ATR

Under the rule of President Mathieu Kerekou, who was elected in April 1996 after ruling as a left-leaning military dictator from 1972 until 1989, the Benin government has won international praise for its efforts to liberalize the country’s political environment. These efforts have not always worked to the advantage of local journalists. In January, the…

Journalists in Bosnia-Herzegovina suffered physical attacks that ranged from beatings and abduction to the car-bombing of a noted Bosnian Serb newspaper editor. The attack on Zeljko Kopanja came in October, after his Banja Luka paper published investigative reports about alleged war crimes and acts of corruption committed by Bosnian Serbs. Reports from the Helsinki Committee…

Conditions for the heavily-controlled Chinese press worsened dramatically in 1999 as a broad clampdown on dissent and free expression led to fresh arrests of journalists, massive propaganda campaigns and systematic efforts by the secret police to monitor and control the Internet. Eleven journalists were arrested in 1999, bringing the total number of journalists in prison…

In a year that saw both an escalation of Colombia’s armed conflict and a tentative beginning of peace negotiations, the press found itself in the crosshairs of nearly every party to the increasingly complicated civil war. Five journalists were killed in the line of duty, while scores of others were threatened, attacked, or kidnapped. Colombian…

President Fidel Castro Ruz’s government did its best to stamp out independent journalism in Cuba this year, promulgating a bill that virtually outlaws free expression and perfecting preemptive repression. The Cuban constitution grants the Communist Party the right to control the press; it recognizes “freedom of speech and the press in accordance with the goals…

The Czech Republic became a member of NATO in March and continues to look westward toward EU membership in the next few years. The country is moving steadily toward stability and respect for democratic rights, but its overall good record on press freedom was tarnished by the new government’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the press.…

The civil war that began as a rebel insurgency in August 1998 continued to destabilize the entire region, with Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supporting President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s government and Rwanda and Uganda fighting on the side of Congolese rebel forces. From the beginning, President Kabila has tended to blame his military setbacks on the local…

Dominican journalists reported very few restrictions on press freedom last year. However, two major developments raised concern among the local press. In September, the electoral board passed a resolution imposing restrictions on campaign advertising for the May 2000 presidential elections. The resolution requires news organizations to accept price controls for advertising and denied them the…

In August, as East Timor prepared to vote on whether to declare independence from Indonesia, military-backed, pro-Indonesia militias threatened, harassed and physically assaulted journalists covering the disputed territory. The attacks began shortly after the announcement in March of a United Nations-brokered agreement to hold an August 30 referendum on the independence issue. The Indonesian military…

For the second consecutive year, President Hosni Mubarak’s government ignored vocal protests against the state’s use of criminal and libel laws to muzzle journalists. At least 11 reporters and editors were investigated or tried for libel and other alleged publications offenses. According to Egyptian human-rights organizations, dozens of criminal cases were pending against members of…