ATR

DESPITE PRESS FREEDOM ADVANCES ACROSS ASIA IN RECENT YEARS, totalitarian regimes in Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos maintained their stranglehold on the media. Even democratic Asian governments sometimes used authoritarian tactics to control the press, particularly when faced with internal conflict. Sri Lanka, for instance, imposed harsh censorship regulations during the year in…

AS ANGOLA’S AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUED ITS LONG SIEGE against all forms of dissent last year, independent journalists received special attention from the repressive apparatus of the state. Although most private media outlets are weekly newspapers that reach no more than a few thousand people, the hypersensitive regime of President José Eduardo dos Santos has routinely…

IN A FRUSTRATING YEAR FOR PRESS FREEDOM in Argentina, a proposed bill that would have eliminated criminal penalties for defamation cases involving public officials foundered after local journalists implicated members of the Senate in a major bribery scandal. Senators who had supported the proposed bill quickly withdrew their support. The long battle to reform Argentina’s…

PRESIDENT HEIDAR ALIYEV AND OTHER AZERBAIJANI OFFICIALS repeatedly proclaimed their support for freedoms of association and expression, but the November parliamentary elections highlighted the regime’s authoritarianism. The government banned opposition rallies, harassed opposition leaders, and temporarily suspended several opposition parties from the contest. International observers found multiple problems with the election itself, which was nevertheless…

PRIOR TO THE OCTOBER 15 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS, President Aleksandr Lukashenko cracked down on political dissent in Belarus, including the independent media. Lukashenko, who refused to step down when his term expired in 1999, was expected to maintain his repressive ways in 2001, when the country faces presidential elections. Three months before the election, opposition parties…

WITH LOCAL MEDIA SPLIT ALONG ETHNIC LINES and nationalist parties that found many ways to intimidate the press, Bosnia and Herzegovina made only modest press freedom gains in 2000. In the broader context of recovery under the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, more war criminals were captured and more minority refugees returned to their pre-war homes.…

NOVEMBER 4 MARKED PRESIDENT PAUL BIYA’S 18TH YEAR as leader of a regime that has persistently been accused of human rights violations. Cameroonian law enforcement officials make “widespread and systematic” use of torture, according to a March report by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The pompous anniversary celebrations failed to impress Cameroonian journalists,…

WHILE CZECH JOURNALISTS HAVE GAINED EXTENSIVE FREEDOMS since the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Czech media continued to face pressure from both political and business interests last year. On December 20, the politically appointed supervisors of the state-run Czech Television network abruptly dismissed general director Dusan Chmelicek and appointed Jiri Hodac in his place. Hodac had resigned…

PRESS FREEDOM HAS BEEN ONE OF MANY CASUALTIES OF THE CIVIL WAR that began as a rebel insurgency in August 1998 and has continued to destabilize the entire region, with Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supporting President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, and Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi fighting on the side of Congolese rebel forces (although Kabila’s army includes…

REVERSALS IN THE BORDER WAR WITH ETHIOPIA and the signing of a peace agreement in December gave rise to a few skeptical stirrings in the Eritrean press. But the generally patriotic, pro-state orientation of local journalists impeded independent verification of reported press freedom abuses. In October, eight independent journalists were arrested for avoiding military service,…