Journalists and press freedom advocates from around the world attended a UNESCO conference on press freedom held in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. The conference celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, which affirmed that a free and pluralistic press is essential for democratic government.
Two years ago, Niger’s media ombudsman judged the local press healthy. In 2001, that assessment seemed optimistic at best. Journalists in this vast, impoverished country remained at odds with the administration of President Mamadou Tandja. In January, three local media rights groups accused public authorities of “suffocating the press.” The Niger Press Association (ANEPI), the…
Mirroring the larger society, the Nigerian media were severely fractured along ethnic and regional lines in 2001, although mainstream news outlets remained economically robust, dynamic, and politically outspoken. Throughout the year, a host of new publications hit newsstands, many of them in local languages. In the Christian-dominated south, private radio and television stations expanded their…
Although the Papua New Guinean press remains one of the freest in the Pacific, political unrest in 2001 led to several violent episodes in which journalists were attacked. With the exception of Papua New Guinea’s largest radio broadcaster, the state-run National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), all media outlets are privately owned. Of the three major newspapers,…
Conditions for Congolese journalists improved slightly last year, even though the harsh 1996 Press Law remained on the books. In the main, President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s unity government found it expedient to tolerate frequently caustic press criticism. On January 13, however, authorities jailed Richard Ntsana of the opposition newspaper Le Flambeau and accused him of…
President Paul Kagame surprised his own cabinet in December when he refused to sign a contentious media bill that prescribed the death penalty for journalists found guilty of inciting genocide. Lawmakers passed the bill in September, citing the macabre role that certain Rwandan media outlets played in promoting and orchestrating the 1994 massacre of more…
Conditions for local reporters in Senegal have worsened since the March 2000 election of President Abdulaye Wade. A fiery opposition leader for four decades before his rise to power, Wade had cultivated good relations with the media, which he rallied behind his Democratic Party with promises to scrap repressive clauses from the press law.
For the first time since 1996, no journalist was killed in Sierra Leone last year, a welcome development in a country that had earned the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous country in Africa for journalists. However, journalists were threatened by former rebels and government officials alike. In September, seven members of the independent…
The so-called failed state syndrome hampered efforts to reunite Somalia, wracked by inter-clan warfare since 1991. Although the year began with news that the economy was slowly recovering, it ended with a bleak United Nations assessment that Somalia was on the brink of an economic collapse unmatched in its modern history.
While the South African media is widely respected throughout the continent, the South African government’s attitude to press freedom is riddled with contradictions. On one hand, the Promotion of Access to Information Act, which went into effect in March, granted citizens access to any personal information held by the state and private entities. The authorities…