Burundi Some 5,000 U.N. peacekeepers are deployed in Burundi to support a peace process aimed at ending the country’s brutal civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands since ethnic Tutsi troops murdered the elected Hutu president in 1993. Despite wrangling over a new constitution and the postponement of elections by six months, the transitional…
Cameroon President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 22 years, won another seven-year term in October elections marked by allegations of fraud. Because opposition groups remained weak and fragmented, Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement felt little need to campaign. The polling date was not set until mid-September, and Biya waited another five…
Conditions for the press in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have improved somewhat since the government of President Joseph Kabila signed a peace accord with the main rebel groups in December 2002, ending four years of devastating civil war. However, local journalists still endure harassment, legal action, and imprisonment. They also have come under…
Eritrea Three years after a brutal crackdown in which the government shuttered independent media outlets and detained large numbers of critics, Eritrea remained the leading jailer of journalists in Africa. Seventeen journalists were still in prison at the end of 2004, many held incommunicado in secret jails, according to CPJ research.
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has ruled this small, oil-rich central African country with an iron grip since 1979, when he overthrew his uncle in a coup and had him executed. With one of the worst human rights records on the continent, Equatorial Guinea is also one of the few African countries to have…
Ethiopia In the run-up to 2005 elections, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front came under increasing criticism from local journalists and international media organizations for its antagonism toward the country’s private press. Authorities continued to imprison journalists for their reporting and to intimidate others into silence on sensitive issues, such as government infighting and…
Gabon President Omar Bongo, in office for 37 years, maintained a solid grip on power in this oil-rich Central African nation, where opposition movements are weak and the press is under bureaucratic assault. In 2004, the National Communications Council (CNC), a government-controlled media regulatory body, continued to censor private media outlets, provoking protests from local…
The Gambia The December murder of veteran journalist and press freedom activist Deyda Hydara fueled mounting fears among journalists and punctuated a year marked by arson attacks, threats, and repressive legislation aimed at the independent media in this tiny West African country. President Yahya Jammeh and his ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC)…
Ivory Coast Although legislation passed at the end of 2004 eliminated criminal penalties for most press offenses, journalists in Ivory Coast face much more immediate and dangerous threats, including harassment and violence, amid the political tension and uncertainty that have engulfed the country since civil war began in 2002. Serious attacks on the press have…
Kenya The government of President Mwai Kibaki, whose December 2002 election ended 24 years of rule by the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party, struggled in 2004 to keep its election promises of ending corruption and boosting the economy. It failed to meet deadlines for adopting a new constitution, which Kibaki’s National Rainbow Coalition (NARC)…