Attacks on the Press in 2007

In a year of internal political wrangling and further emergence on the global stage, Chinese leadership under President Hu Jintao showed a keen awareness of public opinion at home and abroad. But the result was not greater freedom for the press. The administration undertook a clumsy effort to woo the foreign press corps while simultaneously tightening control over the flow of information and commentary within China.

The national press played a crucial role in exposing illegal paramilitary activities and links between paramilitary leaders and leading politicians. Provincial journalists, working in areas where paramilitaries and other illegal armed groups were prevalent, faced many challenges in trying to report this and other sensitive stories. Paramilitary fighters were behind the majority of documented press freedom violations, CPJ research showed.

July 31 marked a year without Fidel Castro, whose health remained a “state secret” even though it was the biggest story of the year. Cuba continued to prove itself one of the worst reporting environments in the world as three foreign journalists were expelled from the island and 24 Cuban reporters languished in prison.

The historic November 2006 presidential election--the first since the country's independence from Belgium in 1960--was followed by a yearlong nationwide wave of media abuses as the new administration struggled with rampant unrest, insecurity, and impunity in attacks against media workers. Interim President Joseph Kabila defeated former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in the divisive 2006 presidential runoff, ending a fragile power-sharing government and marking the start of a difficult transition to democracy.

President Rafael Correa regularly bashed the news media after taking office in January, reflecting increasing tensions between his young socialist government and the powerful business groups that control the country’s media. Correa immediately called for a new constitution that would expand the power of the executive branch, loosen term limits, and allow for greater government control over the media. In September, Correa’s Movimiento Alianza País party took an important step toward those goals by winning an overwhelming majority of seats in the constituent assembly that will rewrite the 1998 constitution.

The government clamped down on political opposition, tried to suppress speculation about the health of President Hosni Mubarak, and waged a steady offensive against critical journalists, bloggers, and foreign media workers. By year’s end, a full-fledged crackdown was under way, with Egyptian courts aggressively prosecuting several of the country’s leading independent editors and writers. Authorities appeared bent on setting tighter boundaries for the independent press and for bloggers, whose numbers and influence have grown. In 2007, CPJ designated Egypt one of the world’s worst backsliders on press freedom, citing a dramatic increase in attacks on the press.

Eritrea remained the leading jailer of journalists in Africa, with as many as 14 writers and editors held incommunicado in secret locations. At least one journalist died in state custody, sources told CPJ in February. The only country in sub-Saharan Africa without a single independent news outlet, Eritrea subjected its own state-media journalists to government surveillance and harassment. One state journalist died in June while trying to escape years of repression by fleeing into Sudan.

Involved militarily in the conflict engulfing Somalia, engaged in a tense stalemate with arch foe Eritrea, assailed by allegations of human rights abuses in the eastern region of Ogaden, Ethiopia eased media repression slightly and released many journalists from prison. Yet the chilling effect of a brutal 2005 media crackdown that led to 15 arrests and numerous newspaper closings hung over Ethiopia’s beleaguered private press in 2007. And continued government harassment drove many journalists out of the country.

Fewer press-related detentions and attacks were reported in 2007, CPJ
research showed, but local journalists said the decline reflected several years of intense government suppression. One prominent journalist was slain and others have been forced into exile since 2004, leaving a more compliant press that practices widespread self-censorship. A mere handful of publications provide critical coverage, television is state-controlled, and radio news is limited to state-run broadcasts.