ATR

BahrainThe government uses a number of tools to hinder independent reporting, chief among them a controversial press law imposed in October 2002. The law, criticized by Bahraini journalists and political activists, allows journalists to be fined and jailed and permits officials to close publications by court order. The law bans criticism of Islam and King…

BangladeshThe Bangladeshi press endured another volatile and violent year in 2004, with three journalists murdered in retaliation for their work, scores of death threats from extremist groups, and routine harassment and physical attacks. A CPJ delegation that conducted a fact-finding and advocacy mission to the country in March concluded that Bangladesh was the most dangerous…

Ecuador Lucio Gutiérrez, who was elected president in 2002 on an anticorruption platform, repeatedly lashed out at the press in 2004 over allegations of nepotism and campaign finance irregularities. The president and government officials regularly accused the media of “spreading half-truths.” Given the government’s hostility, journalists fear that a new access to information law may…

Eritrea Three years after a brutal crackdown in which the government shuttered independent media outlets and detained large numbers of critics, Eritrea remained the leading jailer of journalists in Africa. Seventeen journalists were still in prison at the end of 2004, many held incommunicado in secret jails, according to CPJ research.

The Gambia The December murder of veteran journalist and press freedom activist Deyda Hydara fueled mounting fears among journalists and punctuated a year marked by arson attacks, threats, and repressive legislation aimed at the independent media in this tiny West African country. President Yahya Jammeh and his ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC)…

GeorgiaMany in the news media had high hopes that this South Caucasus nation would pursue a path of greater press freedom due to the instrumental role that journalists played in the “Rose Revolution,” which swept President Eduard Shevardnadze and his corruption-riddled Cabinet out of office in November 2003. The independent television station Rustavi-2 was particularly…

IraqFor the second consecutive year, Iraq was the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist, and the conflict there remained one of the most deadly in recent history for the media. Twenty-three journalists were killed in action in 2004, along with 16 media workers.

Ivory Coast Although legislation passed at the end of 2004 eliminated criminal penalties for most press offenses, journalists in Ivory Coast face much more immediate and dangerous threats, including harassment and violence, amid the political tension and uncertainty that have engulfed the country since civil war began in 2002. Serious attacks on the press have…

Nepal Amid an explosive civil conflict between Maoist rebels and government forces, the safety of the Nepalese press hung on the fragile prospects for peace. Estimates of the death toll since the collapse of a six-month cease-fire in August 2003 vary, but local journalists say heavy fighting in 2004 killed several thousand people. According to…

RussiaA midyear purge of independent voices on state television and an alarming suppression of news coverage during the Beslan hostage crisis marked a year in which Russian President Vladimir Putin increasingly exerted Soviet-style control over the media. Using intelligence agents and an array of politicized state agencies, Putin pushed for an obedient and patriotic press…