With President Jean-Bertrand Aristide under pressure qrom the international community and Haitian opposition groups to expedite political and economic reforms and to resolve a two-year-old electoral impasse that has stalled the flow of millions of dollars in aid, Haiti’s embattled press corps vigilantly reported the news despite political unrest and a deteriorating economy.
Two years after the historic election of Vicente Fox, which ended 75 years of one-party rule in Mexico, the country is being governed somewhat more democratically. But in 2002, the president still faced urgent demands to break with the government’s corrupt and secretive past in favor of transparency and public accountability.
On January 10, President Enrique Bolaños Geyer of the ruling Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC) assumed office, promising to fight corruption. With strong popular and media backing, Bolaños took on PLC leader and former president Arnoldo Alemán, long suspected of malfeasance. In September, a judge found several of Alemán’s associates and relatives guilty of corruption and…
Since the U.S. invasion in 1991, Panama’s three democratic administrations have pledged to repeal legislation that restricts press freedom. But little has been done, and officials seeking to silence critics or prevent exposure of corruption continue to harass the press with numerous “gag laws.”
The administration of Paraguayan president Luis González Macchi, long paralyzed by accusations of corruption and incompetence, was facing an impeachment challenge at the end of 2002. Throughout the year, the media had criticized the president for trivializing public concerns about his administration. In early December, the Chamber of Deputies voted to impeach him. He will…
The Peruvian press continues to recover from the authoritarian and corrupt rule of Alberto K. Fujimori, who was Peru’s president from 1990 until 2000, when a scandal forced him to resign and flee the country. During the last years of his regime, Fujimori managed to control much of the news agenda with the complicity of…
The U.S. government took aggressive measures in 2002 to shield some of its activities from press scrutiny. These steps not only reduced access for U.S. reporters but had a global ripple effect, with autocratic leaders citing U.S. government actions to justify repressive policies.
While press freedom is generally respected in Uruguay, the current economic crisis has damaged the media’s diversity and independence. Journalists also continue to struggle to obtain government information, even as lawmakers consider legislation to expand access to it.
During 2002, a worsening political crisis brought Venezuela to the brink of collapse and threatened to derail democracy there. As the degradation of state institutions continued, society’s extreme polarization and intolerance multiplied the risks for journalists.
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to request information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week. We are concerned that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities. During the early morning hours of March 26, 2003 (Baghdad time),…