Watchdog warns of growing media freedom threat

VIENNA: International media watchdog IPI on Friday called on governments to fight restrictions of press freedom, as the world prepared to mark World Press Freedom Day. "On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, May 3 2008, the International Press Institute calls upon all governments to combat limitations on press freedom and to work harder at ensuring that the media is able to report on issues of public interest," said IPI Director David Dadge.

"We are very worried that, while there is a growing coalition of countries actively seeking to suppress this freedom, those countries who traditionally support press freedom have yet to wake up to the fact that it is under threat", he added in a statement.

The International Press Institute is a global network of editors, top journalists and media executives.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon earlier Friday made a strong plea in support of freedom of the press around the world.

"A free, secure and independent media is one of the foundations of peace and democracy," he said.

Saying attacks on press freedom were "attacks against international law, against humanity, against freedom itself," the secretary general deplored the fact that journalists were "increasingly being targeted around the world" and that such crimes were not "thoroughly investigated and prosecuted."

He called on "all societies to spare no effort in bringing to justice the perpetrators of attacks on journalists."