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In the letter, IPI director Johann P. Fritz said the institute evaluated Cheong Wa Dae's so-called “advanced media support system" at the request of the presidential office in June. "Unfortunately, our investigative efforts have resulted in strong disagreement with your Excellency's view that the 'Korean Government has done its part through [these] news media measures [to provide] a better environment for the media to gather news and write good stories.'" On the contrary, the measures “seriously damage freedom of the press in South Korea by restricting reporters' entry to government offices and preventing public servants from talking with journalists freely, thus also limiting the public's right to know,” the Vienna-based watchdog said.

The IPI condemned the government’s decision to merge press rooms into handful of centralized briefing centers and hire additional guards to ensure that journalists comply with these new rules and to use electronic press passes. "The Korean government is obviously acting in its own self-interest by restricting the media's access in the run-up to the December presidential elections,” Fritz wrote. "The political motivation behind the new media system is also evident in your remarks, 'I will surely nail down the pressrooms with 'big nails',' a statement which shocked experienced journalists in democracies around the world."

IPI recalled May 18, 2004, when its board struck Korea from the watch list. "We hoped that press freedom in the country was improving, but events later in the year were to prove this perception depressingly misplaced” when the government legislated now compromised new press laws.

"I do not want to again see South Korea on the IPI watch list,” Fritz wrote. "The Korean public ? and the international media community ? have already realized that your government's continued hostility towards the press is merely another undemocratic effort to prevent scrutiny of those in power."

South Korea was put on the IPI watch list during the Kim Dae-jung administration in 2001 for attempting to bring the press into line with tax probes and other means. In the second year of Roh's presidency, it was removed from the list with a proviso that it would immediately be put back if the government attempted again to restrict press freedom. Currently there are five countries on the watch list -- Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Russia and Venezuela.

(englishnews@chosun.com )