EVEN AS COSTA RICAN JOURNALISTS BATTLED A FLURRY of defamation lawsuits, a proposed bill that would have greatly enhanced press freedom in the country failed to win legislative approval. On February 15, the Legislative Assembly’s judiciary committee rejected a bill, drafted by several leading journalists and endorsed by President Miguel Angel Rodríguez, that would have…
FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANJO TUDJMAN in December 1999, the advent of a reformist government brought a better year for the Croatian press. An opposition alliance defeated the late president’s nationalist HDZ party in January 2-3 parliamentary elections and in two rounds of presidential voting over the next five weeks. During the parliamentary election…
IN A COUNTRY WHOSE CONSTITUTION AND PENAL CODE specifically disallow press freedom, independent journalists continued to face repression from the Cuban government last year. Yet their ranks have grown steadily, and there are now about 20 independent news agencies in the country. In early 2001, a particularly courageous independent journalist saw the outside of a…
WHILE CZECH JOURNALISTS HAVE GAINED EXTENSIVE FREEDOMS since the 1989 Velvet Revolution, Czech media continued to face pressure from both political and business interests last year. On December 20, the politically appointed supervisors of the state-run Czech Television network abruptly dismissed general director Dusan Chmelicek and appointed Jiri Hodac in his place. Hodac had resigned…
PRESS FREEDOM HAS BEEN ONE OF MANY CASUALTIES OF THE CIVIL WAR that began as a rebel insurgency in August 1998 and has continued to destabilize the entire region, with Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supporting President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, and Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi fighting on the side of Congolese rebel forces (although Kabila’s army includes…
AS SPORADIC GUN BATTLES CONTINUED BETWEEN GOVERNMENT FORCES AND REBELS of the United Revolutionary Front (FRUD), state broadcast and print outlets tailored their coverage to the propaganda needs of President Ismael Omar Guelleh’s government. The opposition press, led by the weekly papers La Republique, Le Temps, and Le Renouveau, was little more objective. The civil…
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC’S VIBRANT PRESS WAS TARNISHED by accusations of biased coverage during the May 16 presidential election. The year also saw a landmark conviction in the murder of a journalist, and a proposed bill to enhance freedom of the press. The ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) lost a three-way race between its own candidate,…
EMERGING FROM DARKNESS AND DEVASTATION, East Timor’s journalists took their first steps toward building an independent press for the fledgling nation. The leaders of the new country have pledged to promote press freedom after they achieve formal independence (expected by the end of 2001). “We have no intention to interfere in any way with the…
AMID SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TURBULENCE following a change of government in January and the dollarization of the economy, authorities intercepted a series of letter bombs sent to journalists. On January 21, President Jamil Mahuad was overthrown in an uprising led by junior military officers and Amerindian protesters who installed a “national salvation government.” The following…
A YEAR AFTER WINNING A PRESIDENTIAL REFERENDUM in which he was the sole candidate, President Hosni Mubarak dashed hopes that his fourth sixth-year term would bring any loosening of official restraints on the media. Censorship and the jailing of journalists persisted, and there was a disturbing rash of violent police and other attacks against members…