By Peter ArnettSHE STOOD DEFIANTLY IN THE CRAMPED QUARTERS OF ISTANBUL’S BEYOGLU CRIMINAL COURT at high noon of a hot midsummer day. The slight, dark-haired Nadire Mater had a message for the court and for the two dozen Turkish reporters and photographers who had gathered to hear her. “The truth is plain to see. Banning…
DESPITE PRESS FREEDOM ADVANCES ACROSS ASIA IN RECENT YEARS, totalitarian regimes in Burma, China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos maintained their stranglehold on the media. Even democratic Asian governments sometimes used authoritarian tactics to control the press, particularly when faced with internal conflict. Sri Lanka, for instance, imposed harsh censorship regulations during the year in…
ALTHOUGH PRESIDENT CLINTON RECEIVED STAR TREATMENT during his historic visit to Vietnam in November, little news of the trip was allowed into the country’s state-owned press. Huge crowds greeted the first U.S. president to tour the country since the Vietnam War. Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City, Clinton urged the Vietnamese government to allow more…
EIGHTY-ONE JOURNALISTS WERE IN PRISON AROUND THE WORLD at the end of 2000, jailed for practicing their profession. The number is down slightly from the previous year, when 87 were in jail, and represents a significant decline from 1998, when 118 journalists were imprisoned. While jailing journalists can be an effective means of stifling bad…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests the house arrest of writer Dr. Nguyen Xuan Tu, better known by his pen name Dr. Ha Sy Phu. We call on the Vietnamese government to restore Dr. Ha’s liberty and abandon legal actions currently pending against him.