ATR

Government security forces intimidated and harassed critical journalists, particularly political commentators on the country’s many popular radio talk shows. Criminal defamation and sedition laws were the main weapons in the government’s legal attacks on the press, although a case pending before the Supreme Court held some promise that the laws might be declared unconstitutional.

Throughout the year, President Islam Karimov’s administration sought to persuade the European Union and Western nations that it was on a path of reform. It urged the EU to lift sanctions imposed in 2005 after Uzbek troops killed hundreds of citizens during antigovernment protests in the eastern city of Andijan. Lobbying efforts notwithstanding, the government…

President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, startled by balloting that threatened their 28-year rule, unleashed a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters and the press. Veteran journalist Geoff Hill described the weeks between the first round of voting in March and a runoff in June as “the worst time for journalists in Zimbabwe’s history,” a…

New York, January 30, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about mounting government threats to media and Internet freedom in Thailand, including legal action against community radio stations and censoring thousands of Web sites.

CPJ wrote to the prime minister of Thailand today to express our grave concern about the country’s fast-deteriorating media climate and to call on him to decisively reaffirm Thailand’s commitment to a free press and open Internet.

New York, January 23, 2009–President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government must act to stem a worsening security crisis in the media in the wake of another attack on a Sri Lankan newspaper editor outside the capital, Colombo, this morning, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Dear President Biya: We are writing to express our alarm that four newspaper editors have been jailed in Cameroon for their work since September–making your country the second-worst jailer of journalists in Africa, according to our research.

New York, January 8, 2009–B.V. Seetaram and his wife, Rohini, who head the media group Chithra Publications in Karnataka state, southern India, have been in judicial custody since Sunday in connection with two-year old criminal charges relating to their newspapers, according to local news reports.

New York, January 8, 2009–With today’s murder of the editor-in-chief of the The Sunday Leader newspaper, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on concerned ambassadors in Colombo to weigh in forcefully and immediately with President Mahinda Rajapaksa to put an end to the attacks raining down on Sri Lanka’s media. 

New York, January 6, 2009–Following today’s early morning assault by about 15 masked gunmen on Sirasa TV’s studios outside the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for an independent, nonpartisan parliamentary board of inquiry to investigate.