El Salvador’s media continued to be polarized, and journalists suffered from violent attacks and a lack of access to public information. The tragic January and February earthquakes that left 1 million Salvadorans homeless revealed the vast rift that remained between leftist partisans and conservative groups 10 years after the end of a long and brutal…
ERITREA The Eritrean government banned the entire independent press last year, as part of a crackdown on political dissent in the tiny Red Sea nation. In early August, a dozen senior officials and other members of the ruling elite signed a public letter criticizing President Isaias Afeworki’s dictatorial rule. The letter followed a lengthy internal…
The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is no longer Africa’s foremost jailer of journalists, but severe structural and legal difficulties still impaired the growth of the independent press. Ethiopia’s rulers held one journalist in prison at year’s end, while seven others were freed in the course of the year.
Ongoing political turbulence continued to plague Fiji’s media. Tensions between indigenous Fijians and those of Indian descent are often played out in the media, which is divided along ethnic and linguistic lines. The year began with Court of Appeal hearings to determine the legality of prime minister Laisenia Qarase’s interim government, which was installed with…
With confounding ease, President Omar Bongo maintained his smooth-talking, iron-fisted rule by suppressing critical media voices via the Penal Code and by simply purchasing good press. In January, the president appropriated 500 million francs (US$690,000) to support private media outlets, causing reporters to engage in embarrassing public squabbles over how to divvy up the bounty.
Throughout the year, Gambian journalists feared that authoritarian president Yahya Jammeh and his ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) would deal harshly with journalists ahead of the October presidential elections. To the surprise of many, these fears proved misplaced. However, repression resumed soon after President Jammeh won reelection. One journalist was subsequently arrested…
After John Agyekum Kufuor was sworn in as Ghana’s new president in January, he promised to make defamation a civil and not a criminal offense. On July 27, Ghana’s parliament unanimously repealed the country’s criminal libel and sedition laws, including clauses governing sedition and defamation of the president. Also scrapped were laws granting the president…
Amid harassment and violence against journalists, human rights activists, and judges involved in high-profile cases, Guatemala’s political stability deteriorated considerably in 2001, and press freedom along with it. The administration of President Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, a member of the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), showed little tolerance for criticism of any kind.
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…