The exhilarating prospect of broad press freedoms that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago has faded dramatically in much of the post-communist world. A considerable decline in press freedom conditions in Russia during the last year, along with the stranglehold authoritarian leaders have imposed on media in Central Asia, the Caucasus,…
Although Tajikistan’s civil war ended in 1997, its devastating effects endure. Journalists work in dire, impoverished conditions, exacerbated by the stifling restrictions imposed under President Imomali Rakhmonov. Investigative reporting is rare, especially on sensitive issues such as trafficking in weapons and drugs, border tensions, and power struggles among the political and military elite.
Read first-hand accounts by journalists covering the war in Afghanistan. • December 21, 2001—The New York Times reported that on December 20, Afghan tribal fighters detained three photojournalists working for U.S. news organizations. The journalists were detained for more than one hour, apparently at the behest of U.S. Special Operations forces in the Tora Bora area….
New York City, October 17, 2001–Two weeks after the September 11 attacks, the number of foreign journalists in Pakistan swelled to an estimated 700. The country’s location alongside Afghanistan, the first target of Washington’s “new war,” made Pakistan a natural destination for journalists. Pakistan An initially lax visa policy–allowing citizens of most Western countries and…
New York, July 19, 2001–A CPJ representative testified before a joint congressional subcommittee yesterday about the terrible state of press freedom in Central Asia. [Read the transcript] “Repression and violence, or the threat thereof, are ever present for many reporters, encouraging self-censorship as a survival mechanism,” CPJ Washington representative Frank Smyth told the joint hearing…
POLITICAL REFORMS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, along with the advent of democratic governments in Croatia and Serbia, brightened the security prospects for journalists in Central Europe and the Balkans. In contrast, Russian’s new government imposed press restrictions, and authoritarian regimes entrenched themselves in other countries of the former Soviet Union, particularly in Central Asia, further threatening…
ALTHOUGH CIVIL WAR NO LONGER RAGES IN TAJIKISTAN, popular unrest and an increasingly authoritarian regime have made conditions hard for journalists in the republic. Reporting remains a dangerous profession, especially for the few journalists who dare to investigate power struggles in the political and military elite or trafficking in weapons and drugs by criminal mafias.…
By Claudia McElroyAll over Africa, conflict continued to be the single biggest threat to journalists and to press freedom itself. Both civil and cross-border wars were effectively used as an excuse by governments (and rebel forces) to harass, intimidate, and censor the press–often in the name of “national security”–and in some cases to kill journalists…
By Chrystyna Lapychak Wars in Yugoslavia and Chechnya dominated regional and international headlines in 1999. The conflicts raised the journalists’ death toll in the region and prompted crackdowns, as governments blocked access to war zones and engaged in propaganda campaigns.
Attacks on the press, while still rife, have slowed down since the end in 1997 of Tajikistan’s five-year civil war, during which 29 journalists were murdered in the line of duty. But the government has found other means to keep a tight lid on the press. Throughout the year, the government of President Imomali Rakhmonov…