IN A COUNTRY WHERE THE GOVERNMENT DOMINATES THE MEDIA, the year ended with two contradictory developments. After winning a four-year court battle, the island’s first independent radio station was expected to start broadcasting soon. However, the High Court restrained a weekly newspaper from further coverage of a medical benefits scandal that the paper exposed in…
IN A FRUSTRATING YEAR FOR PRESS FREEDOM in Argentina, a proposed bill that would have eliminated criminal penalties for defamation cases involving public officials foundered after local journalists implicated members of the Senate in a major bribery scandal. Senators who had supported the proposed bill quickly withdrew their support. The long battle to reform Argentina’s…
ARMENIAN JOURNALISTS SUFFERED FROM LINGERING POLITICAL INSTABILITY last year, following the October 1999 terrorist attack on Parliament that left eight politicians dead, including Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkissian. In March 2000, the attempted assassination of Arkady Ghukasian, self-declared president of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, contributed to the general turmoil. Advertising revenues are generally low in Armenia,…
PRESIDENT HEIDAR ALIYEV AND OTHER AZERBAIJANI OFFICIALS repeatedly proclaimed their support for freedoms of association and expression, but the November parliamentary elections highlighted the regime’s authoritarianism. The government banned opposition rallies, harassed opposition leaders, and temporarily suspended several opposition parties from the contest. International observers found multiple problems with the election itself, which was nevertheless…
FACING ROUTINE THREATS, HARASSMENT, AND OTHER ATTACKS, Bangladeshi journalists continued to work at great risk as political and criminal violence went unchecked. Two journalists were assassinated: Mir Illias Hossain, editor of the newspaper Dainik Bir Darpan, and Shamsur Rahman, a senior correspondent for the national daily Janakantha and a frequent contributor to the BBC’s Bengali-language…
PRIOR TO THE OCTOBER 15 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS, President Aleksandr Lukashenko cracked down on political dissent in Belarus, including the independent media. Lukashenko, who refused to step down when his term expired in 1999, was expected to maintain his repressive ways in 2001, when the country faces presidential elections. Three months before the election, opposition parties…
AS THE MAJOR POLITICAL COALITIONS CAMPAIGNED VIGOROUSLY in anticipation of the 2001 presidential elections, independent journalists enjoyed relative freedom in reporting on issues of national importance, breaking stories of rumored coup plots, and allegations of corruption and financial misappropriation by members of President Mathieu Kerekou’s administration. Government and opposition parties enjoyed equal access to state-run…
ALTHOUGH THE BOLIVIAN PRESS IS PLURALISTIC and freedom of the press is generally respected, structural barriers as well as a tense political situation continued to impede independent reporting. In April, President Hugo Banzer imposed a state of emergency that lasted for nearly two weeks after violent protests against an increase in water rates broke out…
WITH LOCAL MEDIA SPLIT ALONG ETHNIC LINES and nationalist parties that found many ways to intimidate the press, Bosnia and Herzegovina made only modest press freedom gains in 2000. In the broader context of recovery under the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, more war criminals were captured and more minority refugees returned to their pre-war homes.…
WHILE REPORTERS IN BRAZIL’S MAJOR CITIES UNEARTHED various political scandals, their colleagues in the provinces faced violent reprisal from politicians and local landowners because of their reporting. One provincial journalist was murdered. In July, the aggressive urban press reignited a lingering scandal involving a 169 million real (US$90 million) embezzlement scheme tied to the construction…