the publics
right to know and the need to be forewarned about possible acts of violence, and the possible escalation of anxiety that generalised pronouncements about anticipated
future acts of terror generate. The focus of analysis here
is not about media coverage of acts of terror themselves
but about the media-politics interface when public safety
depends upon unreliable knowledge about future possible events. It is undoubtedly the case that the events of
11 September, 2001 have reawakened the research agenda
about media and political violence, not least in the different approaches between the U.S. and Europe about
these issues. This overview report is a small contribution toward that renewed debate.
113
Concluding Remarks
CHAPTER 12
114
McLAUGHLIN, G. 2002. Rules of Engagement: Television Journalism

and NATOS `Faith in Bombing` During the Kosovo Crisis, 1999". Journalism Studies, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp.257-266.
MERARI, A. 1999. Terrorism as a Strategy of Struggle: Past and Future.
Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.11, No.4, pp.52-65.
MOELLER, S. 1999. Compassion Fatigue. London, Routledge.
NACOS, B. L.; SHAPIRO, R. Y; and ISERNIA, P. 2000. Decision-making in
a Glass House: Mass media, Public Opinion and American and European Foreign
Policy in the 21st Century. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.
NOHRSTEDT, S.; KAITATZI-WHITLOCK, S.; OTTOSEN, R.; and
RIEGERT, K. 2000. From the Persian Gulf to Kosovo - War Journalism
and Propaganda. European Journal of Communication. Vol. 15, No. 3.
PALETZ, D.; and SCHMID, A. 1992. Terrorism and the Media. (Eds). California, Sage Publications.
PENALVA, C.; and MATEO, M. A. 2000. Narrative Analysis and War.
Coverage by the Daily Paper El Pais on the Conflict in Kosovo (Analisis
narrativo y guerra. La cobertura del diario El Pais sobre el conflicto de
Kosovo). Revista-Internacional-de-Sociologia; No. 26, pp. 187-210.
PHILLIPS, P. 1999. Untold Stories of U.S./NATOs War and U.S. Media
Complacency. Social-Policy; No. 30, No. 1, pp. 47-49.
PLAYDON, P. 2002. Under Friendly Fire: An Interview with Eve-Ann
Prentice. Journalism Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2; pp. 267-275 (9).
PURCELL, D.; and KODRAS, J. E. 2001. Information Technologies and
Representational Spaces at the Outposts of the Global Political Economy:
Redrawing the Balkan Image of Slovenia. Information Communication & Society, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 341-369.
ROBINSON, P. 2000a. The News Media and Intervention: Triggering
the Use of Air Power During Humanitarian Crises. European Journal of
Communication. Vol. 15, No. 3.
ROBINSON, P. 2000b. The Policy-Media Interaction Model: Measuring
Media Power During Humanitarian Crisis. Journal of Peace Research, 37 (5):
613-633.
ROBINSON, P. 2000c. The News Media and Intervention. Thesis, University of Bristol.
SAVARESE, R. 2000. Infosuasion in European Newspapers: A Case Study
on the War in Kosovo. European Journal of Communication. Vol. 15, No. 3.
SCANLON, J. 2001. The Politics of Hostage Rescue: Is Violence a Route
to Political Success?. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 9,
No. 2, pp. 88-97(10).
SCHMID, A. 1981. Violence as Communication. California, Sage Publications.

SCOTT, A. 1999. War and the Public Intellectual: Cosmopolitanism and
Anti-Cosmopolitanism in the Kosovo Debate in Germany. Sociological Research Online, Vol. 4, No. 2.
SILKE, A. 2001. When Sums Go Bad: Mathematical Models and Hostage Situations. Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.13, No.2, pp.49-66.
SKIRROW, P; JONES, C; GRIFFITHS, R. D.; and KANEY, S. 2002. The
Impact of Current Media Events on Hallucinatory Content: The Experience of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Patients. British Journal of Clinical
Psychology; Vol.41, No.1; pp. 87-91(5).
SLONE, M. 2000. Responses to Media Coverage of Terrorism. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 44, No 4, pp. 508-522(15).
TESTER, K. 1994. Media, Culture and Morality. London: Routledge.
THUSSU, D. K. 2000. Legitimizing Humanitarian Intervention?: CNN,
NATO and the Kosovo Crisis. European Journal of Communication, Vol. 1,
15. No. 3.
TIRYAKIAN, E. A. 2001. The Kosovo War and American Involvement.
A Structural-Functional Analysis of Intervention in Ethnic Conflict (Der
Kosovo-Krieg und die Rolle der Vereinigten Staaten. Eine
strukturfunktionalistische Analyse militarischer Intervention in ethnischen
Konflikten). Berliner-Journal-fur-Soziologie, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 201-216.
VINCENT, R. 2000. A Narrative Analysis of U.S. Press Coverage of
Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs in Kosovo. European Journal of Communication, Vol. 1. 15, No. 3.
WATTS, M. 2001. Aggressive Youth Cultures and Hate Crime: Skinheads
and Xenophobic Youth in Germany. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 45,
No.4, pp.600-615.
WEIMANN, G.; and WINN, C. 1993. The Theatre of Terror: Mass Media and
International Terrorism. New York, Longman.
WHINE, M. 2001. Islamism and Totalitarianism: Similarities and Differences, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol.2, No.2, pp. 54-72.
Media,
Violence
and
Terrorism in
Latin America
CHAPTER 13
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to provide a summary and a critical analysis of the
academic studies and publications on media, violence and terrorism in Latin America
between 1998 and 2001. There were two methodological considerations for selecting and reviewing the texts presented in this report. First, different reference sources
in the region were consulted and information was sought from research centers
specialized in communication. The Red Iberoamericana de Revistas de Comunicacin (IberoAmerican Network of Communication Journals) was consulted as were the annals
of national and regional symposia organized by FELAFACS, the Federacin
Latinoamericana de Facultades y Escuelas de Comunicacin, (Latin American Federation of
Communication Faculties and Schools); ALAIC, the Asociacin Latinoamericana de
Investigadores de la Comunicacin (Latin American Association of Communication Researchers); and by the different national communication associations.
Secondly, the selection of works was done based on academic criteria. The search
was limited to studies and publications that contained: a conceptual, even if brief,
approach to the topic; an expository methodology; a bibliography; and other characteristics of academic works. The sample included partial and complete reports on
research projects, and theoretical essays supported by empirical knowledge, all taken
from annals of national and international congresses; books; academic journals;
and communication research centers web pages, among other reference sources.
We hope this report is useful for those people and institutions involved in media
production, education and research, and in the design of policies concerning media
and violence in Latin America.
Information Coverage:
Armed Conflict and Political Violence
The set of works which we analysed focused on media coverage of armed conflicts
and other forms of political violence, including but not limited to terrorism. These
studies are grouped under three basic headings: media narratives that manufacture
news about war and peace; the situation of journalists in politically violent contexts;
and the public interactions between journalists, politicians, and armed groups. A
total of 28 studies and publications are in the group. Half of them are academic
studies which, although based on empirical data, do not intend to produce empirical
knowledge. The other half includes research reports that combine content analysis
with semiotic methods that characterize cultural and discourse analyses.
News about Peace and War

Jorge Bonilla Vlez and
Camilo Tamayo Gmez
School of
Communication and Language
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Bogota, Columbia
Colombia is one of the countries where works on this topic abound. It is worth
noting that in none of the works analyzed is the concept of terrorism used to
denote internal confrontation in this country. On the contrary, all papers aim at
studying the armed confrontation on the basis of political motivations, and social
and cultural causes. Therefore, the discussion is not focused on whether there should
be information about the war, or on whether media are used for propaganda to
magnify the actions and discourse of illegal armed groups. In that sense, works such
as those of Rey (1998), Barn (2001) and Garca and Romeros (2001) contribute
interesting elements for analysing the nature of journalistic representations of the
armed conflict. Based on their works, it can be seen that the fascination with events
of war in media agenda is due to the fact that these events are associated with news
values that favor drama, tragedy, novelty, spectacularity, antagonism and heroism.
115
Such narratives constantly deflect events of peace

because these are not related to the dramatic, the unusual, or the shocking.
CHAPTER 13
116
It is emphasized that this kind of media visibility is proportional to the degradation of the armed conflict
(Lpez, 2000). Parallel to the conflicts escalation and
degradation, information agenda drive value-news to
extremes where information is combined with drama,
uncertainty, and entertainment (Abello, 2001), and reality is mixed with fiction (Correa, 2001). This is done
through news stories that not only (re)present war confrontation in a simplistic way that lacks historical perspective and political context (Barn and Valencia, 2001),
but also trivialize horror, reinforce intolerance (UNDP,
1999), box society into the passive victims role, and turn
journalism into a place for hegemonic representation of
the official points of view (Garca and Pereira, 2000).
For some of the authors, the challenge of information
coverage is to make visible the faces and voices of the
majority of the population that struggle daily to solve
conflicts peacefully and creatively without resorting to
violence (Flores and Crawford, 2001). Accordingly, one
of the aspects to be worked on with journalists is the
political and professional background behind their vision of reality; this would give room to other criteria for
information where peace - peace culture - can be seen as
a matter of public concern. This can be done by fostering political discussion, strengthening the public use of
common sense, and reconstructing news stories that
enhance reconciliation (Rey, 2000).
Those who examine other conflicts, either internal such
as those in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Peru
or border conflicts such as the one between Peru and
Ecuador, acknowledge that societies at war or which have
worrisome levels of political violence will always be confronted with information restrictions. Several reasons
account for this: official censorship (Cortes, 1999); persecution of free and independent media (Herrera, 1998);
lack of autonomy with respect to political power (Smeets,
1999); medias submission to anti-subversive policies that
prevent greater coverage and democratic criticism
(Acevedo, 2001); and the war fever that takes over
media and reinforces old myths by stereotyping the enemy and simplifying the real causes for struggle (Reyes,
1999).
Informing in the midst of conflict:

the role of journalists
Another common concern of the works analysed points
in two directions: the necessary guarantees to work as a
journalist, and the indispensable professional training to
work in situations of generalized violence. Albarrn
(1999) points out that journalists are at high risk when

they work in such situations, since they are usually subject to pressure from the State, illegal armed groups, and
even by media owners who try to prevent them from
informing about issues they prefer to leave in the dark,
away from public scrutiny.
With respect to this situation, some of the studies suggest that threats to journalists are the result of their own
polarized, ignorant, and naive information coverage.
Some other studies defend the thesis that weak professional training brings about unnecessary risks that affect
not only individuals but also the profession as a whole;
journalists become victims of the cross fire between
violence actors (Guerrero, 2001). Therefore, it is pointed
out, journalists have the fundamental responsibility to
be better prepared to understand the causes, interests,
evolution, and logic of conflicts, war, and violence.
What would be the task? Three basic aspects of information culture should be strengthened: (i) journalists
training to cover peace, human rights, and democratic
coexistence insofar as these are long-term social processes (Beltrn, 1988); (ii) journalists specialization in the
coverage of war, so that they can distinguish propaganda
from information, and question official and irregular
information sources intelligently (Abello, 2001; Guerrero,
2001); and (iii) medias assumption of their social responsibility. The goal should be for journalism to become a democratic forum for the expression and public
debate of the points of view of those sectors that seek
access to, deliberation about, or the defense of public
expression (Acevedo, 2001).
Public Sphere, Information, Violence,

and Power
A third issue of concern that can be identified in some
of the works is based on the acknowledgment that media are central arenas for competition and symbolic
power display, where political and social antagonists struggle for access to the public sphere. In some of the texts
found in this group, it is argued that, in political violence, war and conflicts, actors bring along their forces
against the enemy, and their symbolic and ideological
interpretation frameworks to act in society, since these
processes not only involve death and destruction but
also construction.
By questioning one of the most popular hypotheses
about the role of media in political violence, Peralta (1998)
proposes to go beyond the idea that media are resonance boxes for violent actors. The author argues that
media, more than being inductors of political violence,
are immersed into a complex system of interactions and
symbolic representations that also involve academic dis-
Bonilla (2001) and Medina & Garca (2001) have a similar argument. They point out that the public sphere, which
includes media, is a permanently tense space in constant
dispute. There, journalists and media establish cooperation, consensus, censorship, inequality, rupture, opposition and/or autonomy relationships with other communication agents - groups and institutions. These, in
turn, struggle to become visible or invisible, as the case
may be, in the public sphere(s), as well as to control and
manage communication as a strategic resource of vital
importance for political and military management, and
for the symbolic structuring of conflicts.
Through the analysis of the communication model of
the EZLN (Spanish acronym for Zapatist National Liberation Army), particularly of the discussion of sub-commander Marcos, Karam (2001) suggests that the public sphere should be understood as a space of permanent tension given its social significance. According to
this analysis, the political charisma of Marcos is based
on his ability to mix Mexican popular and indigenous
symbolic drama with network technology. The strength
of his message is not in the inductive and objective contents of Western thought, but rather in the narrative
expression capable of keeping hope alive.
Sierra (1998) also refers to this tension in his analysis of
the Mexican war conflict. The author argues against the
generalized idea that the conflict in Chiapas is a communication war without censorship, and the result of a
postmodern form of confrontation based on the generalized use of the Internet and on medias central position. According to the author, although the EZLN has
been able to position itself in the international public
sphere through a discourse based on dignity and restructured symbols, the myth that Chiapas is a conflict which
uses that which is symbolic and technological prevents
analysis of disinformation, propaganda, and censorship.
These are the methods that the Mexican government
and power sectors have learned in modern counterinsurgency manuals and are using today.
Along the same line, although less ideologically, Rey
(1998) compares the quality of the public sphere and
media narratives both in international wars and in local
conflicts. Based on analysis of the public sphere generated by local war conflicts, the author argues that there
are greater public visibility factors where information
and narrative, drama and technique, ordinary and expert

knowledge are combined. In contrast, television wars
of today are limiting public visibility through virtual and
technological management of the confrontation that
prevent horror, destruction and death from being shown.
It is worth mentioning three studies that refer to the 11
September, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States:
Chaves (2001), Levario (2001) and Pacheco (2001). The
three analyze coverage of the events in the Mexican media
by focusing on three main aspects of the information:
there was no obsession for horror images, although sensationalism was evident; mythical and religious explanations of the events were common; and an anti-American sentiment was displayed, which did not promote
rational analysis of the situation.
Concluding Remarks
Terrorism does not seem to be a particular topic for
research within this academic interest in violence in media. Studies were not interested in analyzing terrorism,
or the role of media with respect to terrorism and its
agents. Instead, they concentrated on analyzing information coverage and medias staging of violence, around
three main topics: armed conflicts, political violence, and
criminal violence. In countries with current or previous armed conflicts and generalized political violence,
the media were analyzed in the light of their complex
relationships within the public sphere, and the role of
journalists who risk their autonomy, independence, and
personal safety. Special attention was paid to the quality
of public visibility of violence, war and peace, and the
news values behind the presentation of horror, death,
and tragedy, but also of life, hope and post-conflict times.
In countries where there are no armed conflicts, violence is no longer shown as revolutionary violence
but rather as molecular violence associated with lack
of safety, scandal and crime. In these cases, more than
analyzing violent contents, researchers were interested
in analyzing the consequences of media productions in
the construction of a social order based on reinforcing
fear of others and on demands for safety.
In both cases, emphasis should be given to comparative
studies on media and violence in different Latin American countries. This would allow for a comparison between topic setting agendas and public debate concerning armed conflicts, violence, terrorism, crime and punishment, and the way they are valued and used politically
and socially in various cultural scenarios, demographic
contexts, social orders, and communication media in
Latin America. In terms of the theoretical scope and
limitations of each study, observations can be made
in two respects. First, it should be said that half of
117
Media, Violence and Terrorism in Latin America
course, the State, and violence agents. After comparing

the role of national and international press regarding
the terrorist violence perpetrated by Sendero Luminoso
in Peru (1980-1994), Peralta (2000) points out that the
press swung from media spectacularization of violence, to keeping with official discourse, to an alliance
with academic discourse.
CHAPTER 13
118
the papers are interested in approaching the relation

between media and violence from different theoretical perspectives. However, their objective is not the
production of empirical knowledge, even if supported
by empirical data, but rather the construction of explanation frameworks for future studies. The Latin
American research community is encouraged to generate knowledge that provides empirical evidence by
carrying out solid and systematic studies, and not only
theoretical studies that may be considered pure speculation. This suggestion is borne out of the fact that
some texts involved political discussion and moral
debate about media and violence based on pre-established positions, instead of empirical evidence on the
topic.
References
ABELLO, J. 2001. El conflicto armado como espectculo del
infoentretenimiento, in Bonilla, Jorge and Patio, Gustavo (Academic Editors). Comunicacin y poltica. Viejos conflictos, nuevos desafos, Bogota, Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, pp. 412-420.
ALBARRN, G. 1999. Colombia, Per, Brasil, Mxico... Latinoamrica:
Periodismo y muerte, in Sala de Prensa (January). Available at:
www.saladeprensa.org.
ACEVEDO, J. 2001. Prensa y violencia poltica (1980-1995). Aproximaciones a
las visiones de los derechos humanos en el Per, Lima, Calandria.
BARN, L. F. 2001. La ilegitimidad frente al sectarismo. Representaciones
sobre los conflictos en medios y audiencias de Irlanda del Norte y Colombia, in Signo y Pensamiento, Bogot, Vol. XX, N 38, pp. 46-63.
BARN, L. F. and VALENCIA, M. 2001. Medios, audiencias y conflicto
armado. Representaciones sociales en comunidades de interpretacin y
medios informativos, in Controversia, Bogot, N 178 (May), pp. 43-81.
BELTRN, L. R. 1998. Comunicadores y derechos humanos: de malos
amigos a ngeles guardianes?, in Revista Chasqui, Quito, N 64 (December),
pp. 24-28.
CHVEZ, J. 2001. Improvisacin y prejuicios: la tragedia por escrito, en
Revista Etctera, Mxico, D.F., Octobe, www.etcetera.com.mx.
CORREA, A. 2001. Guerra y paz en directo: la informacin televisiva en
tiempos de conflicto, in Bonilla, Jorge y Patio, Gustavo (Academic Editors). Comunicacin y poltica. Viejos conflictos, nuevos desafos, Bogot, Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana, pp. 393-409.
CORTS, G. 1999. Nicaragua: de la denunciologa al periodismo de
investigacin, in Sala de Prensa, December, www.saladeprensa.org
FLORES, P. and C. LIVINGSTON, 2001. El papel de los relatos noticiosos
en la construccin de un proyecto comunicativo para la paz en Colombia,
in Dilogos de la Comunicacin, Lima, N 61, March, pp. 46-55.
GARCA, M. E. and PEREIRA, J. M. 2000. Comunicacin, universidad y

cultura de paz, in Dilogos de la Comunicacin, Lima, N 59-60, October, pp.
66-73.
GARCA, M. E. and ROMERO, E. 2001. Las Trampas de la aparicin.
Informacin y conflicto armado en Colombia, in Bonilla, Jorge and Patio,
Gustavo (Academic Editors). Comunicacin y poltica. Viejos conflictos, nuevos
desafos, Bogot, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, pp. 365-391.
GUERRERO, A. 2001, Anlisis de contenido de prensa. Entre Lneas, in
Guerrero, Arturo et al. Las trampas de la guerra. Periodismo y conflicto, Bogot,
Corporacin Medios para la Paz, pp. 17-48.
HERRERA, B. 1998. Violencia en los medios. Estudio emprico sobre
violencia en la programacin televisiva infantil y propuesta del enfoque
tradiciones de violencia, in Anuario Ininco. Investigaciones de la Comunicacin,
Caracas, N 9, pp. 110-134.
KARAM, T. 2001. El subcomandante Marcos y el horizonte de la tradicin
intercultural, in Revista Razn y Palabra. Mxico, D.F., N 25.
LEVARIO, M. 2001. El terrorismo en los medios. Televisin, prensa y radio fueron reflejo de la confusin, in Revista Etctera, Mxico, D.F. (October). www.etcetera.com.mx.
LPEZ, F. 2000. Periodismo y comunicacin del conflicto armado y del
proceso de paz en Colombia: consideraciones tericas, in Dilogos de la
Comunicacin, Lima, N 59-60 (October), pp. 293-305.
MEDINA, G. and GARCA, W. 2001. Estado del arte de los estudios sobre
comunicacin y violencia, in Angarita, Pablo (Academic Editor). Balance de
los estudios sobre violencia en Antioquia, Medelln, Universidad de Antioquia,
pp. 331-360.
PACHECO, F. 2001. Multiculturalismo y terrorismo. El manejo informativo
en Milenio y Siempre, in Razn y Palabra, Guadalajara, N 25, October.
PERALTA, V. 1998. Violencia poltica y medios de comunicacin en
Amrica Latina, in Revista de Occidente, Madrid, N 209, October, pp. 7990.
____ (2000). Sendero Luminoso y la prensa, 1980-1994, Lima, Centro
Regional de Estudios Andinos Bartolom de las Casas.
UNITED NATIONS PROGRAM FOR DEVELOPMENT, 1999.
Medios de comunicacin, liderazgo meditico y gobernabilidad democrtica. Mdulo
1. Juegos de guerra y paz. Bogot, NPUD.
REY, G. 1998. Silencios prudentes, protagonismos activos. Narracin y
medios de comunicacin en el conflicto blico. El caso de Las Delicias,
in Rey, Germn. Balsas y medusas. Visibilidad comunicativa y narrativas polticas,
Bogot, FESCOL, CEREC, Fundacin Social. pp. 221-242.
____ (2000). Gritar en sueos. Violencias, comunicacin y paz, in Dilogos
de la Comunicacin, Lima, N 59-60, October, pp. 317-331.
REYES, H. 1999. Discurso poltico e imaginarios mediticos alrededor
del cierre de una frontera, in Revista Chasqui, Quito, N 65, March, pp.
41-44.
SMEETS, M. 1999. El periodismo en la etapa de posguerra en Guatemala
y El Salvador, in Sala de Prensa, August. www.saladeprensa.org.
SIERRA, F. 1998. La guerra psicolgica en Mxico. Informacin,
propaganda y contrainsurgencia, in Voces y Culturas, Barcelona, N 14,
pp. 27-56.
Media,
Violence
and
Terrorism in
North
America
CHAPTER 14
Introduction and Research Methods

This chapter presents a report on research published in North America on media,
political violence and terrorism during the four year period from 1998 to 2002. We
began with a comprehensive search, using the key words terrorism, media, political violence, newspaper, television, and news to identify all items that
could possibly be relevant. For books and doctoral or M.A. dissertations, we applied
our key words to WorldCat, a library catalogue of the holdings of hundreds of
libraries including the Library of Congress. It generated over 300 items, including
such works with bibliographies as Alexander (2002), Kushner (2002), and Taylor
and Horgan (2000). We eliminated the numerous books aimed at a general audience
and those obviously devoid of original research. We also excluded the many books
that looked as if they might contain relevant research but on closer inspection turned
out not to do so; as well as those that, even when they had at least a modicum of
research, only briefly mentioned any form of media. After examining the rest for
scholarship and substance, we identified fewer than a dozen books with appropriate
material. Some of these were edited collections (e.g. Kushner, 2002), from which we
extracted only those parts published between 1998 and 2002.
For articles, we used several databases, including JSTOR and Expanded Academic
Index, and surveyed political science, economics, and sociology journals. This search
produced several hundred articles, the overwhelming majority of which we discarded because they did not discuss the media or did so only briefly. We also looked
through every issue published during the research period of the two leading journals: Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, finding a few
additional articles. Our focus is on research, so reports to government agencies
and collections of statements and documents devoid of research, such as the volumes compiled by Alexander and Swetnam (1999), were not eligible. We scrutinized
think tank studies on terrorism and violence (e.g. from the Rand Corporation) but
found few related to the media.
Our search and elimination left us with approximately 100 items for detailed consideration. Reviewing them, we found that many only alluded to the media briefly or in
passing. Typical are Kushners survey of contemporary terrorism which limits its
discussion of the media to a few pages on cyberspace (Kushner, 1998, pp. 74-78),
and David Wilcoxs chapter (in Alexander, 2002) on combatting terrorism in the
U.S. which has only roughly one page on the media. Even a book on terrorism and
the U.S. Constitution referred only by implication to the effects of and limitations
imposed by anti-terrorism laws on the media (Cole and Dempsey, 2002).
David L. Paletz
and Jill Rickershauser
Department of Political Science
Duke University
USA
In this report, we discuss the relevant research that remains under three main categories with appropriate sub-categories. The categories are contents, effects, and
information and communication technologies. To the extent that each study deals
with each subject, we cover its focus, research questions, theories and concepts,
methods, findings, conclusions, and contributions to knowledge.
Contents
Cotter (1999) studies the impact of white power rock and roll on the spread of the
neo-Nazi subculture. He seeks the reasons for the subcultures durability, diffusion
and appeal, and for skinhead violence. Main research methods are content analysis
of record albums (lyrics and music) and acquiring sales figures as a measure of
popularity. He finds that the skinhead subculture has spread to more than 30 countries and that there are more than 100 white power bands. The musics themes
119
include being a skinhead, hatred for outgroups, antisemitism, conspiracy theories, incitements to violence,
and war between the races. Cotter concludes that the
music could result in more politically effective skinhead
organizations and more large-scale violence.
CHAPTER 14
120
Yamamotos subject (1999) is threatening letters sent to

the news media. He compares coverage and treatment
in Japanese newspapers of the message from a teenage
murderer with American newspapers responses to the
Unabombers demand for publication of his manifesto.
He uses Robert Mertons theory on patterns of cultural
goals and institutional norms, as well as orienting the
research around the concepts of media ethics and responsibility. The research method is analysis of the newspapers decisions and reasons based on the public record.
He concludes that in the United States these were based
on newsworthiness and concern for public safety, although the latter was emphasized. He recommends that
the media reconsider their way of reporting the messages of those using illegitimate means to get the medias attention (1998, p. 128).
Anderson (1998) focuses on Iranian sponsored terrorism in the media. He researches correlations between
anti-U.S. terrorism and communications by Iranian officials. His theory and concepts stem from Alex Schmid
and Janny de Graaf s discussion of the various possible
causes of terrorism, for example, anthropological or strategic choice. Both have been used to explain Iranian terrorism. Anderson tests a different model, adopted from
Bruce Hofffman of RAND, in which contending factions in Iran use their views of terrorism to play out
domestic political quarrels in the media. The idea is that
state sponsorship of political communication, in the
form of threats or demands directed at an ultimate audience, begins even before any terrorist action occurs.
The research method samples Iranian state communications using categorical coding techniques to determine
whether there are significant associations between categories of statements and terrorist events. The main finding is that for every 1.0 per cent increase in the measure
of factional strife, there was a 1.22 per cent increase in
anti-U.S. terrorist activity 10 months later. Anderson
concludes that Iranian terrorism is not anthropological
but comes from the deliberate calculations of certain
individuals or groups associated with the Islamic Republic. This research is more scientific than most: it is based
on theoretical models and tests different theories.
of the Italian luxury liner Achille Lauro and the death of

one of its American passengers, the hijacking also in
1985 of TWA flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome
and resulting in the death of an American and, briefly,
the Oklahoma City bombing, the activities of the
Unabomber, and other incidents. Her conceptual approach is that terrorism is definitional: what makes terrorism is the power to define it. The research method is
textual interpretation of prominent magazines, newspapers, government reports, and academic writings in the
two countries. Oliverio finds that whether actions were
defined as terrorism in Italy and the U.S. depended on
each states geopolitical interests. She concludes that the
concept of terrorism is used by the authorities in the
U.S. for statist purposes: to stage-manage crises and social unrest. This book contributes to knowledge by reminding us of the importance of whether events are
defined and constructed as terrorism and the benefits
that can accrue to the authorities especially when their
definitions are widely accepted and circulated by the
media.
The subjects of Hirschbergs (1998) doctoral dissertation are the Oklahoma City Bombing and its perpetrator Timothy McVeigh. Her research asks how the
hegemonic media, presidential rhetoric, victim-survivor
groups, and militia and conspiracy theorists frame them.
The theories and concepts are taken from Baudrillard
and Foucault. Impressionistic content analysis is the research method. The main findings are that hegemonic
national media converged to define the event as a national symbol: this shows how crucial the proliferation
and hyperproduction of specific images are to the effective reproduction of ideology (p. 4). The research contributes to knowledge by showing that the events could
be depicted in various ways but that one predominated
in the media.
Relatedly, based on a descriptive content analysis of CNN
coverage, Justin Boyd (1998) shows that from the time
of the bombing through the next two days the media,
with television foremost, framed the story with MiddleEastern terrorists as the likely suspects. He attributes
this to the magnitude of the story and intense competition, immediate reporting without waiting for confirmation and corroboration, pack journalism, the felt need
by television news personnel for short and simple stories, and the incorporation of entertainment values in
the news which results in mini-dramas.
Effects
In her 1998 book, Annamarie Oliverio focuses on how
acts of terrorism by terrorists are portrayed. She wants
to know whether the depictions differ and, if so, how
and why? She, therefore, compares Italian and American state and media presentations of the 1985 seizure
Killebrew (1998) conceives of terrorist attacks as critical events that can influence the agendas of the elite
news media and government policy makers. He asks
whether media or government sets the agenda? How
In both cases, coverage emphasized their political more

than their criminal nature. Killebrew recommends the
development of a better model of agenda setting and
that future studies should include effects on public opinion.
The focus of James David Ballards (2000) doctoral dissertation is the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. His research uses it as a case study to
test three political sociology theories: corporate liberal,
state autonomy, and state-centered. His method is content analysis of preexisting policy debates, media coverage of the bombing, and the debate leading to passage
of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996. Ballard finds limited support for the first two
theories. He concludes that the state-centered theory
offered the most explanatory value for the events prior
to and after the bombing in Oklahoma City (p. iii). By
testing the relations of political sociology policy making
theories on an act of political terrorism and policy formation processes and policies, this research makes a
major contribution to knowledge. Future research should
go beyond publically available testimony to include the
speeches of the politicians who control the hearings and
use a longer media focus. Most important is to apply
this type of study to the destruction of the World Trade
Buildings on 11 September, 2001.
Hall (2001) focuses on the sources of U.S. policy regarding terrorism and biological and chemical weapons,
researching the medias role in spreading panic. He looks
particularly at novels and finds that they ridiculously
overstate the danger. He calls them the threat industry (p. 45). The essay contributes to knowledge and
understanding by cautioning against making public policy
for unlikely dangers. The author concludes and recommends: instead of spending countless millions on antibiotics and vaccines that might never be used, Id like to
see the government spend that money on development
of better vaccines for common diseases and reforms of
the economics that cripple drug development and distribution for the developing world (p. 45).
Information and Communication

Technologies
Ronfeldts introduction (1999) to a special issue of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and the analytical background
article written with John Arquilla in the same issue
(Arquilla and Ronfeldt, 1999) encapsulate and explain
their research on the relationship between the information revolution and conflict. They focus on what they
call the netwar waged by transnational terrorists, ethnonationalists, criminals, and even radical social activists.
These groups use the Internet and other communications services for internal command and control, coordination, recruiting, projecting identity, and communicating to target audiences. The authors find that netwar
is likely to revolve around propaganda campaigns, psychological warfare, and strategic public diplomacy... (p.
203). They conclude that counternetwar may require
very effective inter-agency approaches, which by their
nature involve networked structures (Arquilla and
Ronfeldt, 1999, p. 200).
In the same vein and the same issue of the journal, Whine
(1999a) looks at the use of ICTs by Islamists and the Far
Right. He quotes leaders and people involved in these
movements and gives examples of their activities, such
as information posted on web sites. He finds that the
use of ICTs is cheap, allows covert and anonymous communications, is a force multiplier enhancing power, and
enables extremists to reach their target audiences when
other outlets and media are denied them, and to reach
new audience, particularly the young and educated (p.
237). Whine concludes that the movements he studied
used ICTs for communication and were poised (in 1999)
to extend that use to command and control.
In a separate article, Whine (1999b) looks at Islamic terrorist operating on the Internet. He poses three research
questions: what do terrorist groups do on the Internet?
Where are they? How can researchers use the Internet
to learn more about terrorist groups? He uses the concept of netwar devised by Arquilla and Ronfeldt. His
research consists of collecting data from web sites and
reading through intelligence reports and reports of intelligence reports. He finds that the groups use the
Internet for internal communication, often requiring
passwords given only to members or close sympathizers; and for external propaganda from sites calling or
presenting themselves as news agencies. He concludes
that the Internet is beneficial for Islamist groups but it
also makes it easy for researchers to gather information.
He recommends rigorous monitoring of the sites and
those with which they interconnect.
Valeri and Knights (2000) focus on what they call offensive information warfare, activities with political and
121
critical events enter the agenda? And whether they are

subject to conditions not typical in agenda-setting? The
critical events are the 1992 mortar attack on the British
Prime Ministers residence at 10 Downing Street by the
IRA and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Research consists of content analyses of coverage of
the events in two elite newspapers in the U.S. and two in
the U.K. and of the policy speeches by relevant government officials. Even though these critical events received
widespread media coverage and comments by
policymakers, no agenda-building effects were found
from the World Trade Center bombing in the U.S. and
only weak agenda-setting effects in Britain from media
coverage of the motor attack.
strategic objectives aimed at the integrity, availability and

confidentiality of data inside information systems connected to the Internet. Their article has no conceptual
and theoretical background or research method and relies on assertion. They claim that, because critical national infrastructure is well protected and hard to break
into, terrorists are more likely to target e-commerce sites,
producing mistrust and negative repercussions for the
Internet. They recommend cooperation between business and government to ensure that e-commerce uses
the kind of software and hardware that will protect
against terrorist intrusions.
CHAPTER 14
122
Damphousse and Smith (1998) ask how the Internet

has changed terrorists communication forms. Their
work is mainly empirical, without much theoretical or
conceptual background. During 1995 and 1996 they
searched Yahoo for supposed terrorist groups. Naturally, organizations do not identify themselves as terrorist, so to find them the authors used such key words as
Aryan and followed links from one page to another. They
found that the Internet allows these groups inexpensive
and broad access to supporters and potential new members, to engage in attacks on objects of anger (through
virtual graffiti) and, most commonly, to request funds
from the general public. Most important, the groups used
the Internet to perform acts of terrorism such as defacing home pages, access government communication
processes, and threaten to or actually impair them.
Damphousse and Smith conclude that political revolutionaries are making creative use of the Internet through
their apparently leaderless web sites. This methodical
study of web pages is an improvement over more impressionistic, less systematic research, although the authors do not make explicit recommendations for future
work.
Post et. al. (2000) are interested in information terrorism. Their research questions and issues involve them in
defining the term, establishing criteria for designating an
event as terrorism, and determining who will use information terrorism as a tactic. So they investigate definitions, typologies of groups, and the psychology of group
behavior. Their conceptual and theoretical approach
develops Arquilla and Ronfeldts definition of netwar
and pre-1998 work on information terrorism by other
scholars. Their research draws from newspapers, other
publications, and psychological theories, and displays a
convincing understanding of how the Internet actually
works. After providing several examples of information
terrorism, Post et. al. conclude that there is a growing
threat of information terrorism. This is deterred mainly
by the high cost of development but inhibiting factors
are likely to decrease over time.
In a summary of his previous research, Stevens (1998)
also warns of the damage terrorists can inflict through

the Internet on American institutions, particularly the
government, military, business, and the electronic media. According to Stevens, cyber-biotech terrorism is also
likely. To counter these dangers, he recommends prevention and that the media not give immediate and
unlimited attention to terrorism and terrorists (p. 207).
In contrast, Smith (2001) documents that the mass media have often gullibly given prominence (undue attention) and credibility to the grandiose claims of so-called
electronic terrorists that they are about to use their computers to wreak some sort of havoc such as downloading
U.S. nuclear secrets.

In a detailed study of the academic literature on terrorism and the media, Paletz and Boiney (1992) found much
of it focussed on one question: does media coverage aid
and encourage or obstruct and deter terrorism in general and terrorist causes in particular. Publications fell
into such categories as terrorists strategies and tactics,
how and why terrorists use the media; indictments of
the media as pro-terrorist or, far less common, anti-terrorist; and prescriptions such as voluntary cooperation
between media and government or formal controls over
media coverage of terrorism.
In searching out and studying the academic literature for
the present report, we found no such research. Perhaps,
this approach has been so written about and repeated in
the past, there is nothing new for researchers to add,
leaving it only to the popularizers and polemicists. Certainly, we do not recommend it as a desirable direction
for future research. We do believe that future research
on media, political violence and terrorism should be
empirical, generate original data and become, in a word,
scientific. We briefly suggest five ways to help achieve
this objective.
First, researchers should use and thereby test the validity
of the elements of some of the (admittedly few) theories that exist on the media, political violence, and terrorism. An example of such a theory is Gadi Wolfsfelds
model of political conflict (1997). Second, research would
benefit from being cumulative, trying to replicate and
develop previous findings, including from several of the
studies analysed in our report. Third, some of the studies we have discussed display the benefits of comparing
coverage of the same event in various media outlets and
countries. Comparative coverage can show, for example,
whether governments infuse their definitions of terrorism in the media; it reveals similarities and differences in
definitions of terrorism and of depictions of terrorist
organizations and their activities. Fourth, as some of the
studies we have described also show, research is more
Certainly, terrorist organizations infrequently give candid interviews to western journalists. But they do make
public statements and issue video and audio tapes expressing their ideology, justifying their tactics, and claiming credit for their actions. As with Osama bin Laden
and al-Qaeda, they also grant occasional access to sympathetic media outlets such as Al Jazeera. Robin Gerrits
(1992) has shown that considerable information can be
gained from terrorists memoirs.
Conclusions
Some of the studies we have described raise thoughtful
research questions, use significant concepts, apply appropriate methods, come up with convincing (although
sometimes predictable) findings, articulate conclusions,
and contribute to knowledge.
For the period 1998-2002, however, there is a relative
dearth of research. Moreover, as we pointed out in our
suggestions for future studies, current research does not
build on existing theories, is infrequently cumulative, and
fails to use concepts from political communication.
A few articles in Terrorism and Political Violence bemoan
the inadequate quality of research. For Andrew Silke
(2001), terrorism researchers tolerate conceptual confu-
sion, fail to produce meaningful explanatory results and

predictions. Only about 20 percent of articles provide
substantially new knowledge which was previously unavailable to the field (p. 8). He finds that most terrorism
research is based mainly on data from books, journals,
the media (or media-derived databases), or other published documents (p. 5). But this material may be inaccurate and biased.
For Avishag Gordon (2001 also 1999) terrorism studies
have not evolved into an academic discipline. Instead of
data and documents flowing from academia to the government and media, the reverse occurs. His explanations
are the problematic nature of defining terrorism...the
spread and lack of coordination of terrorism
literature...too few new researchers in the field and the
lack of a long-term commitment by researchers to this
subject area (p. 116). Gordon claims that the field is
gradually acquiring the characteristics of an established
discipline. We are less sanguine. On the one hand, we are
dismayed that so little of the research on media, terrorism and violence is by established scholars. On the other
hand, we are encouraged by the prevalence in the research we have discussed in our report of studies by
young scholars, particularly in the form of doctoral or
masters dissertations. If they continue their work, a research community of scholars is possible.
References
ALEXANDER, Y. 2002. Combatting Terrorism. (Ed). Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
ALEXANDER, Y.; and SWETNAM, M. S. 1999. (Eds.) Cyber Terrorism and
Information Warfare: II. U.S. Executive and Congressional Perspectives and III. Critical
Infrastructure Protection Issues. Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications.
ANDERSON, S. K. 1998. Warning Versus Alarms: Terrorist Threat Analysis Applied to the Iranian State-Run Media. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Vol. 21, No.3, pp. 277-305.
ARQUILLA, J.; and RONFELDT, D. (1999). The Advent of Netwar:
Analytic Background. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Vol. 22, No. 3, pp.
193-206.
BALLARD, J. D. 2000. Terrorism and Political Policy: Crisis and Policy Making
Indicators in the Media During Legislative Action. Ph.D. Dissertation. University
of Nevada, Las Vegas.
COLE, D.; and DEMPSEY, J. X. (2002). Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New York: The New
Press.
BOYD, J. 1998. Chain of Weak Links: The First Three Days of Coverage of the
Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation. Master of Science Thesis. Ohio University.
COTTER, J. M. 1999. Sounds of Hate: White Power Rock and Roll and
the Neo-Nazi Skinhead Subculture. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. II,
No. 2, pp. 111-140.
DAMPHOUSE, K. R.; and BRENT, L. S. 1998. The Internet: A Terrorist
Medium for the 21st Century. In Harvey Kushner, (Ed.) The Future of
Terrorism: Violence in the New Millennium. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, pp. 208-224.
GERRITS, R. P. 1992. Terrorists Perspectives: Memoirs. In David L.
Paletz and Alex P. Schmid, (Eds.) Terrorism and the Media. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage Publications, pp. 29-61.
GORDON, A. 2001. Terrorism and the Scholarly Communication System. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 116-124.
GORDON, A. 1999. Terrorism Dissertations and the Evolution of a
Specialty: An Analysis of Meta-Information. Terrorism and Political Violence.
Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 141-150.
123
fruitful when connected to political communication concepts. For analyzing media contents, framing is such a
concept. Another one is indexing: the idea that journalists coverage of an event or issue usually represents (indexes) the range of views expressed in government debate about it. Political communication concepts useful
in research on the effects of media coverage of political
violence and terrorism, that are used in the studies we
have described, are agenda setting and policy. But there
are many more possibilities. Effects on the public, for
example, can utilize such concepts as political
socialization, priming, the information gap, third-person effects, public opinion, and political participation.
Fifth, we recommend research using information from
governments and terrorists. Certainly, governments agencies in the United States, such as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), keep many of their anti-terrorism methods and
activities confidential, classify documents as secret, and
only release information in their own interests. Yet, governments do announce their strategies and tactics for
combatting terrorism. Moreover, in democracies such
as the United States, with a free and sometimes aggressive press, governments find it hard to keep information
secret for long. This is especially so after a terrorist action: witness, following the 11 September attacks, the
investigations, media coverage, and revelations of the
inadequacies of U.S. intelligence agencies.
CHAPTER 14
124
HALL, S. S. 2001. The Media Direct U.S. Policy Regarding Biological and
Chemical Weapons. In David Haugen, (Ed.) Biological and Chemical Weapons. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, pp. 43-45.
HIRSCHBERG, M. 1998. In Service to the Real: Simulation, Ideology, and the
Oklahoma City Bombing. Ph.D. Dissertation. Purdue University.
KILLEBREW, K.C. Jr. 1998. Critical Events and Agenda Building in the U.S.
and Great Britain: A Comparative Analysis of the Communication Effects of Terrorist Acts on Elite Newspaper Coverage and Policy Statements. Ph.D. Dissertation.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
KUSHNER, H. 2002, Essential Readings on Political Terrorism. (Ed.) Lincoln,
Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
KUSHNER, H. 1998. Terrorism in America: A Structured Approach to Understanding the Terrorist Threat. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
LEITENBERG, M. 2000. Aum Shinrikyos Efforts to Produce Biological
Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation. In
Max Taylor and John Horgan, (Eds). The Future of Terrorism. London: Frank
Cass, pp. 149-158.
OLIVERIO, A. 1998. The State of Terror. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
PALETZ, D. L.; and BOINEY, J. 1992. Researchers Perspectives. In
David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid, (Eds.) Terrorism and the Media. Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 6-28.
POST, J. M.; KEVIN, G. R.; and SHAW, E. D. 2000. From Car Bombs to
Logic Bombs: The Growing Threat from Information Terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 87-122.
RONFELDT, D. 1999. Netwar Across the Spectrum of Conflict: An Introductory Comment. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Vol. 22, No.3, pp.
189-192.
SCHIMID, A.P.; and de GRAAF, J. 1982. Violence as Communications: Insurgent Terrorism and the Western News Media. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
SILKE, A. 2001. The Devil You Know: Continuing Problems with Research on Terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 1-14.
SMITH, G. 2001. Upon Hearing of the Electronic Bogeyman. In Russ
Kirk, (Ed.) You Are Being Lied To. New York: The Disinformation Company, pp. 66-72.
STEVENS, R. E. 1998. Cyber-Biotech Terrorism Going High Tech in the
21st Century. In Harvey Kushner, (Ed.) The Future of Terrorism: Violence in
the New Millennium. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, pp. 195-207.
TAYLOR, M.; and HORGAN, J. 2000. The Future of Terrorism. (Eds.). London: Frank Cass.
VALERI, L.; and KNIGHTS, J. 2000. Affecting Trust: Terrorism, Internet
and Offensive Information Warfare. Terrorism and Political Violence. Vol. 12,
No.1, pp. 15-36.
WHINE, M. 1999a. CyberspaceA New Medium for Communication,
Command, and Control by Extremists. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Vol.
22, No. 3, pp. 231-245.
WHINE, M. 1999b. Islamist Organizations on the Internet. Terrorism and
Political Violence. Vol. II, No.1, pp. 123-132.
WILCOX, P. C. Jr. 2002. United States. In Yonah Alexander, Ed. Combating
Terrorism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 23-61.
WOLSFELD, G. 1997. Media and Political Conflict: News from the Middle East.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
YAMAMOTO, Y. 1998. When the Media Receive a Threatening Letter From a
Perpetrator. Master of Journalism Thesis. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
PART IV
Appendices
125
126
Appendix 1:
Resolution on
Terrorism and Media
adopted by the participants in the Conference on Terrorism and Media,
Manila, the Philippines 1-2 May 2002
< Recalling the fundamental role of the media in

meeting the publics right to know, including about
issues relating to terrorism;
< Condemning killing of, attacks on, threats against
and harassment of journalists reporting on terrorism and conflicts;
< Concerned about the restrictions imposed on the
right to freedom of expression and to freedom of
information by a growing number of States in the
aftermath of the attacks of 11 September;
< Convinced that open public debate and the free
flow of information are essential to any long-term
solutions to the problems of terrorism;
< Welcoming the Charter for the Safety of Journalists Working in War Zones or Dangerous Areas,
adopted by concerned organisations in Paris on 8
March 2002, and the Safety Charter, adopted in
Montreal in 1992;
< Noting the Joint Message for World Press Freedom Day, 3 May 2002, by Kofi Annan, SecretaryGeneral of the UN, Mary Robinson, UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, and Kochiro
Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, which
recognised the importance of press freedom and
freedom of expression in the fight against terrorism;
Resolve as follows:
Any strategy to address the threat of terrorism must
promote greater respect for freedom of expression and
of the media, rather than imposing restrictions on these
fundamental rights.
to impose restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and of the media, or on freedom of information, and specifically on the following rights:
< to editorial independence;
< to protect confidential sources of information;
< to access information held by public bodies;
< to freedom of movement; and
< to privacy of communications;
Media outlets, journalists and publishers and broadcasters associations, academic institutions and other civil
society organisations should take measures to enhance
the capacity of the media to report professionally on
terrorism and to promote tolerance, including through
training and providing opportunities for discussion of
ethical issues relating to reporting on terrorism.
Safety of Journalists
States at peace, as well as all parties to conflicts, should
take effective measures to ensure that they, military forces,
combatants, as well as secret and intelligence services
and other officials engaged in combating terrorism, understand and respect the rights of journalists as civilians
under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional
Protocols, as well as their right to freedom of expression;
States should devote sufficient resources and attention
to preventing attacks on journalists, to investigating such
attacks when they occur and to bringing those responsible to justice without delay;
States at peace, as well as all parties to conflicts, should
never allow their agents or combatants to pose as journalists, or attempt to use journalists as agents;
Right to Report on Terrorism

The media have both a right and a duty to report fully
on terrorism in the interest of the publics right to know
and to promote open, informed debate about terrorism;
All parties to conflicts should respect the right of journalists to investigate and report freely on conflict and to
have maximum access to conflict areas;
The threat of terrorism should not be used as an excuse
Media outlets, journalists and publishers and broadcasters associations and other civil society organisations
should take measures to promote the safety of journalists reporting on conflict and terrorism, including through
training, the development of safety guidelines and the
provision of appropriate equipment; and
The news media industry and the international community should consider establishing a fund to assist underresourced media organisations and freelance journalists
to have access to safety training and equipment.
127
Appendices
Participants in the UNESCO-sponsored conference on

Terrorism and Media, meeting in Manila, the Philippines
on 1-2 May 2002:
Appendix 2:
Official Ceremony and Awarding
of the UNESCO/Guillermo
World Press Freedom Prize, 3 May 2002,
Manila, the Philippines:
Remarks by
Mrs. Ana Maria Busquets de Cano,
President of the Guillermo Cano Foundation
Appendices
128
We are gathered, once again, to submit the Unesco

Guillermo Cano Prize to Freedom of de Press, to one
person chosen by the international jury among many
candidates who deserved the honor. In this occasion it
is Manila who kindly welcomes us in order to discuss
different affairs that concerns us. Being terrorism the
issue of the day, I would like to evoke some words, written by Guillermo Cano in l980 but that still prevail today:
Each new terrorist act taking place, here or in any
place of the world , immediately receives the qualification that the victim of such an act wants to give to
it. If it occurs in a country with a left wing tendency,
immediately, the author or the authors, as well as those
who inspire it, are called right wing fascist. On the
contrary, if it occurs in countries ruled by right wing
governments, the terrorism is a provocative of the
left wing fascists. If the terrorist act affects a centrist
government, the responsibility falls into both left and
right fascist.Left , right and center wingers all act the
same way.
We all get caught in a snow ball when we try to face
and stop terrorism and however make it grow bigger
and bigger until we find ourselves in front of a huge
monster that, due to its appearing forms, is unassailable and indestructible by the traditional and known
means.
There is terrorism bloody perpetrated, as any terrorism act, in the name of de religion, no matter which
it may be. Archbishops, bishops, priests and devotees are assassinated . There is communist, fascist,
left, right, and center winger, anarchist, democratic,
antidemocratic, with or without freedom terrorism.
It is the symbol of our era!
And every response to it engenders a new cruelty and
a new chain of cruelties in which the link of good
human feelings, of fraternity and equality, of loving
each other, is irremediably lost.
Due to the fact that terrorism is an effect, it has to have
many causes. And as a long as they are not removed,

there is going to be, here and everywhere, terrorism that
vindicates its execrable crimes. It is compulsory them,
to have the strength of true intelligence and start today
( for it was not done yesterday and it would be too late
to do it tomorrow) to remove the causes. Wherever the
bad weeds lay.
The removal asked by Guillermo Cano has become a
pledged for the violent to stop attacking journalists of
all regions an countries. Year after year we repeat the
complains and we denounce the abuses done on journalists. This need for constant repetition of our complaints makes me think that we are not being heard, that
maybe some governments have not interest in listening
to us, that maybe our claims are not loud enough or
maybe that we complain and afterwards we abandon our
causes. In those occasions in which we have insisted we
have insisted we have achieved the freedom of those
who received the prize in former years.
Besides rejoicing for the prize that we submit today for
such a complete journalist, as is Mr Nyarota, I want to
play tribute to those Colombian journalist assassinated
during this year or who could survive to the attacks of
different violent groups. To those how died for publishing frauds or information concerning some politician.
To those that died for publishing the damages perpetrated by the guerrilla groups. To those killed for denouncing the right wing groups, and finally those who
dared to denounce ones and others for drug dealing.
Year after year we also remember the fight of Guillermo
Cano. In spite of that, the country where the editor of
El Espectador was assassinated, is still the victim of the
most cruel violence perpetrated by the same people, those
responsible for the killing in the tragic times of
narcoterrorism and those who have had no objections
in profiting with the dirty money gained in the business,
arguing that they are doing it for the sake of the people.
This is why , between ones and others, it is harder everyday to be a journalist in Colombia. In the last year, according to the Antonio Nario Foundation, in Cartagena
de Indias , the sad annual average of killings has raised
from seven to 11, which is the number of journalist as-
So many Colombians killed, make me pledge for the

removal of what causes terrorism for your solidarity
and for a maximum support to those who dare to denounce or criticize the acts of violent people. When a
community gets together, and in our case it is that of
people who work in the media, it is easier to face the
attacks because we are so many that the terrorists would
not know who to silence.
I think we are lacking solidarity and action through all
the media at the same time. If we could count on it, it
would enable us to have better defense. We are also lacking that you, journalist from all over de world, be always alert to defend freedom of expression and to denounce, with higher determination, those countries that
without being directly responsible for violence, collaborate with others to be so.
Colombia, it is true, produces cocaine that is grown in
our beautiful mountains, which, by the way, are being
devastate for that purpose. However others are in charge
of completing the job of the peasants in Los Andes.
Journalist of those countries that do not produce cocaine but make weapons and with no remorse sell it to
the violent people who kill their fellow mates in other
parts of the world, should say so.
Journalist of those countries that do not produce cocaine, but profit by keeping the money of the violent
people who kill their fellow mates in other parts of the
world, should denounce it.
Journalist of those countries that do not produce cocaine, but produce the chemicals with which the drug
that damages the minds of the youth is produced, should
denounce it.
Journalist of those countries that do not produced cocaine but buy and consume it without making any efforts to find the people who is profiting with the business, should denounce it.
We, the Cano family, lost Guillermo who was denouncing the males of the drug dealing and terrorism, stressing on the risks that these brought to freedom of expression. We have also lost the journal.
However the Guillermo Cano Foundation will continue
to make every effort in order to keep those ideals and
the belief that a country only is free when is free to
express itself, alive. For that we also need your cooperation.
Remarks by
Mr Kochiro Matsuura,
Director-General of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
Madam President of the Republic of the Philippines,
Mr Vice-President of the Republic of the Philippines,
Mr President of the UNESCO Advisory Group
for Press Freedom,
Mr President of the World Press Freedom Prize Jury,
Mrs Anna-Maria Busquets de Cano, President of the
Cano Foundation,
129
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me first convey to all of you my warm greetings. I
am delighted to be here to celebrate World Press Freedom Day 2002. It is an important day on the worlds
calendar and I am most grateful to the Government of
the Republic of the Philippines for agreeing to host this
years event and for all the hospitality and support it has
given to UNESCO.
I would like to begin by paying special tribute to Her
Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Under
her capable stewardship, democracy in the Philippines is
not only in safe hands, it is thriving. To lead and govern
a democracy as complex and diverse as the Philippines
is a great challenge but it is one she is taking in her stride.
One sign of the democratic health of the Philippines is
the freedom and vigour of its media. With over 40 daily
newspapers, over 500 AM and FM radio stations, and
over 130 TV stations, democracy in the Philippines is
not short of either news or opinions.
While this is my first official visit to the Philippines in
my capacity as Director-General of UNESCO, I am no
stranger to your country. In my earlier diplomatic career,
I made over 10 visits to the Philippines. I am very happy
to be here once more and to experience again the welcoming hospitality of the Filipino people.
World Press Freedom Day is the day on which we commemorate the right of freedom of expression, which is
enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. This is one of the most basic of human
rights and a cornerstone of democracy. Indeed, in todays society, freedom of expression means nothing if it
does not also imply freedom of the press and, in turn,
pluralistic and independent media. Todays World Press
Freedom Day serves to highlight these basic human rights
and to draw public attention to the fact that press freedom is still far from being a reality in many countries
around the world. In UNESCOs Constitution, there is
Appendices
sassinated in the last moths in different regions of our

country.
a clear commitment to the free exchange of ideas and

knowledge, which is a fundamental human right that
should be enjoyed by all peoples, regardless of cultural,
religious, ethnic or other backgrounds. The UNESCO
Constitution guarantees the free flow of ideas by word
and image as the very basis of international cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture. These
freedoms are prerequisites for the active participation
of citizens in social development, civil society, democratic political processes and collective efforts to achieve
peace.
Appendices
130
The values and principles expressed in the UNESCO

Constitution remain highly relevant to the worlds current problems and the difficult challenges ahead of us.
Our goal of contributing to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture is truly enduring. However,
we recognize that this goal must be continuously
refocused in order to address the changing realities of
our world. This is evident in our response to the terrible
events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath.
UNESCOs mission to promote intercultural dialogue
and mutual understanding has become more important
than ever in the emerging international context.
Let us be under no misapprehension: our fundamental
freedoms and rights are being threatened by transnational
terrorism. The international community, including representatives of civil society such as the international and
regional NGOs present here at todays celebration, should
join forces in opposition to terrorism. By acting in unison, the international community can show its collective
strength in the face of terrorisms threats. In the exercise of their profession, journalists may sometimes find
themselves in situations of great danger and insecurity;
their personal safety and their other basic human rights
may be at serious risk. The rights and freedoms of journalists must be fully protected and respected. This is
important, first and foremost, for their own sake but it
is also important for all our sakes. When a journalist is
kidnapped or threatened or attacked, our own rights and
freedoms are in jeopardy too.
One of the most worrying results of terrorism is that it
may cause some countries to impose forms of control
and regulation which constrain democracy, freedom of
expression, and free, independent, and pluralistic media.
We must remember that security is not an end in itself
but the means to an end, namely, the peaceful enjoyment of our rights and liberties. Care must therefore be
taken to ensure that, in pursuing greater security, governmental authorities do not impose unjustified restrictions on freedom of expression and press freedom.
UNESCO is seeking to improve the current situation
by bringing all its partners together in a process of

intercultural dialogue aimed at promoting better mutual
understanding. This is the only way to build confidence,
trust and tolerance amongst different cultures and civilizations. The media, in fact, can play a vital role in this
process but they cannot do so if their own freedom and
independence are heavily constrained.
During the conference that was held over the last two
days, many important issues have been discussed regarding Terrorism and Media. These issues deserve to be
aired so they become matters of open debate. While we
must not discount the fact that there are real dangers
and real anxieties, these concerns should not impose a
hard silence upon us. But the discussion of the issues
should be as mature as possible. With regard to terrorism, the media should not encourage an irresponsible
excitement of the publics fears. At the same time, however, this responsible approach should be achieved
through self-restraint based on professional standards
rather than through harsh government control or censorship.
Terrorism, as we well know, is no friend of a free press.
Whether its impact is direct or indirect, terrorism always
seeks to succeed through intimidation. The best defence
against our fears is the active exercise of our basic rights
and freedoms. This is the central message of World Press
Freedom Day
The award of the World Press Freedom Prize has become an integral part of each annual celebration of World
Press Freedom Day. It is one of the ways in which
UNESCO expresses its strong and abiding commitment
to freedom of speech and its solidarity with those who
suffer from repression and persecution in the exercise
of their profession as journalists.
The annual award of the World Press Freedom Prize,
moreover, helps to broaden public awareness of the values of freedom of expression and press freedom. It
draws wider attention to the problems faced by many
media professionals around the world, who find that
searching for truth and risking ones life go hand-in-hand.
The UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom
Prize is awarded in honour of the Columbian journalist
and editor Guillermo Cano, whose murder has become
a symbol of cruelty against journalists. Just a few moments ago, we listened with great interest to the words
of his widow, Mrs Ana Maria Busquets Cano. Each year,
we re-affirm our commitment to his ideals of a free press
and freedom of expression. The World Press Freedom
Prize honours journalists who, like Guillermo Cano, have
distinguished themselves by standing up for their beliefs
and the ideals of a free press.

On the recommendation of the jury, composed of notable media professionals from all around the world, I
have the honour to award this years prize to Mr Geoffrey
Nyarota from Zimbabwe. His courage and persistence
in denouncing the corruption and criminal activities of
government officials in his country, despite two bomb
attacks against his newspaper, are an example to journalists throughout the world. He has been arrested and
detained, he has repeatedly received death threats and
four libel suits are pending against him.
However, he has never ceased to denounce bad practice,
crime and corruption. The Daily News, the newspaper
founded by Mr. Nyarota on 31st March 1999, has not
missed a single issue since it began to be published and
is now Zimbabwes biggest-selling newspaper.
On behalf of UNESCO as well as in my own name, I
would like to congratulate the prize winner for this great
distinction. His courage and persistence are an example
to us all. The World Press Freedom Prize 2002 consists
of a cheque for US$ 25,000, of which US$ 12, 500 is
given by the Cano Foundation.
Please accept my sincere congratulations.
Speech by
Her Excellency
Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos
President of the Republic of the Philippines
Thank you very much Dr. Garcia.
First, I would like to greet and congratulate once again
former President Fidel V. Ramos, who is here not only
because he is former president of the Philippines but
because he belongs to the family of awardees of
UNESCO. We remember him and congratulate him once
again for receiving the 1997 UNESCO Peace Award.
Congratulations, Mr. President.
Director-General Matsuura; Madame de Cano; Mr.
Nyarota, our Awardee for this year; excellencies of the
diplomatic corps; Mrs. Soliven and Mrs. Elizalde; the
journalists and delegates of UNESCO World Press Freedom Day International Conference on Terrorism and
the Media. The commissioners and officers of the
UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines;
distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen:
Thank you for this opportunity to be with your distinguished group.
I welcome the fact that we are here together celebrating
World Press Freedom Day in the Philippines. The Philippines is honored to have been chosen by UNESCO
to host this years celebration. And as both Mr. Matsuura
and Mr. Nyarota said, our country has earned the reputation of being one of the not-so-many havens of press
freedom in the world today. With all humility, I nevertheless claim on behalf of our country that this is a welldeserved reputation for press freedom.
Today we celebrate good journalism, which means we
celebrate the responsible exercise of press freedom. We
celebrate principled disagreement, enlightened debate,
productive controversy. We celebrate the light that shines
through events and mirrors them in the firmament of
truth.
In the Philippines today there is avowedly a growing interest in the media about playing up the good news. This
seems to go against the tradition of reporting the seedy
part of the day. In the Philippines, we are known not
only for our free press but for having a licentious press.
But in the Philippines, speaking for the government, we
would rather have a licentious press than a bridled press,
that is our policy. Nonetheless, I am glad to know that
there are reformists within the press, and I hope that
this celebration of World Press Freedom Day will inspire the reformists to demonstrate that press freedom
can also mean the freedom to report good news. As a
131
Appendices
Before making this years award, I wish us all to remember the situation of Mr U Win Tin, the winner of last
years World Press Freedom Prize. I would like to appeal
to the authorities of Myanmar to allow the release of
Mr U Win Tin, who has been in jail since 1989 and recently celebrated his 72nd birthday in detention. Common humanity and justice demand nothing less than his
immediate release.
public servant, and therefore the subject of press reports, I really appreciate the good news. Good news about
personal heroism, such as the heroes that we in fact honor
today, values, human worth and community triumphs.
Sometimes we tend to gloss over these things, even if
they are the real stuff of nationhood.
Appendices
132
I see no reason, for instance, why press freedom should

not mean that a good provincial story makes page one,
or a good metro report lands on premium space. I believe that press freedom means that the press is free
enough to give credit to a small-town mayor who helped
the military and the police recover a terrorist hostage or
a hometown entrepreneur who develops a 15,000-peso
core shelter for calamity victims. Press freedom should
mean also giving credit to the people because the people
deserve a break.
But by all means, press freedom should mean letting the
media take down the spotty woodwork. God knows there
are many underperforming public servants and there are
many lousy programs, but press freedom should mean
letting the battle focus on issues, on policy, on principles.
Our societies need relief from personal attacks so that
the the issues will surface in a clear light. Press freedom
means getting to the heart of a controversial policy. Press
freedom means doing it with fervor and a genuine penchant for chronology and detail. Indeed, done this way
as our awardees have demonstrated, press freedom is
one of the cornerstones of policy.
In the world press, Mindanao has become a media focus
of the global war against terrorism, especially now with
the participation of American forces in training exercises. I believe this attention is as it should be because
we must defeat terrorism not only with force but with
enlightment.
But there is a deeper reason why the press must be deeply
involved in the fight against terror. It is accepted that
terrorism is aimed at an audience beyond its immediate
victims. Terrorism operates in the broad arena of public
awareness and discourse, moulding a psychological landscape of its own. Terrorism breeds fear and doubt in
the efficiency of institutions, suspicion, hatred of authority, and, most of all, irrational bases of conflict.
We took this into account early in the day in the Philippine battle against terrorism. In September last year, I
laid down a 14-point counter-terrorism program, and
this is what I said about the press.
The mass media assumes a paramount role in the
overall strategy to defeat terrorism. I seek the medias
support in the implementation of our policies and

programs, in enlightening the public of the rationale
behind our actions, in promoting consensus and constructive criticism, in depriving terrorists of the benefits of glorified coverage and publicity, and, most of
all, in maintaining calm, sobriety, prudence and solidarity in our society. We must bring the media into
the loop of collective action and information.
Let me cite a few areas where common action between
the government and the press in indicated.
First, informing the public of the full dimensions of the
terrorist threat, especially concerning the relationship
between physical and psychological action, and the
transnational nature of terrorism. The public must appreciate the common interest involved in such alliances
as Balikatan and our trilateral agreement with Indonesia
and Malaysia to check the movement of terrorists along
our common sea borders.
Second, mustering the cooperation of the public with
the executive, legislative and judicial authorities in meeting terrorist threats through operational programs, criminal justice programs and legislative measures. For instance, we now have an anti-terrorism bill pending in
congress that I consider urgent.
Third, strengthening local institutions and civil society
to bolster the vigilance of ordinary citizens in the streets
and in the countryside, which makes the big difference
in the war against terror.
Fourth, enlightening the public about the constitutional
issues involved, because the war against terrorism requires strong measures such as the power of the commander-in-chief to call upon the armed forces to quell
violence. The nature and breadth of these measures must
be clear in the public mind, so that the we can allay the
perception that constitutional guarantees such as the bill
of rights are being eroded or set aside in favor of martial imperatives.
Fifth, supporting broader interfaith dialogue to promote
Christian and Muslim solidarity. Terrorists wish to instigate a religious war. We must instead take every opportunity to forge religious understanding, ecumenism and
solidarity.
Sixth, improving support for, and confidence in, the law
enforcement agencies. We need strict vigilance against
movements of suspected persons, firearms, explosives,
raw materials, toxic materials and biological materials.
We have already put a money-laundering law in place to
check questionnaires and dirty money transfers.
Eighth, enhancing public vigilance in securing critical

infrastructures including power plants, power transmission and distribution facilities, oil and gas depots, key
public works structures, vital communications installations, public buildings as well as private buildings, and
facilities in the nerve centers of commerce and industry.
Ninth, pushing forward the anti-poverty campaign, with
focus upon the perceived roots of fanaticism and irrational violence.
I consistently mention poverty side by side with terrorism because there is a need to put terrorism in a wider
perspective. Poverty is a form of lingering terrorism,
one that slowly kills on a daily basis, one that condemns
its victims to a lifetime of pain and misery.
This is not to say that poverty is the cause of terrorism.
Osama Bin Laden is not a poor man. It is evil, not poverty, that causes terrorism. But poverty and the sense of
powerlessness it brings provide the fertile ground on
which terrorism can more easily spread its evil ideology,
so if we must defeat terrorism, we must defeat poverty
with equal resolve and fervor.
The Philippines did not need to join the war on terrorism. It was in that war already, in the southwestern part
of our islands. The Philippines could not have done otherwise than renew its commitment to fight terrorism in
a wider field in the wake of September 11.
This is a fight between tolerance and bigotry, between
reason and fanaticism, between law and anarchy, between
justice and murder pretending to be just.
The fact that the Abu Sayyaf bandits, who once freely
roamed the entire southwestern Philippines, have ended
up with their last stand in Basilan, the province with the
lowest human development index in our country, reminds
us of how closely national security and economic prosperity are intertwined.
In this context, I welcome the call made by President
George Bush for a new compact for development defined by greater accountability for rich and poor nations
alike. This call echoes an initiative I proposed to form a
global coalition against poverty, just as we have formed
a coalition against terrorism.
The developed nations must recognize their duty to open
markets, the transfer of resources and the reform of
international institutions. These will all help to win the
war against poverty.
I hope that we can soon remove the scourge of terrorism. But, more than that, I hope that we can soon have
tangible results in our war against poverty. And that the
media will find our continuing struggle worth covering.
Thank you for inviting me to celebrate Press Freedom
Day with you. I would like to welcome all the journalists
who took part in the International Conference on Terrorism and Media. I understand that you had a successful conference and that the agreements are very good.
You have agreed that journalists have the right to report
on terrorism and that journalists have the right to be
protected against terrorism. I hope indeed, that those
who participated, whether they are in the media, in government, or in civil society, will work together and also
work in their own fields to carry out and ensure that
these resolutions are implemented.
I would also like to congratulate the recipient of this
years UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom,
Mr. Geoffrey Nyarota, Editor-in-Chief of Zimbabwe
Daily News. He told us of his story and as he was telling
us about how in his journalism he has been the subject
of so much terrorism against him, his institution and his
colleagues. I suppose our journalists here must thank
their lucky stars that we are a country with a very free
press.
I would also like to pay homage to the man after whom
the award is named, Guillermo Cano, a martyr of terrorism perpetrated by the syndicates who try to spread
the evil of drugs all over the world. That is political terrorism and there is also criminal terrorism. It doesnt
matter who causes the terrorism, it is the act that constitutes the terrorism. Well remember him. When the
awards are given, we must always remember him and
thank him for giving up his life for the cause of journalism.
We also remember Daniel Pearl because we all saw his
martyrdom on TV. Not that we saw how he was martyred but we all know how he disappeared and we all
know how he surfaced again because everything was
covered by the free press. And we pay homage to him as
we pay homage to Guillermo Cano.
On this note, I would like to thank all the journalists
who are here today and all the diplomats. To thank all
the representatives of the different countries who believe in press freedom, who believe in the war against
terrorism. I thank you for a fervent and lasting partnership against terrorism and poverty and in favor of world
press freedom.
Congratulations and thank you.
133
Appendices
Seventh, coordinating public preparation and action in

the event of a catastrophic terrorist attack however remote this may be.
134

Media Violence and Terrorism

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Media Violence and Terrorism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

violence and terrorism

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - 2003

Editors: S.T. Kwame Boafo, John Maguire and Sylvie Coudray

Layout and cover design: Irmgarda Kasinskaite

Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson and Kochiro Matsuura

Abdul Waheed Khan

S.T. Kwame Boafo and Sylvie Coudray

Conference on Media and Terrorism

Journalism and the War on Terrorism

Terrorist Attacks of 11 September:

11 September: Consequences for Press Freedom

Brother with no Arms

I. General Remarks on Terrorism and Media

II. Fairness is the Best Defence

Media and Terrorism: Case Studies

Africa and Arab States

11 September: Consequences for Freedom of Information

Terrorism and Media in Zimbabwe

Aftermath of 11 September: An Arab Perspective

Asia and the Pacific

Terrorism and Journalists in Afghanistan

Is the Safety of Journalists in Timor Leste Guaranteed?

Case Study III

The Safety of Journalists in the Pacific

Media and Terrorism in the Philippines

Media in Danger : South East Asia at a Glance

To Die for Being a Journalist in the Basque Region

War, Terrorism and Journalists: The Chechen Experience

Media and Terrorism: Status of Research

Media, Violence and Terrorism in Africa

Media, Violence and Terrorism in the Arab World

Media, Violence and Terrorism in Europe

Media, Violence and Terrorism in Latin America

Media, Violence and Terrorism in North America

2. Official Ceremony and Awarding of the UNESCO/Guillermo

I. Remarks by Mrs Ana Maria Busquets de Cano,

II. Remarks by Mr Kochiro Matsuura,

III. Speech by Her Excellency Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,

S.T. Kwame Boafo and Sylvie Coudray

This report covers developments in some 40 countries up to the beginning of

However, among some non-journalists such as radio

withdrawing the bill. A second security bill has also been

The group says the bill provides for greater limits on

concerns over Bill C-42, saying it contains provisions

The introduction of Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act,

humanitarian law; has expressed its concerns regarding

While media coverage has been generally extensive and

The actions by the European Union are a deliberate

and U.S. investigative agencies as part of the process in

the use of encryption technologies limit Internet users

The measures that concern the retention of Internet

the news about Osama bin Ladens role became clearer.

So far there have been no official anti-terrorist measures

the Arab world as media showed people celebrating the

tions who does not tell police everything he or she knows

As everywhere, the media tend to follow the general

Hong Kong, China

sion unequivocally condemned POTO. Now enacted,

was sad but when it comes to responsibility, America

raeli response to Palestinian attacks during 2002 has been

In Japan, the 11 September events led to co-ordinated

Because the Constitution of Japan, framed after World