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 Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, neither the concept of press freedom nor the reality of a free press has made much headway, according to Eritrean journalists. Local media continued to be dominated by jingoistic coverage of the ongoing war with Ethiopia, which broke out in May 1998. Eritrea has one state newspaper…
In past years, Ethiopia has had one of the worst records for imprisoning journalists in Africa. At one point in 1998, about two dozen journalists were in prison, many for criticizing the government’s close relationship with Eritrea. But that number dropped by about half after the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea erupted in May 1998.…
Relations between Fiji’s lively independent press and the newly elected government of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry deteriorated badly over the course of the year, as the administration’s near-constant verbal attacks against local media were punctuated by more serious actions. On June 21, Assistant Minister for Information Lekh Ram Vayeshnoi announced that the government would introduce…
The press freedom climate in Gabon was rife with contradiction last year. Although the government of President Omar Bongo exercised much less control over public opinion than in previous years, local journalists increasingly practiced self-censorship, in line with the virtual lack of political opposition in this oil-rich country. Since the general elections of 1997, which…
While President Yahya Jammeh made progress in appeasing skeptical donor nations–by radically reshuffling the government and stepping up an anti-corruption drive, for example–the Gambia’s independent media remained on shaky ground. Many observers agreed that President Jammeh was intent on quashing all potential challenges to his authority during the run-up to the 2001 presidential election, which…
While many of its neighbors in the former Eastern Bloc grew increasingly intolerant of independent journalism, Georgia offered its journalists good news in 1999: the repeal of libel from the country’s penal code, effective in July 2000. Another critical change in civil-libel law requires government officials to prove malicious intent to demonstrate that they have…
Struggling to maintain their independence in Ghana, journalists continued to run the risk of violating the country’s criminal- and seditious-libel laws. Some of these laws date back to the colonial era and carry such penalties as exorbitant fines and prison sentences. The recent rise in the number of libel suits against Ghana’s indepen-dent press continued…
President Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen maintained a hostile relationship with the press during his four years in power but took a more subtle approach in 1999 when the country held legislative and presidential elections. Arzú, who had previously railed against journalists who criticized his government, toned down his rhetoric but continued to undermine the press through…
Although the Guinean constitution guarantees freedom of expression, the draconian 1991 press law still allows for the arrest and detention of journalists on charges of seditious libel. The government-owned broadcast media and the country’s one daily newspaper, the state-owned Horoya, toe the party line accordingly. Reporters for the state press generally practice self-censorship for the…