India

There were 118 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2001 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is up significantly from the previous year, when 81 journalists were in jail, and represents a return to the level of 1998, when 118 were also imprisoned.

PREFACE by Ann Garrels INTRODUCTION by Ann Cooper REGIONAL ANALYSES: AFRICA | AMERICAS | ASIA | EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA | MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA AFRICA: Country summaries Angola | Benin | Botswana | Burkina Faso | Burundi | Cameroon | Central African Republic | Chad | Comoros | Democratic Republic of Congo |…

Journalists across Asia faced extraordinary pressures in 2001. Risks included reporting on war and insurgency, covering crime and corruption, or simply expressing a dissenting view in an authoritarian state. CPJ’s two most striking indices of press freedom are the annual toll of journalists killed around the world and our list of journalists imprisoned at the…

In recent years, it had become common for people who care about Afghanistan to worry about its growing invisibility. The all-encompassing burqa gown, which the ruling Taliban forced women to wear, seemed a metaphor for the militia’s efforts to hide Afghanistan’s people and problems from the world. Visits by foreign correspondents were restricted; taking pictures…

In 2001, the anti-corruption watchdog group Transparency International ranked Bangladesh the most corrupt country in the world. The almost complete collapse of law and order in the country was seen as one of the prime reasons behind the fall from power of the Awami League. The year began with a brutal attack on a young…

Press freedom is generally respected in Canada, and CPJ does not routinely monitor conditions in the country. However, police harassment of journalists covering demonstrations; investigations into past violent attacks against journalists; and proposed anti-terrorism legislation were all issues of concern last year.

After years of wrangling, Chile’s Congress finally passed a press law repealing some of the country’s most draconian defamation and libel statutes. There has been intense international pressure to rid Chile’s legal system of its severe restrictions on the press. But local media also credit President Ricardo Lagos with reviving the reforms, which were stalled…

Ongoing political turbulence continued to plague Fiji’s media. Tensions between indigenous Fijians and those of Indian descent are often played out in the media, which is divided along ethnic and linguistic lines. The year began with Court of Appeal hearings to determine the legality of prime minister Laisenia Qarase’s interim government, which was installed with…

A year of extraordinary violence and political upheaval severely strained Nepal’s young democracy and posed profound challenges for the country’s media. Scores of journalists were detained after the declaration of emergency regulations in November, and 17 remained in prison at year’s end. The first major crisis for the press in 2001 began on June 1,…

Working as a journalist in Pakistan has long been a tricky business, and the threats only intensified after September 11, when the military government repudiated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and then Islamist militant groups at home in order to align itself with the United States in a global “war on terror.”