During 2002, Bulgaria was invited to join NATO in 2004, but the European Union (EU) postponed Bulgaria’s admission until 2007 at the earliest. The EU’s decision reflected concern about the country’s economic underdevelopment, rampant corruption, weak judiciary, and politicized Prosecutor General’s Office. Bulgarian journalists, meanwhile, spent much of 2002 covering local drug gangs and police…
December 11 Jonathan C. Randal, The Washington Post The U.N. International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (ICTY) ruled to limit compelled testimony from war correspondents. The decision, announced at the tribunal’s Appeals Chamber, came in response to the appeal by former Washington Post reporter Jonathan C. Randal, who had been…
Emboldened by the growing number of U.S. troops in the country, President Askar Akayev has used the threat of international terrorism as an excuse to curb political dissent and suppress the independent and opposition media in Kyrgyzstan. Compliant courts often issue exorbitant damage awards in politically motivated libel suits, driving even the country’s most prominent…
Press freedom is generally respected in the United Kingdom, but CPJ was alarmed by a legal case in which Interbrew, a Belgium-based brewing group, and the British Financial Services Authority (FSA), a banking and investment watchdog agency, demanded that several U.K. media outlets turn over documents that had been leaked to them. The case threatened…
During 2001, media outlets that criticized ruling authorities faced harassment, while journalists investigating politically sensitive issues, such as official corruption and organized crime, continued to suffer threats and intimidation for their work. A crisis erupted at Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), the country’s largest and most influential media outlet, after the director’s term expired on January…
POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…
WHILE BULGARIA PURSUED A BROAD RANGE OF LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS last year, living standards have been slow to improve and corrupt insiders have been the main beneficiaries of privatization. Journalists had more freedom to work independently, but many were still reluctant to pursue controversial stories due to concerns about physical security and legal harassment.…
By Chrystyna Lapychak Wars in Yugoslavia and Chechnya dominated regional and international headlines in 1999. The conflicts raised the journalists’ death toll in the region and prompted crackdowns, as governments blocked access to war zones and engaged in propaganda campaigns.