Top Developments • ANC pushes proposal to create state media tribunal to monitor, sanction press. • Anti-media rhetoric heats up, tarnishing nation’s image as press freedom leader. Key Statistic 25: Years of imprisonment for disclosing classified information, as proposed in the Protection of Information Bill. On the defensive about high crime rates and reports of…
Top Developments • Anti-government cartoonist missing; police make no evident effort to find him. • Government readies plan for a strict media regulatory agency. Key Statistic 19: Journalists in exile, having fled violence, imprisonment, and intimidation. In his Independence Day speech on February 4, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared that the country “cannot be…
Top Developments • Censorship intensifies before election; beatings, imprisonments reported. • Authorities use surveillance, harassment, severe legal restrictions to control news. Key Statistic 3: Rai al-Shaab journalists imprisoned, one of whom reported being tortured in custody. Sudanese journalists faced a familiar, toxic combination of censorship, legalistic harassment, and intimidation as a potentially historic national election…
Top Developments • Using emergency decree, government blocks access to thousands of websites. • CPJ faults government, protesters for lethal violence against media. Key Statistic 2: Journalists killed during violent clashes between security forces and protesters in Bangkok. Armed clashes between anti-government protesters and state security forces resulted in 91 deaths and more than 1,800…
Top Developments • Targeting journalists, government criminalizes contact with foreign organizations. • Private broadcast licenses are controlled by Ben Ali’s family and friends. Key Statistic 5: Years of imprisonment for violations of new law barring contact with foreign groups. Tunisia remained one of the region’s most repressive nations even as it sought to project an…
Top Developments • Authorities use anti-terror, defamation, security laws to prosecute journalists. • EU criticizes press record, citing prosecutions, insufficient legal guarantees. Key Statistic 0: Convictions obtained in the 2007 slaying of editor Hrant Dink. Authorities paraded journalists into court on anti-terror, criminal defamation, and state security charges as they tried to suppress critical news…
Top Developments • Electronic surveillance measure enacted; may chill news reporting. • Court strikes down sedition law used against critical journalists. Key Statistic 5: Journalists assaulted during clashes between security forces and members of the Buganda kingdom. Authorities harassed and obstructed journalists covering two stories that shook the nation: a fire that destroyed a historic…
Top Developments • Provincial reporters targeted in a series of attacks; editor reported missing. • Television journalists continue to face heavy political influence. Key Statistic 1: Mastermind identified in Gongadze murder. Prosecutors stir controversy by blaming only a dead official for the plot. The disappearance of a critical editor, a series of violent attacks, and…
Top Developments • U.S. military ignores call for probe into killings of 16 journalists in Iraq. • Under Pearl Act, State Department will track press freedom worldwide. Key Statistic 14: Journalists imprisoned by U.S. military forces for prolonged periods without charge between 2004 and 2010. In two important advances, Congress passed legislation to track press…
Top Developments • State deploys analysts to build sweeping criminal defamation cases. • Numerous regional and international news websites are blocked. Key Statistic 6: Journalists in prison on December 1, the highest figure in the region. Even as President Islam Karimov was calling for more “active” news reporting, his government was rolling out a new…