SOMALIA A Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was mandated by a peace conference of warlords and political leaders to restore order to Somalia, which has been without an effective central government since 1991. But the TFG split and political rivalries sparked violence, especially in the capital, Mogadishu. Amid ongoing lawlessness, impunity, and increased political tension, journalists…
SRI LANKA The slow unraveling of a cease-fire between the government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) complicated Sri Lanka’s efforts to recover from the December 2004 tsunami and hindered the media’s ability to cover the disaster and other important stories. Two Tamil journalists were murdered in 2005 and others were threatened.…
TAJIKISTAN Popular uprisings elsewhere in Central Asia spurred Tajikistan to further crack down on already-limited dissent. Repressive actions flowed from four domestic and regional events: a February 27 parliamentary vote; the Tulip Revolution in neighboring Kyrgyzstan in March; violent unrest in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in May; and the prospect of presidential elections…
THAILAND Press conditions worsened markedly, reflecting the fourth year of deterioration since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took office in 2001. Most worrisome was the frequent use of litigation that sought criminal penalties and disproportionate monetary damages. The cases echo the repressive practices of neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, where authoritarian governments have long used overwhelming legal…
TOGO The death of President Gnassingbé Eyadema on February 5 gave local journalists hope that a new era of press freedom would follow years of repression. Instead, Eyadéma’s Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais (RPT) held on to power, resorting to censorship, harassment, and intimidation of the media as the army suspended the constitution and named the…
TUNISIA Some Tunisian journalists had hoped that an influx of world business, media, and human rights figures attending a United Nations conference in Tunis in November might prompt the government to relax its grip on the local media. Instead, President Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali’s 18-year-old administration ran true to form, stifling the critical press and…
TURKMENISTAN Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-proclaimed president for life, steered his nation farther down the path of international isolation, barring foreign publications as well as libraries, and keeping so tight a grip on the news media that vital issues went unreported. The state owns all domestic news media, and the Niyazov administration controls them closely, appointing…
UKRAINE Expectations were high that new President Viktor Yushchenko would sweep away the legacy of repression left by Leonid Kuchma’s authoritarian regime. Yushchenko won a December 26, 2004, presidential runoff held after hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the capital, Kyiv, to denounce an earlier, rigged vote in which Kuchma protégé Viktor…
UNITED STATES An investigation into the leak of a CIA officer’s identity erupted, with one reporter compelled to testify about his confidential source, another jailed for 85 days before she testified, and a high-level White House aide indicted on federal charges of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. Confidentiality of sources was under attack…
UZBEKISTAN President Islam Karimov engaged in a full-fledged offensive against the independent press. Unrelenting government persecution drove out more than a dozen foreign correspondents and local reporters working for foreign media; continual harassment forced at least two news agencies and a media training organization to close their offices. Karimov and his allies used trumped-up charges…