In 2003, presidential and parliamentary elections dominated Armenia’s political scene. Though President Robert Kocharian managed to retain power, tens of thousands of demonstrators angered by widespread electoral fraud took to the streets in protest before the March runoff, calling for his resignation.
In January 2003, President Heydar Aliyev froze the print media’s debts to the state publishing house through 2005. But that was the only positive development for the Azerbaijani press in what turned out to be a dismal year. With Aliyev’s health failing as 2003 wore on, he began grooming his son Ilham Aliyev to take…
Squeezed by the expansion of NATO and the European Union to the west and tepid relations with Russia to the east, Belarus grew ever more isolated. In the face of that isolation, President Aleksandr Lukashenko continued his assault on the media in 2003, tightening his grip on the impoverished country. Local analysts suspect that Lukashenko’s…
Corruption and political chaos in Bosnia and Herzegovina gave journalists many scandals to cover in 2003, from massive fraud at state power companies to illegal weapons sales to Iraq. Journalists endured a wide array of harassment and abuses, including threatening phone calls, politically motivated tax inspections, retaliatory lawsuits, and physical attacks, most of which were…
Gradual political stabilization in the western Balkans and the implementation of political reforms required for Croatia to join the European Union by 2007 have led to greater press freedom and media pluralism in the country. However, rivalries in the ruling reformist coalition, a powerful far-right opposition, politicized media owners, and a judiciary in need of…
After 11 years in office, President Eduard Shevardnadze and his corruption-ridden government grew increasingly unpopular in 2003. Approval ratings plummeted, culminating in November elections marred by widespread fraud that discredited pro-Shevardnadze forces’ claim of victory. Facing escalating protests against the poll, the president resigned on November 23. New presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled for…
The brutal murder of a French journalist in the Ivory Coast in October highlighted the lack of security in the country in 2003. The killing came after the collapse of the government of national reconciliation in September, when rebels walked out and accused President Laurent Gbagbo of refusing to fully implement the peace process. Despite…
President Nursultan Nazarbayev continued his intense persecution of Kazakhstan’s independent media in 2003, silencing government critics and sidelining opposition to his autocratic policies and control over the country’s billion-dollar oil and gas industries. Anyone who criticizes the president, his family, and his associates can be criminally prosecuted, and the government’s growing persecution of the media…
Once regarded as one of Central Asia’s more progressive countries, impoverished Kyrgyzstan has become highly repressive when it comes to the press. Despite having cast himself as a liberal when he took office in 1991, in recent years President Askar Akayev has tightened the government’s grip on the independent and opposition media.
Moldova has emerged from the Soviet era with many of the problems that plague other states in the region: an ongoing separatist conflict dividing the nation’s ethnic populations, widespread government corruption, financial hardship, and a biased judiciary. Unlike many other former Soviet republics, however, Moldova has neither the natural resources nor the geopolitical importance to…