CUBA Facing intense international interest in President Fidel Castro’s hospitalization and the transfer of power to his brother, the Cuban government severely restricted information about Castro’s illness in the name of state security and selectively blocked foreign journalists’ entry into the country. In a July 31 proclamation aired on Cuban television without advance notice, Castro…
HAITI Attacks on Haiti’s press dropped significantly, even as its streets were ravaged by violence—but journalists said the decline was attributable to widespread self-censorship. Haiti’s media continued to operate in a polarized environment, which both skewed and limited coverage of the government and street gangs. René Préval, an agronomist who served as president of Haiti…
MEXICO Gunmen stormed the offices of the Nuevo Laredo daily El Mañana in February, firing assault rifles, tossing a grenade—and setting the tone for another dangerous year for Mexican journalists. The shocking assault, which seriously injured reporter Jaime Orozco, spurred the federal government to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate crimes against the press. The…
PARAGUAY The death of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner in August triggered a wave of stories about the widespread human rights and press freedom abuses woven into the fabric of Paraguayan history. As today’s journalists reflected on the institutionalized attacks of the past, they confronted different, yet grave dangers of their own. Reporters in isolated regions…
PERU A Supreme Court decision overturning a local mayor’s conviction in the murder of a radio journalist alarmed the news media and punctuated a year in which provincial reporters faced threats and attacks from local officials and their supporters. Citing a lack of evidence, the high court ordered the release of Yungay Mayor Amaro León…
UNITED STATES After consuming the press freedom landscape for more than two years, an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s name wound down with a whimper. News organizations reported in August that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently knew from the day his investigation began in December 2003 that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard…
VENEZUELA President Hugo Chávez Frías, who has outlasted a coup and a recall, swept to victory in the December 3 presidential election amid tense relations with the press. Chávez threatened to withhold licenses from broadcast outlets critical of his administration, while the attorney general quashed coverage of a prosecutor’s assassination amid press reports that exposed…
ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…
FEBRUARY 3, 2007 Posted February 6, 2007 Wilder Jordán, Nuestro Diario ATTACKED Jordán, correspondent for the Guatemala City-based daily Nuestro Diario in the eastern Zacapa province, told CPJ that an unidentified individual aboard a motorcycle shot several times at his unoccupied car. Jordán, who was not injured, believes the attack was retaliation for an article…