Nepal’s ruling coalition failed to meet the Supreme Court’s May deadline to complete a constitution, dissolving the legislature amid political rifts that left the republic’s leadership in doubt. Nationwide strikes by political activists and ethnic minority groups advocating federalization resulted in journalists’ being harassed and attacked for perceived negative coverage. The majority Maoist party-controlled magazine…
Journalists faced numerous attacks during a tumultuous year marked by the ouster of President Mohamed Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected leader. Nasheed opponents attacked TV stations and journalists in the capital, Malé, after protests against his government escalated in early year. Nasheed, a former human rights defender and political prisoner who was elected president…
Violence plagued journalists in northeastern Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh, including four attacks on the Arunachal Times. Tongam Rina, a columnist for the paper, survived a shooting that put her in intensive care for a time. The authorities blocked hundreds of websites they claimed incited ethnic and religious protests in Assam and beyond, but the…
As the leadership handed over power to new Communist Party appointees in a November congress, censors aggressively blocked coverage of dissent, including reports on blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng’s escape from house arrest. Coverage of corruption was tightly controlled in foreign and domestic media. The New York Times and Bloomberg News were censored domestically after…
Burma eased media restrictions in line with its historic transition from military to quasi-civilian rule. At least 12 journalists, including those associated with banned exile media groups, were released in a series of pardons. The government abolished pre-publication censorship–a process that had forced private newspapers to publish in weekly formats–and it allowed coverage of many…
Long-standing antagonism between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League and the opposition Bangladesh National Party—what critics call “zero-sum politics”—set off street violence that threatened the safety of journalists. A constitutional amendment eliminated the creation of caretaker governments to oversee general elections, a step likely to intensify political passions surrounding the scheduled 2013 vote. The…
For the first time since 2005, CPJ documented no work-related fatalities in Afghanistan. But the country remained a dangerous place, with many international and domestic journalists telling CPJ that they had received threats during the year. News outlets united to slow the advance of a media bill that, with its vague terminology, would allow for…
Analyses and data track press conditions throughout the region. Bob Dietz describes the challenges facing Afghan media as international aid declines. Shawn W. Crispin details increasing Internet repression in Southeast Asia. And Madeline Earp highlights China’s growing hostility toward the foreign press–even as the nation pursues its own global media expansion.
Killed in 2012: A Worldwide Roundup The number of journalists killed in the line of duty rose sharply in 2012, as the war in Syria, a record number of shootings in Somalia, continued violence in Pakistan, and a worrying increase in Brazilian murders contributed to a 49 percent increase in deaths from the previous…