TOP WORLD ENEMIES OF THE PRESS NAMED

By: Staff reports A World Press Freedom Day Special Report



The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, released Wednesday its annual
list of the 10 Worst Enemies of the Press in observance of World Press Freedom Day.


Topping this year's list was Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra
Leone. Sankoh was responsible for targeting journalists as 'enemies' and executing at least
eight reporters in the midst of his three-week occupation of Freetown in January 1999. A total
of 10 journalists were killed in Sierra Leone in 1999 because of Sankoh's work.


Ayatollah Ali Khameini, leader of Iran, jumped to second on the list in just the last few
weeks with his systematic closure of 16 opposition newspapers in April. Newspapers and their
Web sites that Khameini deemed to be pro-reform were banned. In a speech he gave in early April,
Khameini said, 'There are newspapers whose only aim is to create tension and make people cynical
of the regime ... It seems that 10 to 15 newspapers are guided from one center; they write
similar headlines ... They insult official institutions ...'



Slobodan Milosevic, president of Yugoslavia, ranked third on the list as Yugoslavian authorities
have intensified their crackdown on independent Serb media in the first few months of 2000. CPJ
reports that radio and television stations have been closed and newspaper publishers have been
prosecuted and fined huge sums.


The remaining seven enemies of the press are:

* Jiang Zemin, president of China

* Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali, president of Tunisia

* Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan

* Fidel Castro, president of Cuba

* Jose Eduardo dos Santos, president of Angola

* Alberto K. Fujimori, president of Peru

* Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia



CPJ reports on press freedom violations worldwide and issues an extensive annual report on
'Attacks on the Press'.