BANGLADESH Rioting kicked off a three-month electoral season in October as the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) was accused of bias in the installation of an interim government and election commissioner. Fears of physical attacks against a politically divided press corps deepened along with the political crisis, as leaders of the rival Awami League threatened…
BURMA Military-run Burma, also known as Myanmar, remained one of the most repressive places for journalists, trailing only North Korea on CPJ’s 10 Most Censored Countries list. The junta, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), exerted Orwellian control over all media, harassing or jailing journalists who strayed from the official line…
CHINA In President Hu Jintao’s fourth year in power, his administration effectively silenced some of the best journalists in China by sidelining independent-minded editors, jailing online critics, and moving to restrict coverage of breaking news. The government drew international criticism for its actions against foreign news agencies and their employees–including convictions of Zhao Yan, a…
NEPAL Journalists played a lead role in resisting and ultimately reversing an audacious 14-month power grab by King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. Hundreds took to the streets in the capital, Kathmandu, and elsewhere to protest measures by the king to suspend radio news broadcasts and deploy the country’s security forces and civil authorities to…
PAKISTAN The military-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf, now in its eighth year, said in 2006 that it was fostering a free press, but the details belied the claim, and journalists continued to be targeted from many sides. While the government has allowed the expansion of broadcast media, a three-person CPJ delegation that met with…
PHILIPPINES The Philippines remained one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, but it also became one of the more litigious as numerous criminal defamation lawsuits were filed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s husband and other political figures. A deteriorating political situation and increased security concerns in February led Arroyo to declare a state…
SRI LANKA Hopes that the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels would be able to salvage their crumbling cease-fire were dashed in 2006. By September, the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were again locked in combat in the north and east of the country. While the conflict looked similar to that…
A year of political turmoil climaxed in a military coup that accelerated the deterioration of Thailand’s press freedom climate. Royalist generals seized power on September 19 while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York attending the U.N. General Assembly. The coup was condemned abroad, but the new leadership was endorsed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej,…
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…