ATR

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…

SIERRA LEONE REMAINS THE MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRY IN AFRICA for journalists. In 2000, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels killed three reporters, bringing to 15 the total number of journalists killed in the war-plagued West African nation since 1997. The RUF alone is responsible for 13 of those deaths. On May 3, World Press Freedom Day,…

RI LANKA’S LIVELY AND COMBATIVE MEDIA FACED NUMEROUS CHALLENGES from a hostile government, with the most intense battle waged over the president’s tightening of censorship restrictions. Press coverage of the country’s 17-year-old civil war remained thin, due to intermittent censorship and because the government refused to grant journalists regular access to the conflict areas in…

ALTHOUGH CIVIL WAR NO LONGER RAGES IN TAJIKISTAN, popular unrest and an increasingly authoritarian regime have made conditions hard for journalists in the republic. Reporting remains a dangerous profession, especially for the few journalists who dare to investigate power struggles in the political and military elite or trafficking in weapons and drugs by criminal mafias.…

IN A COUNTRY PLAGUED BY CORRUPTION AND CRONYISM, the Thai press is taking advantage of constitutional reforms and a more open political environment to investigate official misdeeds. In late December, the leading opposition candidate for prime minister, telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, was indicted on charges of violating rules on the declaration of assets. The charges,…