By Ann CooperAs a foreign correspondent covering the Soviet Union a decade ago, I was an eyewitness to a dramatic example of the press’ critical role in building democracy. Granted a bit of freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev’s mid-1980s glasnost policy, long-suppressed Soviet journalists set their own daring agenda: they probed forbidden history, investigated contemporary corruption,…
By Kavita Menon and A. Lin NeumannMuch of Asia remained hostile to a free, independent media, despite the growing consensus that Asian political and economic stability depends in great measure on governments’ willingness to improve transparency and lift restrictions on the press. In China, Burma, Vietnam, and even Malaysia, government suppression of the media is…
[Click here for full list of documented cases] At its most fundamental level, the job of a journalist is to bear witness. In 1999, journalists in Sierra Leone witnessed rebels’ atrocities against civilians in the streets of Freetown. In the Balkans, journalists watched ethnic Albanians fleeing the deadly menace of Serbian police and paramilitaries. In…
In August, as East Timor prepared to vote on whether to declare independence from Indonesia, military-backed, pro-Indonesia militias threatened, harassed and physically assaulted journalists covering the disputed territory. The attacks began shortly after the announcement in March of a United Nations-brokered agreement to hold an August 30 referendum on the independence issue. The Indonesian military…
Mr. Martin, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the killing of Agus Muliawan, an Indonesian journalist who was among a group of nine church workers massacred on Saturday, September 25, as they traveled to Baucau from Lospalos, East Timor. The gunmen were identified in Western news reports as Indonesian troops or pro-Jakarta militia.
Sander Thoenes on why the generals cannot be written off as a political force in Indonesia Jakarta— Foreign troops restoring order in East Timor may represent a humiliation for the Indonesian military but the generals who ruled for more than 30 years cannot be written off, according to analysts in Jakarta.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the Indonesian military’s detention of the American journalist Allan Nairn in Dili, the capital of East Timor. Nairn has been covering East Timor for the U.S.-based Pacifica Radio program “Democracy Now!” and the political weekly The Nation.
BANGKOK—When machete-wielding thugs set upon journalists in East Timor after the territory’s Aug. 30 vote for independence, it looked like another gruesome case of the press caught between warring sides. Deplorable, yes, but it comes with the territory if you choose to cover the front lines in conflict zones.
Journalists in Jakarta estimate that 1,000 new publications have sprung up throughout the country since Suharto was forced from office a year ago. While some of them are supported by one or another of the 48 political parties vying in the June 7 elections, many others profess independence and seek readers rather than partisan victories.…
In the run-up to August’s United Nations-sponsored vote on East Timor’s future status, political instability in the territory has escalated dramatically, prompting fears of a full-scale civil war. This grim backdrop is darkened further by the scarcity of independent news and information reaching East Timor’s citizens as they choose whether to accept Indonesia’s offer of…