For the last two years, Thailand’s powerful and freewheeling media have been reeling from the effects of a popular and savvy prime minister who seems intent on using his absolute majority in Parliament to control the press. The process has been as subtle as it has been painful, with journalists saying that most pressure is…
With a press code that imposes sentences of up to five years in prison and a hefty fine for “insulting the Head of State,” and as much as three years in jail for defaming the courts or the armed forces, Togo earned a spot on CPJ’s list of the “World’s Worst Places to Be a…
Tonga’s small media sector suffered a major assault in 2003 from the monarchy of King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV. One of the country’s few independent news outlets, Taimi ‘o Tonga (Times of Tonga), was banned for much of the year, and in October the government passed an amendment that weakens constitutional guarantees of free speech.
Since President Zine Al-Abdine Ben Ali seized power in 1987, Tunisian authorities have crafted a nearly perfect system to censor and suppress the media. The few courageous voices remaining in the country succeed in circumventing these controls mainly by publishing on the Internet, but Tunisian authorities do not hesitate to block their Web sites, harass…
In an effort to meet European Union criteria for membership, Turkey continued in 2003 to rewrite laws that restrict press freedom. That effort has improved the country’s spotty press freedom record, but many impediments remain. Journalists continued to face criminal prosecution for their work, although the number of jailed journalists has drastically declined in recent…
In 2003, Turkmenistan’s megalomaniacal dictator, President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov, continued to tighten his grip on the country’s politics, natural resources, and the press. A wave of political repression against Niyazov’s real and imagined opponents followed an alleged assassination attempt against the president on November 25, 2002. The president escaped unharmed, and some Turkmen journalists and opposition…
In March 2003, President Yoweri Museveni proposed extending presidential term limits, allowing him to run for a third five-year term in office. Museveni, who came to power in a 1986 coup, retained power in the country’s first presidential election in 1996 and was re-elected in 2001. His proposal for a third term drew criticism from…
The 2000 murder of internet journalist Georgy Gongadze continued to dog Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who was fighting for political survival in 2003. Gongadze, editor of Ukrainska Pravda, an online publication that often reports on government corruption, disappeared on September 16, 2000. A headless corpse believed to be Gongadze’s was found shortly after his disappearance,…
The U.S. media went to war in 2003, with both embedded and independent reporters pouring into Iraq to cover the U.S.-led invasion and its aftermath. U.S. officials called the invasion the best-covered conflict in history, but it was also one of the most deadly for journalists. All told, 19 reporters died while working in Iraq,…
Increased international aid and the presence of U.S. troops using Uzbekistan as a base for the “war on terror” have focused new international attention on the country, forcing President Islam Karimov to pay lip service to press freedom. “Today, there are no boundaries to the flow of information, and any attempts to restrict freedom of…