2001

  

Attacks on the Press 2000: Americas Analysis

BY EXPOSING CORRUPTION, POLITICAL INTRIGUE, and massive abuse of power, journalists in Peru helped bring down the regime of President Alberto K. Fujimori last year. Fujimori’s dramatic fall demonstrated that the Latin American press remains a key bulwark against leaders who continue to use subtle and not-so subtle means to control the flow of information.…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Asia Analysis

DESPITE PRESS FREEDOM ADVANCES ACROSS ASIA IN RECENT YEARS, totalitarian regimes in Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos maintained their stranglehold on the media. Even democratic Asian governments sometimes used authoritarian tactics to control the press, particularly when faced with internal conflict. Sri Lanka, for instance, imposed harsh censorship regulations during the year in…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Europe & Central Asia Analysis

POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Facts

In North Korea, listening to a foreign broadcast is a crime punishable by death. In Colombia, right-wing paramilitary forces are suspected in the murders of three journalists in 2000. Meanwhile, paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño was formally charged with the 1999 murder of political satirist Jaime Garzón.

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Afghanistan

AFTER 21 YEARS OF WAR, AFGHANISTAN IS ONE OF THE POOREST COUNTRIES in the world. Its people are starved for food, but also for information. The local media are dominated by the country’s ruling Taliban militia, which, though it produced increasingly sophisticated propaganda, propagated religious pronouncements and official edicts rather than news. As a result,…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Albania

STATE-SPONSORED ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS ABATED significantly and some reforms were initiated last year, but the Albanian press still faced economic underdevelopment, low professional standards, and ongoing security risks. High taxes and printing costs, poor distribution networks, low advertising revenues, limited business skills, and endemic corruption have made editors and publishers dependent on subsidies from political…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Algeria

LATE IN THE YEAR, A SURGE OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE FURTHER DIMMED the prospects of President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika’s plan for national reconciliation and an end to Algeria’s nine years of civil strife. Particularly in Algiers and other cities, however, the country was far more peaceful than in previous years, and the intense government censorship and…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Angola

AS ANGOLA’S AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUED ITS LONG SIEGE against all forms of dissent last year, independent journalists received special attention from the repressive apparatus of the state. Although most private media outlets are weekly newspapers that reach no more than a few thousand people, the hypersensitive regime of President José Eduardo dos Santos has routinely…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Antigua and Barbuda

IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE GOVERNMENT DOMINATES THE MEDIA, the year ended with two contradictory developments. After winning a four-year court battle, the island’s first independent radio station was expected to start broadcasting soon. However, the High Court restrained a weekly newspaper from further coverage of a medical benefits scandal that the paper exposed in…

Read More ›

Attacks on the Press 2000: Argentina

IN A FRUSTRATING YEAR FOR PRESS FREEDOM in Argentina, a proposed bill that would have eliminated criminal penalties for defamation cases involving public officials foundered after local journalists implicated members of the Senate in a major bribery scandal. Senators who had supported the proposed bill quickly withdrew their support. The long battle to reform Argentina’s…

Read More ›