India

The news media were caught in the middle of a deepening power struggle between the leftist government of President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, and the conservative opposition governors of the eastern lowlands. The battle was fueled by rising ethnic tensions between Bolivia’s indigenous majority, centered in the capital, La Paz, and the European-descended opposition…

Burma’s already beleaguered journalists came under heavy attack after massive Cyclone Nargis pounded the country’s southern coastal region in May, killing an estimated 84,500 people and severely affecting another 2.4 million, according to U.N. estimates. As local and international criticism grew over a slow and inadequate response to the natural disaster, the military junta intensified…

In the year of the “One World, One Dream” Olympics, China’s punitive and highly restrictive press policies became a global issue. International reporters who arrived early to prepare for the Games flocked to cover antigovernment riots in Tibet and western provinces in March and the Sichuan earthquake in May. They encountered the sweeping official interference…

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s government maintained leverage over print media through a renewable licensing system that enabled authorities to suspend or revoke publications when coverage was deemed controversial. Officials charged journalists under national security laws such as the Internal Security Act and Sedition Act, which carried significant prison penalties. These threats of imprisonment and license…

Nepal made a historic shift in 2008 from a monarchy to a coalition-ruled democratic republic under the leadership of a former Maoist guerrilla. Journalists’ uncertainty about the ex-rebel leader’s newfound legitimacy was apparent as they struggled to find a way to refer to him in print. Most hedged their bets and used his given name,…

Military leader Pervez Musharraf resigned as president in August under threat of impeachment, leaving a decidedly mixed legacy on press freedom. As his power waned in late 2007, Musharraf shut down all independent broadcasters for a time and then tried to impose a rigid “code of conduct” on the stations.

Four years after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo moved to create a police task force dedicated to investigating journalist murders, CPJ research showed the impunity rate in these cases remained about 90 percent, one of the highest in the world. A CPJ study into slain journalists worldwide found that the absence of justice tended to promote a…

A 2002 cease-fire between the predominantly Sinhalese government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which claims territory for an ethnic Tamil homeland, was abandoned in January. Ethnic Tamil journalists perceived as supporting independence have long been under murderous attack, but 2008 brought an escalation in physical and verbal attacks on mainstream journalists who…

A coalition government led by the People Power Party crumbled in December in the face of intense months-long street protests. As demonstrations reached a crescendo in late November, violence spread across the capital, Bangkok, and protesters laid siege to domestic and international airports. Media outlets were targeted by both pro- and antigovernment protesters.

The government cracked down on journalists, bloggers, and pro-democracy activists, sending some to jail and harassing many others. The campaign of repression reversed a brief period of liberalization that accompanied the country’s 2007 accession to the World Trade Organization.