At the Board Meeting of the International Press Institute, held in Salzburg, Austria, on 13 September, the Executive Board Members voted to remove Sri Lanka while agreeing to keep Russia, South Korea, Venezuela and Zimbabwe on the IPI Watch List.

Speaking of the decision to remove Sri Lanka, IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said, “An IPI mission visited Sri Lanka in February of this year and, after talks with the Prime Minister and other officials, we felt there had been sufficient improvements in the media scene to warrant the country’s removal from the list.”

Fritz went on to say, “Aside from the improvements in Sri Lanka, the other countries on the list continue to suppress the media. The governments of South Korea and Venezuela are engaged in a war of words with the independent media which is encouraging other elements in society to assail the media. In Russia, new repressive legislation, violence, and financial and government pressures have all combined to make the life of working journalists almost intolerable; while in Zimbabwe the enforced closure of the Daily News is yet another example of the extraordinary measures taken by the government to silence the independent media.”

The IPI Watch List is a mechanism designed to detect and document regressive tendencies in countries that appear to be moving toward or suppressing press freedom.

During the IPI Conference, also held in Salzburg, Austria, on 14 September, the IPI “Free Media Pioneer Award 2003” was presented to the Media Council of Tanzania. The vice president of the council, Jenerali Ulimwengu, accepted the award on behalf of the organisation.