03. 07. 2006

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES TARGET JOURNALISTS

LONDON, July 3, 2006 (The Associated Press) - More and more journalists are being investigated for the illegal accessing of information. In addition to widely publicized information leaks on Iraq or terrorism in the United States and the United Kingdom, Romania, Germany and the Netherlands have cases involving journalists and wiretapping or secret documents. Two journalists in Romania face up to seven years in prison for possessing classified documents about the Romanian military's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though their newspapers never published the information. A German parliamentary report May 26 disclosed Berlin's foreign intelligence agency had been illegally spying on German journalists since the 1990s to find the sources of leaks. De Telegraaf, the Netherlands' biggest paper, had to go to court to win a ruling last month ordering the Dutch secret service to stop wiretapping calls of two reporters who obtained leaked information about official corruption. "Systematic surveillance is becoming one of the most worrying features in relations between authorities and media worldwide," said the journalist federation's White. Even whistleblowers who don't divulge state secrets can feel the heat -- like Australia's Rod Barton. After the Canberra government dismissed what he privately reported about phoney weapons "intelligence" and prisoner abuse in Iraq, the former Iraq weapons inspector went public last year with the information. Soon Barton's government contract work evaporated, he was "disinvited" from official functions, and former colleagues were ordered to shun him. "Although there is still freedom of speech, it is not entirely free. There is a price," he told AP.