John Emerson

AFTER PRIME MINISTER MELES ZENAWI AND ERITREAN PRESIDENT Isaias Afeworki signed a peace treaty on December 12, 2000, Zenawi announced that the end of the two-year-long border war would allow his government to strengthen Ethiopian democracy. But with seven journalists in jail at year’s end, it was unclear whether the newly reelected prime minister would…

FIJI’S PRESS, AMONG THE FREEST AND MOST DIVERSE IN THE PACIFIC REGION, endured a tumultuous year, marked by a coup attempt that effectively dismantled the country’s democratic foundations. While former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry had been a harsh critic of the press during his brief tenure, journalists came under much greater pressure during the months…

PRESS FREEDOM STANDARDS DECLINED SHARPLY LAST YEAR, a problem exacerbated by hostile public statements from Gambian government officials. Independent media, already beset by painful licensing procedures and fees, now faced the real threat of closure, as the government of President Yaya Jammeh moved to shore up its power in the wake of bloody student protests…

ALONG WITH ORGANIZED CRIME, SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS, and the excesses of regional strongmen, spillover from Russia’s war in neighboring Chechnya added to Georgia’s woes in 2000, making the lives of local journalists even more difficult. On October 16, the body of an Italian journalist who had covered the Chechen conflict was found on a mountain pass…

ON SEPTEMBER 27, GHANA’S VIBRANT INDEPENDENT MEDIA hosted Africa’s first-ever live presidential debate in advance of the December 7 national elections. The debates included six out of seven candidates for the presidency, reached an audience of several million Ghanaian voters, and helped boost the international popularity of outgoing president Jerry Rawlings, who stepped aside peacefully…

DESPITE THREATS AND INTIMIDATION, Guatemalan journalists continued to pursue dangerous stories, including investigations into military activities and a government intelligence agency. Perhaps the biggest story of the year was the August revelation that Guatemalan legislators had secretly conspired to reduce a new tax on alcoholic beverages. Among those implicated in the scandal was the president…

AS GUINEA’S INTERNAL POLITICS HEATED UP AND RELATIONS WORSENED with neighboring Liberia and war-torn Sierra Leone, the government grew even more hostile toward the independent media. Nevertheless, Guinea boasts a lively private press that emerged, along with multiparty democracy, in the early 1990s. Guinean journalists faced harassment, abusive detention, and even exile in reprisal for…

GUINEA-BISSAU REMAINS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN WEST AFRICA that has not signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 19 of which guarantees press freedom. In the absence of an international legal standard, the democratically elected but unstable new government of President Kumba Yala was quick to wield strong-arm tactics, along with a…

PRESS FREEDOM IN THE MEMBER STATES of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)-Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-remained constrained by conservative, monarchical regimes. Although private media in these countries enjoy generous budgets and state-of-the-art technology, they face varying constraints on their ability to report news and opinion. Censorship, self-censorship, and…

HAITIAN JOURNALISM RECEIVED A TERRIBLE BLOW in the April assassination of Jean Léopold Dominique, the country’s most prominent journalist and a veteran advocate of free speech. On April 3, an unidentified gunman shot Dominique seven times as he entered Radio Haïti Inter’s courtyard for his morning broadcast. Security guard Jean-Claude Louissaint was also shot dead…