Overviewby Abi Wright Threats to press freedom spiked throughout Asia in 2004, even as the news media claimed significant accomplishments. Across the region, 2004 was an election year, with citizens casting ballots in nations such as Afghanistan, whose landmark vote was peaceful and orderly, and India, where more than 370 million went to the polls.…
IndiaIn a stunning upset, India’s voters surprised the media and the world by rejecting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalism in favor of the secular Indian National Congress party in general elections in May. However, despite the general disavowal of extremism at the polls, ethnic and religious tensions persisted in the…
The Toll: 1995-2004 Each year in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) publishes a list of journalists killed in the line of duty around the world. This list has become the most widely cited press freedom statistic and is often seen as a barometer of the state of global press freedom. While the correlation…
New York, November 12, 2004—The battered body of a local newspaper editor from the eastern state of Orissa was found by the side of a highway near the village of Bhagirathipur on Tuesday, November 9, police sources told the Press Trust of India (PTI), a national newswire service. Dilip Mohapatra, editor of the Oriya-language newspaper…
New York, September 27, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Saturday’s attack on photographers Rafiq Maqbool of The Associated Press, and Amin War of the national newspaper The Tribune, who were beaten by police while covering a violent demonstration in Srinagar, the summer capital of war-torn Kashmir. Maqbool and War were photographing as many as…
New York, August 26, 2004—Two unidentified assailants stabbed the editor of the Marathi-language daily Mahanagar outside his office in Mumbai on the evening of August 24. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating whether the attack was related to Sajid Rashid’s work as a journalist. The men approached Rashid, 48, as he was leaving…
New York, April 22, 2004—A journalist was killed in a mine explosion in India-controlled Kashmir on Tuesday, April 20. Asiya Jeelani died en route to the hospital after the van she was traveling in, which was being used by an elections monitoring team sent by a local umbrella organization, the Coalition of Civil Society, detonated…
By Ann CooperIn real-time images, the war in Iraq splashed across television screens worldwide in March, with thousands of journalists covering the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein and his regime. The conflict and its aftermath had a far-reaching impact on the press and its ability to report the news, with the reverberations felt in some…
Across Asia, press freedom conditions varied radically in 2003, from authoritarian regimes with strictly regulated state-controlled media in North Korea and Laos, to democratic nations with outspoken and diverse journalism in India and Taiwan. Members of the media throughout the region struggled against excessive government interference, outdated press laws, violent attacks, and imprisonment for their…