By Marc Burleigh ,AFP February13,2015,12:00amTWN

There has been an overall deterioration linked to very different factors, with information wars, and action by non-state groups acting like news despots, the head of the Paris-based group, Christophe Deloire, told AFP.

The Reporters Without Borders 2015 World Press Freedom Index stated that there was an eight percent increase in the violations of freedom of information in 180 countries in 2014 compared to the 2013, according to its statistically weighted calculation.

All parties in conflicts raging in the Middle East and Ukraine were waging a fearsome information war in which media personnel were directly targeted to be killed, captured or pressured to relay propaganda, it said.

The Islamic State group active in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and Cameroon, and criminal organizations in Italy and Latin America all used fear and reprisals to silence journalists and bloggers who dare to investigate or refuse to act as their mouthpieces, said the watchdog, known by its French initials RSF.

North Africa and the Middle East contained notable black holes in which entire regions are controlled by non-state groups in which independent information simply does not exist, the group said.

The criminalization of blasphemy endangers freedom of information in around half of the world's countries, the report said, noting that religious extremists sometimes also go after journalists or bloggers they believe do not sufficiently respect their god or prophet.

Read more from the original source:

'Drastic decline' in int'l media freedom