During the run-up to the 16th Communist Party Congress, which was held in November and marked the first orderly transfer of power in the party’s history, China’s leaders used the national media to launch a propaganda blitz reminiscent of Chairman Mao’s days. Throughout 2002, officials issued strict new guidelines to prevent any independent report- ing…
Colombia’s civil conflict once again took a brutal toll on the country’s press, with journalists threatened, attacked, kidnapped, and murdered. At least three journalists were killed for their work in 2002, and CPJ continues to investigate the slayings of five others whose deaths may have been related to their reporting. At year’s end, Colombia’s overburdened…
Information about the 2001 murder of journalist Parmenio Medina Pérez remains scarce. Although his killing heightened efforts to reform Costa Rica’s outdated media laws, the legislative commission that was created to study such laws made no advances during 2002, while Costa Rican journalists continued to suffer from court interference.
The gradual stabilization of the western Balkans, combined with closer bilateral ties to neighboring Yugoslavia, encouraged some increased diversity in Croatia’s media during 2002. On January 7, for example, national Croatian Radio Television (HRT) broadcast a Serbian Orthodox Christmas service for the first time since the country declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. In May,…
Throughout 2002, scores of journalists in Cuba were harassed, detained, threatened with prosecution or jail, or had their freedom of movement restricted. Some had their reporting materials confiscated or their phone communications disrupted. Often, the government prevented journalists from covering opposition activities, turning reporters back or even forcing them to stay at their homes under…
Some 35,000 Turkish troops are stationed in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), founded after Turkey invaded the northern half of the Mediterranean island in 1974. The island remains divided into a more prosperous ethnic Greek sector in the south and an isolated and impoverished ethnic Turkish sector in the north. Cyprus’ capital,…
Despite having joined NATO in 1999 and being a front-runner for European Union membership in 2004, many senior politicians in the Czech Republic remain hostile toward the country’s feisty press and regularly obstruct critical media coverage of political scandals.
In late December, warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sealed a power-sharing deal, while the last foreign troops backing government or rebel groups prepared to withdraw from the vast, mineral-rich Central African nation. The latest agreement calls for a unity government, ending a four-year civil war that has ruined the country and…
The Dominican Republic’s media did not face significant restrictions in 2002 under President Hipólito Mejía. However, a bill designed to bring the country’s press laws up to international standards and improve access to information stalled again in the Senate.
A decades-long struggle for independence ended on May 20, when the U.N. Transitional Authority for East Timor (UNTAET) formally handed power to East Timor’s first elected government, making the tiny half-island state the first new nation of the millennium. A fledgling press has emerged from the destruction that followed the territory’s vote for independence from…