Maldives falls again in press freedom index
The Maldives is now ranked between Nigeria and Angola on the 2018 press freedom index.
25 Apr 2018, 9:00 AM
The Maldives has fallen three places in the Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom index, after the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed and further restrictions on the media.
It now ranks 120 out of 180 countries, down from 117 the previous year. In the 2017 index, the Maldives slid down five places from 112 to 117.
RSF said the government continued to “persecute the independent media” and that many journalists have been the target of death threats from political parties, criminal gangs and religious extremists.
“Yameen Rasheed, a citizen-journalist who had been investigating government corruption, was stabbed to death in April 2017. The poisonous climate of violence and impunity forces journalists to censor themselves,” RSF said.
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