For South Asia, the challenges to the press were more traditionally repressive and deadly. Seven journalists died in India—the highest total in the world this year. Five members of a film crew were killed by a single car bomb that police said was motivated by a political rivalry directed at a local politician. Elsewhere, the government continued to restrict press access to contested parts of Assam, Kashmir, and Manipur, all of which suffer from separatist violence and stern military responses. In distinct incidents, two journalists for state-owned Doordarshan Kendra TV were killed in Kashmir in attacks police believe were carried out by anti-government rebels.

Sectarian tensions in Pakistan, especially in the Sindh Province, led to frequent clashes, with newspaper offices coming under physical assault by rioting mobs spurred to violence by political leaders. In the Punjab region, the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif imposed martial law-style rule in response to factional violence between rival Sunni and Shi’a political groups.

Much of the economic turmoil in the region was the result of cozy relationships between governments and financial institutions that the press did not report, either because of self-censorship or government prohibitions. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a leading proponent of the idea that so-called "Asian values" encourage obedience over free expression, tried to blame the economic crisis on a conspiracy of international currency speculators and their alleged allies in the Western media. His well-publicized personal attacks on financier George Soros only deepened the malaise in Kuala Lumpur’s financial markets. By year’s end, Indonesia’s President Suharto, who had long suppressed press coverage of his family’s vast business holdings and insider access to government-regulated industries, was forced not only to acknowledge the depth of his family’s involvement in the country’s sagging economy but to publicly pledge to dismantle a portion of his financial empire as a condition of International Monetary Fund assistance. Indonesian journalists were hopeful that the crisis might force open the country’s timid media culture. Reporters Ahmad Taufik and Eko Maryadi, both members of the unofficial Alliance of Independent Journalists, were paroled from prison in July. Ironically, Taufik’s arrest in 1994 was partly a result of articles he wrote about corruption among the Suharto clan.

Elsewhere, there is evidence of democratic growth in the face of the crisis. In Thailand, a new constitution signed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October contains the most sweeping free press provisions in Asia. Efforts by then-Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh in June to rein in the press and blame journalists for exacerbating the financial downslide were discredited by the independent Thai press and helped lead to his ouster later in the year.

In both South Korea and Taiwan, political developments seemed to strengthen the hand of free expression. Long-time dissident leader and former political prisoner Kim Dae Jung was elected president of South Korea in December and promptly pledged to protect press freedom at home and promote free expression in the region as a corrective to closed societies and failed economic policies. In Taiwan, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) lost a landmark criminal libel suit party leaders brought against two reporters for a Hong Kong-based magazine. The verdict was widely seen as expanding the boundaries for press freedom in Taiwan. The KMT’s willingness to absorb a stunning political defeat by a pro-independence party in municipal elections in December provides further evidence of the country’s democratization and perhaps signals the end of the party’s 70-year hegemony.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, returned to Chinese sovereignty on July 1 after 156 years of British colonial rule. Signs of self-censorship and timidity in the Hong Kong press leading up to the transition, coupled with China’s dismal record on free expression, caused widespread concern over the future of Hong Kong’s media. CPJ monitored the transition and in September issued the first major international report on press freedom under the new dispensation. (See "Press Freedom Under the Dragon") The conclusion: in the first days after the handover, the press remained essentially free, with few signs of overt control by Beijing. Legislative elections in 1998 will be closely watched in Hong Kong for signs of tightening controls that could limit the hopes of democratic opponents against Beijing’s hand-picked candidates.

In China, however, the situation remained dismal. The release and forced exile of dissident writer Wei Jingsheng in November did nothing to ease conditions for the press in China. Fourteen journalists remain imprisoned, newspapers are tightly controlled, and China has taken steps to heighten censorship of the Internet. There were stirrings from the dormant dissident community and scattered calls for press freedom in the wake of Wei’s release, but no sign yet that President Jiang Zemin would liberalize his one-party rule. Things were no better for Vietnamese journalists. Arrests, harassment, intimidation, and strict regulations on all media including the Internet were staples of government policy toward the press.

The political and social upheaval in Cambodia in the aftermath of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen’s coup against his co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh in July forced some 40 journalists into exile and resulted in the temporary closure of dozens of opposition newspapers. Although some newspapers later resumed operations, many journalists and editors remained in exile as the ruling Cambodia People’s Party issued frequent threats against them. Khmer-Canadian photographer Michael Senior was killed during the coup, and another journalist was slain in political violence leading up to the takeover.