IPI: Little Press Freedom in Some Coalition Countries

By: Mark Fitzgerald The U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" in the war against Iraq includes nations that stifle press freedom in their own countries, the Vienna, Austria-based International Press Institute (IPI) said last week.

The 30 nations originally identified as allies by the U.S. State Department "is more a list of the 'coalition of the sinning' rather than of 'the willing,'" IPI Director Johan P. Fritz said. "It contains many governments that have done their utmost to suppress and stifle the independent media in their countries. ... At a time when the United States and Great Britain are promising to introduce democracy to postwar Iraq, it is troubling to see them aligned with so many authoritarian states."

Among the worst press-freedom offenders cited by IPI: Azerbaijan, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, and Uzbekistan.