Amnat Jongyotying, an unassuming 47-year-old Thai journalist, runs Phaknua - a newspaper in Chiang Mai. Over the past 10 years, he has stepped o­n the toes of the city's powerful politicians and shady tycoons - the local mafia - more than o­nce.

The inevitable soon happened. An assassination attempt was made. The bullet, fired from a passing car, tore through Amnat's hip. He survived. Amnat now dons a bulletproof vest when he goes to work.

Clearly, the pen is no match for the gun. Last year, 54 journalists were killed. So far this year 23 journalists have died - 14 of them during the war in Iraq.

One of the deadliest days was April 8 when three journalists lost their lives: two when the Hotel Palestine - where journalists were staying - was shelled, and o­ne in the bombing of the Baghdad office of Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera.

A week later, Malaysian journalists came close to joining the list when The Sun chief reporter Terence Fernandez , New Straits Times photographer Mohd Anuar Hashim and RTM cameraman Omar Salleh were abducted by a group of armed Iraqi militia.

They get to live. Not so fortunate, however, were the 523 journalists killed o­n duty in the past 10 years.

Legitimate targets

Today, May 3, is World Press Freedom Day.

It is a day to recognise those who died so that others have the right to know. It is a day to remember the 128 journalists currently imprisoned in 25 countries. It is also a day to acknowledge the grim reality that two-thirds of humanity do not enjoy press freedom.

But the enemies of press freedom are not confined to Third World dictators.

United States President Bill Clinton, during the 1999 Kosovo War, had boasted of the "stark contrast between a free society with a free press and a closed society where the press is used to manipulate people by suppressing or distorting the truth".

He was referring to then Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic. That contrast is no longer as stark as we were led to believe.

Even during the Kosovo war, the US-led Nato alliance had no qualms in bombing the state-owned television station in Belgrade, killing some 16 media workers.

In justifying the attacks, Clinton said Serb media failed to show the complete picture of the war. But if omission is a crime punishable by death, then the Western media stands guilty as well.

Censorship business

Four years later, journalists were again targeted - this time in Baghdad.

How else are we to explain why al-Jezeera was hit, not o­nce but three times, including an earlier bombing of its office in Kabul during the Afghanistan War. And how else to explain the unprovoked shelling of Hotel Palestine.

Indeed, having got itself into the business of war, Washington is getting into the censorship business as well.

Of the many journalists who were killed over the past 10 years, most were executed by masked gunmen, shadowy drug lords, tin-pot dictators and other enemies of the press. We can now add United States to the list.

In this part of the world there are many journalists who work for the government-controlled media, and they take their profession very seriously. However much we may disagree with their roles, they do not deserve to die should their leaders incur the wrath of the Americans.

No o­ne should have monopoly of news - or propaganda, if you will - in war and in peace. It is o­nly when there is diversity of media sources that the truth can emerge. The same can be said about the media in Malaysia.

But that's another story.

The above is part of a speech made at the Asian Institute for Development Communication's panel discussion o­n World Press Freedom Day o­n this year's theme, 'Impunity for crimes against journalists'.