Malaysia remains firmly at the bottom half of the countries surveyed in the second world press freedom index, but improved its score marginally by six notches, from last year's 110 ranking to 104.

In the survey released by international press watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or Reporters sans frontires (RSF) today, Malaysia's total score this year was 32.0 as compared to last year's 37.83 in a press freedom scale of between 0 (best) and 100 (worst).

However, 166 countries are included in this year's survey, 27 more countries than the Paris-based group's first global ranking.

According to RSF's Asia-Pacific desk chief Vincent Brossel, Asia fared worst with eight countries in the bottom 10: North Korea (which ranks last at 166), Burma (164), Laos (163), China (161), Iran (160), Vietnam (159), Turkmenistan (158) and Bhutan (157).

"Independent news media are either non-existent in these countries, or are constantly repressed by the authorities. Journalists there work in extremely difficult conditions, with no freedom and no security. A number of them are imprisoned in Burma, China and Iran," said Brossel.

Victims of violence

The other two countries in the bottom pile are second-last placing Cuba (165) and Eritrea (162).

RSF labelled Cuba as the "world's biggest prison for journalists" with 26 arrested early this year, and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 14 to 27 years.

"Eritrea .. has the worst situation in Africa. Privately-owned news media have been banned there for the past two years and 14 journalists are being held in undisclosed locations," lamented Brossel.

RSF compiled the ranking by asking journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists to fill out a questionnaire evaluating respect for press freedom in a particular country. A number of countries were left out because of a lack of reliable, well-supported data.

In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is ranked higher than Indonesia (110), Philippines (118) and Singapore (144), while lagging behind Cambodia (81) and Thailand (82).

According to RSF, several countries with a democratically-elected government and a free and independent press have poor rankings, such as Bangladesh (143), Colombia (147), Philippines (118) and Indonesia (110).

"Journalists in these countries are the victims of violence that comes not only from the state but also from political parties, criminal gangs or guerrilla groups. In other cases, such as Nepal (150), the press is caught in the crossfire between security forces and rebels," said Brossel

"Such violence results in considerable self-censorship by the news media, which do not dare to broach such subjects as corruption, collusion between political leaders and organised crime, or sectarian clashes. At the same time, the authorities very often fail to respond to this violence with the appropriate measures, namely protection for journalists and the punishment of those responsible."

The survey revealed that a country's respect for press freedom is not directly linked to its economic development as the top 50 ranked nations included countries that are among the poorest in the world, such as Benin (29), Timor-Leste (30) and Madagascar (46), and the bottom 50 with rich nations such as Bahrain (117) and Singapore (144).

Top honours for Finland

Finland, which ranked No 1 in this survey, also clinched the top spot in the recently released Transparency International's corruption perception index as the cleanest country in the world.

Meanwhile, the press freedom index distinguishes behaviour at home and abroad in the cases of the United States and Israel.

US is ranked 31 and Israel, 44, as regards to the respect for freedom of expression in their own countries, but they fall to the 135 and 146 respectively in their treatment of the press in the territories occupied by their military.

"The Israeli army's repeated abuses against journalists in the occupied territories and the US army's responsibility in the death of several reporters during the war in Iraq constitute unacceptable behaviour by two nations that never stop stressing their commitment to freedom of expression," added Brossel.

Brossel said that the war in Iraq also played a major role in an increased crackdown on the press by the Arab regimes.

"Concerned about maintaining their image and facing public opinion largely opposed to the war, they stepped up control of the press and increased pressure on journalists, who are forced to use self-censorship," he said.

In this year's ranking, Kuwait (102) replaced Lebanon (106) as the Arab world's leader in the respect for freedom of expression.

"Saudi Arabia (156), Syria (155), Libya (153) and Oman (152) used all the means at their disposal to prevent the emergence of a free and independent press."