Sustained pressure from local journalists and domestic and international press freedom advocates, including CPJ, pushed the Bulgarian Parliament to modify its press law, eliminating jail sentences for libel. The reform, which was approved by Parliament on January 12, 2000, also forces public officials to press libel charges themselves rather than having the prosecutor’s office launch…
President Blaise Compaoré seized power in 1987 before seeking legitimacy through the ballot box in 1991 and again in 1998. But his regime still draws much of its authority from the army, especially from the infamous Presidential Guard Regiment (RSP), which local independent journalists blamed for several extrajudicial killings last year. It remains dangerous to…
Forcing their citizenry to live behind a wall of repressive ignorance, Burma’s military leaders have shown no signs of liberalizing one of the world’s harshest regimes. With all media controlled by the state, and access to the Internet, modems, fax machines and other communication devices strictly licensed and controlled, local journalists are reduced to reproducing…
Since October 1993, when Tutsi soldiers killed the democratically elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, successive regimes have used physical and bureaucratic coercion to stifle independent journalism in Burundi. That includes the incumbent strongman Major Pierre Buyoya, who seized power in 1996. Six years into Burundi’s civil war, Hutu guerrillas continue to fight the Tutsi-dominated government…
Cambodia in 1999 was as peaceful as it has been in decades. The Khmer Rouge insurgency was defeated, and most of its leaders were either dead or in custody, awaiting the possibility that a tribunal would be formed to judge their complicity in the genocidal Pol Pot regime. No elections, or coups d’état, divided the…
Freedom of expression remains elusive in Cameroon. An October 1999 United Nations report on the country’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights deplored the wide variety of abuses suffered by local journalists as well as arbitrary state controls over press, radio, and television. Broadcast media remained the monopoly of President Paul…
Over the past two decades, journalism has made tremendous strides in the oil-rich monarchies of the Arabian peninsula. Benefiting from generous budgets and advanced technology, private newspapers have flourished. Some are now counted among the most influential papers in the Arab world. But for the most part, journalism in the member states of the Gulf…
In 1996, President Idriss Deby shed his military dictator’s uniform to become the country’s first democratically elected ruler. However, his government’s treatment of local independent media has remained heavy-handed. This year, Chadian officials were particularly sensitive to press coverage of the ongoing fight between government troops and the armed Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJT)…
Many observers labeled the 1999 presidential election, in which socialist candidate Ricardo Lagos defeated conservative hopeful Joaquín Lavín, a watershed event. The election was run on the issues and was largely devoid of the ideological polarization that had characterized Chilean politics for decades. But the press has played a minor role in this emerging political…
Conditions for the heavily-controlled Chinese press worsened dramatically in 1999 as a broad clampdown on dissent and free expression led to fresh arrests of journalists, massive propaganda campaigns and systematic efforts by the secret police to monitor and control the Internet. Eleven journalists were arrested in 1999, bringing the total number of journalists in prison…