Taiwan No. 1 in Asia in global press freedom report

Want China Times, CNA and Staff Reporter 2013-02-02

Taiwanese reporters crowd the country's new vice premier, Mao Chi-kuo.
(Photo/Chen Cho-pang)

Taiwan ranked 47th in the world in terms of press freedom and 1st in Asia in 2012, according to a report released Wednesday by the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), a press freedom watchdog body.

Although Taiwan fell two places from the previous year in the global rankings, it remained at the top in the region, ahead of South Korea in 50th place and Japan at 53rd.

Japan dropped from 22nd to 53rd globally, mainly due to a lack of transparency and access to information directly or indirectly related to an accident at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, according to the report. Hong Kong and Singapore were ranked 58th and 149th, respectively.

Benjamin Ismail, head of the RSF Asia-Pacific Desk, said the watchdog was concerned about the protests last year in Taiwan against the bid by Want Want China Times Group, of which Want China Times is a part, to buy into another media.

Malaysia dropped 23 places to its lowest position ever because access to information is becoming more and more limited there, the report said. Cambodia was ranked 143rd, plunging 26 places because of its increasing authoritarianism and censorship, the report said.

North Korea (178th), China (173rd), and Vietnam (172nd) and Laos (168th), all ruled by authoritarian governments, still refuse to grant their citizens the freedom to be informed, the RSF report said.

The control of news and information is a key issue for these governments, which are horrified at the prospect of being open to criticism, it said.

In Vietnam and China, those involved in online news and information such as bloggers and netizens are forced to deal with increasing harsh repression, RSF said in the report. It said many Tibetan monks have been convicted or abducted for having sent information abroad about the disastrous state of human rights in Tibet.

Commercial news outlets and foreign media organizations are still censored regularly by China's propaganda department, it said.

For the third year running, Finland has distinguished itself as the country that most respects media freedom, followed by the Netherlands and Norway, which were also in the top three the previous year.

Three dictatorships — Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea — remained at the bottom of the rankings, where they stood in the previous report.