John Emerson

The Czech Republic became a member of NATO in March and continues to look westward toward EU membership in the next few years. The country is moving steadily toward stability and respect for democratic rights, but its overall good record on press freedom was tarnished by the new government’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the press.…

The civil war that began as a rebel insurgency in August 1998 continued to destabilize the entire region, with Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supporting President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s government and Rwanda and Uganda fighting on the side of Congolese rebel forces. From the beginning, President Kabila has tended to blame his military setbacks on the local…

On April 16, Ismael Omar Guelleh, lifelong protégé of retiring president Hassan Gouled Aptidon (who had ruled this small Horn of Africa nation since its independence from France in 1977) was elected head of state amid allegations of massive fraud. Shortly after the election, disagreements between the majority Issa ethnic group, which dominates the state…

Dominican journalists reported very few restrictions on press freedom last year. However, two major developments raised concern among the local press. In September, the electoral board passed a resolution imposing restrictions on campaign advertising for the May 2000 presidential elections. The resolution requires news organizations to accept price controls for advertising and denied them the…

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…

During the worst economic crisis in Ecuadoran history, local journalists reported no major restrictions on their ability to cover the news, although defamation continues to be a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. On April 30, Congress lifted the value-added tax exemption on the distribution of newspapers, reportedly because of the economy’s…

For the second consecutive year, President Hosni Mubarak’s government ignored vocal protests against the state’s use of criminal and libel laws to muzzle journalists. At least 11 reporters and editors were investigated or tried for libel and other alleged publications offenses. According to Egyptian human-rights organizations, dozens of criminal cases were pending against members of…

While access to information remained the primary concern for journalists in El Salvador, new legal restrictions provoked loud protests. And a series of violent threats against journalists suggested continuing intolerance for a press that has grown more assertive in recent years. (See the special report on postwar journalism in El Salvador and Guatemala.) President Francisco…

Since Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, neither the concept of press freedom nor the reality of a free press has made much headway, according to Eritrean journalists. Local media continued to be dominated by jingoistic coverage of the ongoing war with Ethiopia, which broke out in May 1998. Eritrea has one state newspaper…

In past years, Ethiopia has had one of the worst records for imprisoning journalists in Africa. At one point in 1998, about two dozen journalists were in prison, many for criticizing the government’s close relationship with Eritrea. But that number dropped by about half after the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea erupted in May 1998.…