President Charles Taylor remains the single greatest threat to press freedom in Liberia. As global pressure mounted on his government to improve its bleak human rights record, Taylor responded with his usual mix of paranoia and brutality, jailing reporters for “espionage,” shutting down newspapers for unpaid taxes and imposing a news blackout on an armed…
Fighting between the Macedonian government and ethnic Albanian rebels seeking increased civil liberties escalated throughout the year, pushing the country to the edge of civil war. Unprofessional reporting and outright hate speech by both ethnic Macedonian and ethnic Albanian journalists played a central role in radicalizing their respective communities and polarizing the political atmosphere.
Officials and ruling party supporters intensified a campaign of intimidation against critical voices in Malawi following revelations of widespread government corruption and amid growing speculation that President Bakili Muluzi would run for an unconstitutional third term in office. Members of opposition parties are often denied coverage in the state media, which is almost entirely controlled…
In 2001, Malaysia’s ruling National Front coalition, led by aging strongman Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, sought to broaden already tight controls on the press through coercion, ownership changes, verbal bullying, and backroom personnel moves. Currently, all publications must obtain an annual press license to operate, and the permit can be withdrawn without judicial review. Radio…
Although Mali’s press laws include punitive presumption-of-guilt standards, the media environment is reasonably liberal compared with many other African countries. Mali also has a strikingly diverse press corps, with about 40 private newspapers, some in French and others in vernacular languages, and about 100 radio stations, one fifth of them unlicensed.
The ruling Republican Democratic Party swept general and local elections in October, and President Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya remained firmly in control of the country. Authorities have for years used prior censorship and Article 11 of the 1991 Press Ordinance to harass journalists who cover sensitive issues. Under the harsh statutes, the minister of…
President Vicente Fox’s historic election in 2000 marked the end of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) domination of the country and its media. But the honeymoon between the president and the media ended in 2001 with increasingly critical coverage that reflected the public’s frustration with the slow pace of reforms under the new government.
Government pressure on the Moldovan media increased in 2001 after the Communist Party won a majority in the February parliamentary elections. The Communist candidate, Vladimir Voronin, was elected president in April. Soon after the presidential elections, the Chisinau-based Independent Journalism Center reported that journalists from the opposition publications Flux, Tara, Jurnal de Chisinau, and Trud-Moldova…
The year began with a tragic accident that claimed the lives of three journalists, who died on January 14 when their United Nations-chartered plane crashed in northwestern Mongolia. Tsevegmid Batzorig, a photographer associated with the private Mongolian photo agency Gamma; Takahiro Kato, a reporter for the Japanese broadcaster NHK; and Minoru Masaki, a cameraman for…
When he assumed the throne in 1999, 38-year-old King Muhammad VI kindled hopes that he would usher in a period of greater political freedom in Morocco. The independent press continued to push the limits of free expression–and just as quickly found them. In 2001, as in previous years, Moroccan authorities used criminal prosecutions, censorship, and…