ATR

THREE YEARS SINCE HIS NATIONAL PATRIOTIC PARTY (NPP) came to power after multiparty elections ended a brutal, eight-year civil war, Liberian president Charles Taylor has become one of Africa’s fiercest enemies of the press. On March 15, for example, Taylor’s government shut down the independent station Star Radio and suspended the Catholic Church-owned Radio Veritas.…

IN A WATERSHED YEAR FOR MEXICAN DEMOCRACY, the dissolution of ties between much of the media and the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) helped foster a more professional and competitive press in 2000. The election of National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox to the presidency on July 2 ended the PRI’s 71-year hold on…

CENSORSHIP, PROFESSIONAL BANNINGS, AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS were among the official acts that eroded press freedom in Morocco in 2000, reversing gains seen in the final two years of the late King Hassan II’s reign, and following the 1999 coronation of his son, the liberal-minded King Muhammed VI. In December, the government permanently banned the weekly…

NAMIBIA, REGARDED AS A MODEL OF DEMOCRACY, peace, and stability in southern Africa over the past decade, celebrated its 10th anniversary of independence last year, along with the inauguration of President Sam Nujoma to an unprecedented third term in office. The celebrations were marred, however, by the country’s involvement in several armed conflicts and by…

WITH A PALESTINIAN UPRISING RAGING IN THE ISRAELI-OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, the Oslo peace process dead, and his popularity slipping, the future of Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian National Authority (PNA) seemed precarious. But Arafat’s leadership position appeared unchallenged for the time being, with the result that press freedom remained under threat. The year was marked by…

THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE GEN. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF sought to create an impression of benign rule last year. In part, this meant avoiding the bare-knuckle tactics that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif used to control the press. However, Musharraf’s patience with his critics seemed to be wearing thin toward the end of 2000, and…

PERU’S INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS HELPED drive President Alberto K. Fujimori from power after forcing his once-mighty intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos into exile. Fujimori’s November departure led to the unshackling of the independent press, which had seriously suffered under a regime that tried to manipulate public information for a decade. President Fujimori used all resources at his…

THE RAUCOUS PHILIPPINE PRESS TOOK CENTER STAGE as President Joseph Estrada faced mounting scandals and a televised impeachment trial in the Senate. The crisis began after a one-time crony of Estrada accused the former movie actor of accepting millions of dollars in illegal gambling payoffs. Estrada’s predicament was a riveting media event, and press investigations…

THE ASCENDANCY OF PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN brought an alarming assault on press freedom in Russia last year. Under the new president, the Kremlin imposed censorship in Chechnya, orchestrated legal cases against powerful media barons, and granted sweeping powers of surveillance to the security services (see special report).

WHEN FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT in April, he berated local reporters for exaggerating Rwanda’s problems. Nevertheless, there were plenty of genuine problems for the country’s media to report. In neighboring Tanzania, meanwhile, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was coming to grips with the 1994 slaughter of nearly a million…