LAHORE, Feb 18: South Asian Free Media Association secretary-general Imtiaz Alam has said no state in the region was ready to accept the adversarial role of the media as a watchdog of society nor had any state come up with an effective law to ensure the fundamental right of information.

He said at the launching ceremony of South Asia Media Monitor Report-2004 at the Lahore Press Club here on Friday that media in the region continued to be swayed by the establishments in the name of national security, national interests and by adversarial nationalisms.

Most of the publications, television and media practitioners continued to be embedded to nationalist standpoints of civil-military establishments, regardless of the merit of one case or the other.

He said 21 journalists had fallen victim either to the guns of parties to rival conflicts or local strongmen who were intolerant of the exposure of their misdeeds by the media during last year. Nepal and Bangladesh topped the list with journalists killed in each.

Four journalists were murdered each in India and Sri Lanka and one in Pakistan. The Maldives, however, continued to be a nightmare for journalists where Muhammad Zaki and Aminath Didi, editor and staff of the internet newsletter Sandhannu and their assistant Fathima Nasreen continued to suffer solitary confinement since January, 2002.

He said media was also under attack in Nepal where many publications had been closed down by the government and military men were sitting in newsrooms. Many journalists, including the secretary general of their federation, had been arrested, he said.

SAFMA had decided to send an inquiry commission to Nepal in the first week of March and send its reports to the governments in South Asia. SAFMA's India president K. K. Katyal said journalists had to suffer insult as a result of pressures on the media. Truth, he said was not given any weight and even the judiciary observed different criteria for the rulers and the common run of people.

SAFMA's India secretary general Vinod Kumar Sharma said the establishments in South Asian countries favoured preservation of the existing mindset to promote stereotypes. Most of the media compromised with the state and portrayed a rosy picture instead of exposing the deprivation and misery and projecting the right perspective.

Journalists not conforming to the official viewpoint were often given a bad name for character assassination and deprived of their position. Trade unionism had become irrelevant because most of the media people had been engaged on contract, he said.

Daily Pakistan Editor Mujibur Rehman Shami said SAFMA should also publish a report on the role of media in South Asia. The report should highlight the role of media with respect to its contribution to the efforts for the welfare of the people.

He said only Urdu newspapers had been criticized in the Media Monitor Report whereas ignorance was equally present in English newspapers. Denial of advertisements to Nawa-i-Waqt had not been mentioned in the report either, he added.

He said those who had promoted the thinking of competition with India after the creation of Pakistan had not served the nation. Countries were divided for resolving disputes but the Pakistan Ideology was misused for creating rifts with India and a wrong thinking of competing with India had been developed in the country whereas the Quaid-i-Azam had said that relation between the two countries would be similar to those between the US and Canada.

Senior journalist Hamid Akhtar said far more inducements were being offered for winning over the media as compared to the pressure exerted against it.