WITH A PALESTINIAN UPRISING RAGING IN THE ISRAELI-OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, the Oslo peace process dead, and his popularity slipping, the future of Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian National Authority (PNA) seemed precarious. But Arafat’s leadership position appeared unchallenged for the time being, with the result that press freedom remained under threat. The year was marked by…
IN DECEMBER, STRONGMAN OMAR HASSAN AL-BASHIR WON overwhelmingly in presidential elections that were boycotted by Sudan’s two main opposition parties. Both parties had conditioned their participation on an end to the 17-year civil war and to human-rights abuses, including restrictions on the press. State harassment of journalists and newspapers has been a persistent feature of…
PRESIDENT HAFEZ AL-ASSAD’S DEATH IN JUNE, after a 30-year reign, marked the passing of one of the most repressive dictators in modern Middle Eastern history. Assad ruled a police state that eliminated political opponents and stifled all independent debate. No independent or private media existed, and newspapers, television, and radio were mere propaganda outlets for…
PRESIDENT ZINE AL-ABIDINE BEN ALI CONTINUED TO DENY BASIC LIBERTIES, including press freedom, even as his government’s shameful human-rights record came under increased international scrutiny. For the third year in a row, CPJ named Ben Ali to its annual list of the “Ten Worst Enemies of the Press.” Over the years, Ben Ali has stifled…
In December 1999, the European Union (EU) finally agreed to accept Turkey’s application for membership. Yet questions remained about the government’s committment to the human-rights reforms needed to actually join the EU. If press freedom is any indicator, Turkey has a long way to go. Government censorship, criminal prosecutions, physical attacks, and imprisonment were among…
SINCE THE UNIFICATION OF NORTH AND SOUTH YEMEN IN 1990, the Yemeni press has become exceptionally free by Arabian peninsula standards. But in the past six years, authorities have aggressively moved to narrow existing press freedoms via criminal prosecutions, censorship, and intimidation. Taken together, these actions have helped foster an increasing climate of self-censorship in…
EIGHTY-ONE JOURNALISTS WERE IN PRISON AROUND THE WORLD at the end of 2000, jailed for practicing their profession. The number is down slightly from the previous year, when 87 were in jail, and represents a significant decline from 1998, when 118 journalists were imprisoned. While jailing journalists can be an effective means of stifling bad…
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply alarmed by the prison sentences and harsh financial penalties handed down on March 1 against two journalists at the weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Abou Bakr Jamai, publications director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire and Ali Ammar, the newspaper’s general director, were convicted of defaming Foreign Minister Muhammed Ben Aissa and sentenced to jail terms of three and two months, respectively. Both men were also ordered to pay fines and damages totaling 2,020,000 Dirhams (about US$200,000). The charges stemmed from articles published last year in Le Journal Hebdomadaire’s now-defunct weekly predecessor, Le Journal. These had alleged that Ben Aissa profited from the purchase of an official residence during his tenure as Morocco’s ambassador to the United States in the late 1990s.
First, let us take another look at the chronology of this terrifying event: Interior Minister Saadettin Tantan tells Justice Minister Hikmet Sami Turk that Prosecutor Oktar Cakir is “involved in malfeasance.” The Justice Minister then conveys this information to the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors, which will elect the new chief prosecutor of the…