The international journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been accused of receiving money from the US State Department and Cuban exile groups and of pursuing a political agenda.
The claims of political bias, published in a report in Washington this week, were denied by the group on Wednesday.
RSF was set up in France in 1979 by Robert Menard, who still heads the organization. It monitors abuses of journalists and has offices throughout the world.
Its Web site highlights countries where journalists are killed, jailed or intimidated as a result of their work, and currently features stories on Uzbekistan, Gambia and Ukraine.
The attack on RSF came in reports published by the Washington-based non-profit organization the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and the US Newspaper Guild journal. Both were written by journalist Diana Barahona.
She claimed that RSF was failing to follow the non-partisan example of Medecins sans Frontieres -- Doctors Without Borders -- and suggested that it was part of a "neocon crusade against the Castro regime."
The reports suggested that RSF had highlighted Cuba rather than countries that were more dangerous for journalists, such as Colombia.
Barahona also claimed RSF was "on the payroll of the US state department" and had received money from the Center for a Free Cuba, an exile group. The reports suggested that Menard had campaigned to have Cuban government accounts at European banks frozen in the same way as "the bank accounts of terrorists."
Jeff Julliard of RSF denied the allegations of a political agenda from its headquarters in Paris on Wednesday.
"We have no political agenda," he said. "We are not a political organization."
He also denied that RSF received money from the US state department directly, but confirmed that it had received a grant of US$40,000 from the conservative National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED's Web site states that it receives annual funding from "the US Congress through the state department."
This money, he said, had been used exclusively for a project to help journalists threatened in Africa and none of the money had been used elsewhere.
Julliard said that RSF had also received money from the Center for a Free Cuba and that money had been given to the families of journalists jailed in Cuba. Two-thirds of RSF's funds came from the sales of photography books and the rest of its money was from private donors.
He added that, while Menard had called for the freezing of Cuban bank accounts in Europe, RSF had made similar calls regarding the accounts of other governments which mistreated journalists, such as Zimbabwe and Pakistan.
RSF believed that this was a legitimate tactic to put pressure on the authorities. He added that, while RSF was very critical of Cuba, it had published more reports about abuses in China. Its main current concern was the position of journalists in Iraq. It had also campaigned on the issue of protection of sources in the US.
Aidan White of the International Federation of Journalists, based in Brussels, said on Wednesday: "The RSF is a fantastically successful organization in terms of exposing those governments that treat journalists in pretty nasty ways. You can only applaud their efforts and the more that is done the better." However, "sometimes there have been moments when our community and their network have not seen eye to eye. Sometimes there is not as much cooperation as there could be."
A spokesman for the UK's National Union of Journalists in London said on Wednesday: "It is very dangerous when press freedom organizations get themselves politically compromised by accepting payment from any government. It is really vital that all such organizations are truly independent."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un renewed his call for a “limitless” expansion of his military nuclear program to counter US-led threats in comments reported yesterday that were his first direct criticism toward Washington since US president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory on Oct. 6. At a conference with army officials on Friday, Kim condemned the US for updating its nuclear deterrence strategies with South Korea and solidifying three-way military cooperation involving Japan, which he portrayed as an “Asian NATO” that was escalating tensions and instability in the region. Kim also criticized the US over its support of Ukraine against a prolonged Russian invasion.
RSS