The number of journalists thrown in prison around the world rose sharply in 2002, in contrast to a fall in the number of those killed in connection with their work, according to press watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)...

WASHINGTON, Mar 31 (IPS) - The number of journalists thrown in prison around the world rose sharply in 2002, in contrast to a fall in the number of those killed in connection with their work, according to press watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Nineteen media workers lost their lives last year, just over half the total of 37 in 2001 and the lowest death toll in any year since the New York-based Committee first began tallying work-related deaths of reporters in 1985.

The sharp reduction in deaths, it said, was due primarily to the end or winding down of several lethal wars around the world during 2002, particularly in Afghanistan where eight journalists were killed covering the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban in 2001.

The relative quiet there, as well as cease-fires or peace agreements in Sri Lanka, Angola, and elsewhere also reduced the risks of casualties among reporters covering those conflicts, according to CPJ's latest annual edition of 'Attacks on the Press'.

The report says the re-occupation of the West Bank by Israeli forces and an abrupt rise in violence there claimed the lives of three journalists and wounded several others.

While CPJ noted the fall in fatalities, it also stressed that the number of journalists in prison rose sharply last year and suggested that Washington's ''war on terrorism'' - and the speed and determination with which a number of allied governments have used it to crack down on opposition press - bore a not insignificant amount of responsibility.

CPJ has also raised concerns about the ongoing U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Last week, the group asked U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to explain the bombing of Iraq state television facilities in Baghdad, which it says are protected under the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in wartime.

U.S. officials claim the station is being used for military purposes.

''We are concerned that U.S. forces may have targeted Iraqi media to halt government propaganda, especially coming as it does after Iraqi TV broadcast footage of U.S. POWs and dead American soldiers. The fact that the Iraqi government used state-run television to air these images in possible violation of the Geneva Conventions does not justify an attack,'' said the letter.

By the end of 2002, 136 journalists were in jail, a 15 percent increase over 2001 and ''a shocking 68 percent increase since the end of 2000, when only 81 journalists were imprisoned'', according to an introduction to the 424-page report by CPJ director Ann Cooper.

''Strong pressure from international organisations, the media, and governments worldwide, including the United States, was probably responsible for the decline'' in jailings achieved during the 1990s, according to Cooper. But ''certainly the stigma associated with jailing a journalist has faded''.

China, already the world's leading jailer of journalists since the late 1990s, added five more to its list for a total of 39 in prison by year's end.

With 18 journalists behind bars since September, 2001, Eritrea led the rest of the world in the number of imprisoned journalists, said Cooper, who noted that U.S. officials have been uncharacteristically muted in their criticism of the crackdown by President Isaias Afwerki.

In a December visit, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld told reporters who asked about press freedom in the strategically located country that Eritrea ''is a sovereign nation, and they arrange themselves and deal with their problems in ways that they feel are appropriate to them''.

Afwerki has invited Washington to establish a military base in Eritrea from which it could presumably pursue operations across the Red Sea into Yemen and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

With 16 journalists in jail at year's end, Nepal ranked third, a result of its declaration of emergency and enactment of sweeping anti-terrorism legislation between November 2001, through last summer in connection with military campaigns by Maoist rebels through much of the countryside. Hundreds of journalists were detained initially, although the vast majority have since been released.

Among the 19 journalists killed during the year, the one that drew by far the most media attention was the execution last January or early February of 'Wall Street Journal' reporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted in Pakistan by Islamist militants while he was investigating a radical Islamist groups in that country. Men later tried and convicted for the murder said they acted to protest the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan's co-operation in the campaign.

But most of the journalists killed in 2002 were murdered in direct reprisal for their reporting on other issues, including death squad activity by Colombia's right-wing paramilitary forces, drug trafficking in Brazil, and corruption by officials in the Philippines and Russia.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was particularly deadly for journalists. Two Palestinian journalists and one Italian photographer were fatally shot by Israeli army forces on the West Bank in separate incidents whose precise circumstances remain the subject of different accounts.

Three journalists were killed in Colombia, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Russia during 2002; two in Pakistan and the Philippines; and one in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal, Uganda, and Venezuela, says the report.

But CPJ also recorded the deaths of 13 other journalists, including five in Colombia, where the motives for their killings remain unclear. Besides Colombia, which has proved the world's most dangerous place for media workers over the past decade, two were killed in India, and one each in Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Nepal and Russia.

There were some bright spots during the year as well, according to the report.

Russian journalist Grigory Pasko, for example, was paroled for good behaviour last January after serving two-thirds of a four-year prison sentence. He was originally put in prison for reporting on environmental damage caused by the Russian Navy in a case that became a 'cause celebre' for CPJ, Amnesty International, the Sierra Club, and a number of other environmental and human rights groups.

CPJ also noted the conviction of six men for the 2000 murder of Mozambique's top investigative reporter, Carlos Cardoso. The circumstances of that case suggested the involvement of the son of President Joaquin Chissano, and the judge has vowed to continue the investigation.

''But in most other cases'', Cooper wrote in her introduction, ''officials investigations of journalists' murders are half-hearted or nonexistent''. Even in cases where witnesses have positively identified suspects, governments of too many countries do not follow up, either because of corruption, intimidation, or because the government itself may be involved.