Four journalists have been killed and at least 80 others jailed worldwide this year alone for carrying out their duties to keep the public informed, international media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontires (RSF) said in its annual report to be released tomorrow, World Press Freedom Day.

RSF also said that 32 journalists were killed last year while exercising their profession or for their opinions.

"A total of 329 were arrested and more than 500 attacked or threatened. Nearly a third of the world's population live in countries where there is no freedom of the press," said RSF general secretary Robert Mnard in the report.

Mnard said that although most countries claim to recognise their citizens' right to freedom of speech and freedom of information, many of them openly assign to those freedoms a meaningless role and expose those who try to put them into practice to the great danger.

RSF also named in its report 28 leaders around the world and two organisations which it described as 'predators' of press freedom.

The list includes Saudi Arabia ruler Fahd ibn al-Saud, Afghanistan's Mullah Mohammad Omar, Iran leader Ali Khamenei, Iraqi Saddam Hussein, Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi, Burma military junta's head Than Shwe, China's Jiang Zemin and North Korean 'supreme leader' Kim Jong-il.

Others are Russian president Vladimir Putin, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Joseph Kabila (Democratic Republic of Congo), Paul Kagame (Rwanda) as well the two movements, the Spanish separatist movement ETA and the Chechnyian mafia.

Known and condemned

The report stated that RSF had to "draw the portrait of these predators" so they will be known and condemned.

"At present they number thirty. But the list is not closed and will be updated whenever it has to be, as these enemies of free speech indulge in their outrages," said Mnard.

"Although international approval now requires countries to have freedom of speech and freedom of information enshrined in their constitutions or laws, it is all too common to see those freedoms cancelled out by a welter of conditions and restrictions that are just as binding," he said.

"We are familiar with the way many governments misuse laws on libel and the dignity of individuals."

"Reporting that a minister has accepted a bribe is obviously libelous. Revealing a police chief's ties with drug traffickers clearly damages his standing. Investigating the embezzlement of public funds by the head of state is bound to affect the way readers regard him," added Mnard.

Examples of press restrictions cited by RSF in its report include situations in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and African countries where a reporter can be convicted of being a 'troublemaker' simply for covering a demonstration, particularly if people are protesting against government policies.

The report added that in some states in Nigeria where Sharia (Islamic law) has been introduced, journalists may be beaten up for 'damaging Islamic morale'.

"In Kenya, a journalist was convicted for reporting that soldiers from a government patrol had been shot and killed in an ambush. Nobody denied it was true, but it was regarded as an 'alarmist report', which brought it within the scope of the law," said Mnard.

The complete RSF list of 'predators' of press freedom:

1. Mullah Mohammad Omar (Afghanistan)

2. Eduardo dos Santos (Angola)

3. Alexander Lukachenko (Belarus)

4. Franois Compaor (Burkina Faso)

5. Than Shwe (Burma)

6. The kidnapping mafia (Chechnya)

7. Jiang Zemin (China)

8. Carlos Castao (Colombia)

9. Manuel Marulanda (head of Colombian guerilla movement Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces) and Nicols Rodrguez Bautista (head of Colombian National Liberation Army)

10. Fidel Castro (Cuba)

11. Joseph Kabila (Democratic Republic of Congo)

12. Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea)

13. Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia)

14. Ali Khamenei (Iran)

15. Saddam Hussein (Iraq)

16. Khamtai Siphandon (Laos)

17. Moammar Gadhafi (Libya)

18. Kim Jong-il (North Korea)

19. Kirsan Iliumjinov (Kalmykia Republic - Russian Federation)

20. Vladimir Putin (Russia)

21. Paul Kagame (Rwanda)

22. Fahd ibn al-Saud (Saudi Arabia)

23. The ETA (the Basque separatist militant movement - Spain)

24. Bashar Assad (Syria)

25. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia)

26. Huseyin Kivrikoglu (Turkey)

27. Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan)

28. Leonid Kuchma (Ukraine)

29. Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan)

30. Nong Duc Manh (Vietnam)