May 4, 2004 4:33am
Associated Press WorldStream

DILI, East Timor_Just two years after gaining independence, East Timor has one of Asia's freest presses, an international watchdog group said.

Attacks on journalists are "extremely rare" in the former Indonesian province, and the country's press legislation is "among the most liberal in Asia," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a report provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

There are about a dozen independent newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, all privately owned, in this country of just 700,000 people.

Despite the praise East Timor has won for its press freedom, spats have occasionally flared between the government and media in Asia's newest nation. Officials have accused the main radio and TV broadcasters of turning their stations into "an instrument of propaganda against the government."

The criticism followed media coverage of a conflict between an opposition politician and the ruling party.

The report from Reporters Without Borders said the present situation showed significant progress in the area. At least half a dozen foreign journalists were killed by Indonesian troops during their 1975-79 occupation of East Timor, which had previously been a Portuguese colony.

The circumstances of the journalists' deaths have not yet been clarified. A U.N.-funded war crimes tribunal in 2001 opened an investigation into the killings, but Indonesia has refused to allow the interrogation of former Indonesian military commanders who were then operating in East Timor.

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