Journalists in Papua New Guinea, who had faced harassment and violence during the administration of former prime minister Mekere Morauta, viewed the August election of Sir Michael Somare, a former journalist, positively. Nevertheless, continued violence reminded observers how far the country is from reaching political and social stability.
New York, June 27, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by the recent arrests of João de Barros, publisher and editor of the independent daily Correio de Bissau, and Nilson Mendonca, editor at the state-run Rádio Difusão Nacional (RDN). Both journalists have been released. De Barros was arrested in Bissau, the capital of…
Silence reigned supreme in Eritrea, where the entire independent press was under a government ban and 11 journalists languished in jail at year’s end. Clamorous, deadly power struggles raged in Zimbabwe over land and access to information, and in Burundi over ethnicity and control of state resources. South Africa, Senegal, and Benin remained relatively liberal…
The popular opposition leader Alpha Conde was released in late March, after serving three years of a five-year sentence for allegedly endangering national security. Conde’s release raised expectations that political change was coming to Guinea. But President Lassana Conté, who has ruled the country for nearly two decades, saw matters differently, plotting tirelessly to strengthen…
The government of Guinea-Bissau remained paralyzed for most of the year following a split in the governing coalition that left the ruling Social Renewal Party (PRS) in the minority amid widespread allegations of official corruption and mismanagement. Unable to create stability in the country, President Kumba Yala resorted to an increasingly dictatorial style that pitted…
Although the Papua New Guinean press remains one of the freest in the Pacific, political unrest in 2001 led to several violent episodes in which journalists were attacked. With the exception of Papua New Guinea’s largest radio broadcaster, the state-run National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), all media outlets are privately owned. Of the three major newspapers,…
PRESS COVERAGE OF ARMED CONFLICTS CONTINUED TO STIR THE HOSTILITY of governments and rebel factions alike and claim reporters’ lives, but the prominent role of the press in the often-volatile process of democratization also brought unprecedented challenges to journalists working in Africa. CPJ confirmed that in 2000, five journalists were killed specifically because of their…
AS GUINEA’S INTERNAL POLITICS HEATED UP AND RELATIONS WORSENED with neighboring Liberia and war-torn Sierra Leone, the government grew even more hostile toward the independent media. Nevertheless, Guinea boasts a lively private press that emerged, along with multiparty democracy, in the early 1990s. Guinean journalists faced harassment, abusive detention, and even exile in reprisal for…
GUINEA-BISSAU REMAINS THE ONLY COUNTRY IN WEST AFRICA that has not signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 19 of which guarantees press freedom. In the absence of an international legal standard, the democratically elected but unstable new government of President Kumba Yala was quick to wield strong-arm tactics, along with a…
SOLDIERS UNDER THE COMMAND OF ROBERT GUEI, the retired general who seized power from an elected government on Christmas Eve, 1999, terrorized Côte d’Ivoire during their 10 months in power. As part of a general pattern of human rights abuses, they raided newsrooms at will, seized reporters’ equipment, banned news organizations, and forced journalists to…