Iran

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in IRAN New York, August 4, 2000 — Iranian parliamentarians will debate proposed amendments to the country’s press law when the new Majles (parliament) opens in Tehran on Sunday, according to international news reports. The current Majles is dominated by reformist delegates who broadly support President…

PREFACE by Philip Gourevitch INTRODUCTION by Ann Cooper REGIONAL ANALYSES: Africa | Americas | Asia | Europe and Central Asia | Middle East and North Africa AFRICA: Country summaries Angola | Benin | Botswana | |Burkina Faso | Burundi | Cameroon | Chad | Comoros | Republic of Congo | Democratic Republic of Congo |…

By Joel CampagnaRoyal succession and rubber-stamp elections set the tone for a year in which Middle Eastern and North African governments continued to restrict press freedoms through a combination of censorship, intimidation, and media monopoly. Ballots in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen produced few surprises as longtime rulers stayed in power and maintained formidable obstacles…

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia continues to maintain a hostile attitude toward journalists and journalism. There are no independent local media, because of the Taliban’s famous intolerance and because resources are scarce in this war-ravaged country. Although several news agencies–including the BBC, The Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse–maintain bureaus in Kabul, visas to foreign correspondents are…

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…

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…

While access to information remained the primary concern for journalists in El Salvador, new legal restrictions provoked loud protests. And a series of violent threats against journalists suggested continuing intolerance for a press that has grown more assertive in recent years. (See the special report on postwar journalism in El Salvador and Guatemala.) President Francisco…

Since Israel began turning over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) six years ago, its repression of the local press has noticeably declined. The censorship, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests of Palestinian journalists that marked full-fledged Israeli occupation are now practiced by Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and…

In April, President Bakili Muluzi declared that his party, the United Democratic Front (UDF), believed in “the tenets of constitutional democracy,” including press freedom. The political reality has failed to live up to this rhetoric. After the June 15 general elections gave Muluzi a second five-year term in office, the opposition contended that the elections…

At the heart of Malaysia’s authoritarian reputation is its Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984, which requires all publications to obtain licenses that can be revoked at will by the Minister for Home Affairs. The minister’s decisions are final, and there is no judicial review. A holdover from British rule, when a communist insurgency…