abducted

With President Jean-Bertrand Aristide under pressure qrom the international community and Haitian opposition groups to expedite political and economic reforms and to resolve a two-year-old electoral impasse that has stalled the flow of millions of dollars in aid, Haiti’s embattled press corps vigilantly reported the news despite political unrest and a deteriorating economy.

India is famous for being the world’s largest democracy, but government actions in 2002 to curb the press indicate a growing intolerance among the country’s leadership. Many journalists say the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to target its critics in the media as a matter of policy–and largely gets away with it.

During 2002, the beleaguered Malawian press endured threats and verbal attacks from President Bakili Muluzi and his ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), as well as physical abuse from party supporters, while local media outlets struggled to maintain editorial independence in the face of mounting financial difficulties.

Political turmoil and an intensified Maoist insurgency severely strained Nepal’s young democracy and profoundly challenged the country’s independent media. In November 2001, the government, then led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, imposed a state of emergency, introduced a sweeping anti-terrorism ordinance, and called out the army to counter the mounting threat posed by Maoist…

Russian president Vladimir Putin, along with his coterie of conservative former intelligence officials, pressed ahead in 2002 to impose his vision of a “dictatorship of the law” in Russia to create a “managed democracy.” Putin’s goal of an obedient and patriotic press meant that the Kremlin continued using various branches of the state apparatus to…

Bogotá, Colombia, March 18, 2003—Gunmen shot and killed a radio news host early this morning in a volatile northeastern region of the country. The journalist, who had been threatened previously by members of a right-wing paramilitary army, was also a free-lance reporter for Colombia’s most widely read daily. Luis Eduardo Alfonso Parada, 33, was shot…

Guide for reporting in hazardous situations.

New York, February 3, 2003–Colombian guerrillas freed two foreign journalists on February 1 after holding them hostage for 11 days in eastern Colombia. The National Liberation Army (ELN) released Ruth Morris, a British reporter raised in California; and Scott Dalton, a photographer from Texas, to an International Red Cross delegate early Saturday in the eastern…

Bogotá, Colombia, January 29, 2003—A top Colombian rebel commander said yesterday that two foreign journalists kidnapped by his fighters would be freed within days, while in a separate broadcast the rebels announced they wouldn’t release the hostages until the military halted operations in the zone where they were being held. Scott Dalton, a photographer from…

Bogotá, Colombia, January 24, 2003—A free-lance journalist with U.S. and Canadian citizenship and his two traveling companions have been freed in Colombia after allegedly being abducted by right-wing paramilitary fighters. Robert Pelton, Megan Smaker, and Mark Wedeven were turned over to a priest and human rights officials on the evening of January 23 in Colombia’s…