IN DECEMBER, STRONGMAN OMAR HASSAN AL-BASHIR WON overwhelmingly in presidential elections that were boycotted by Sudan’s two main opposition parties. Both parties had conditioned their participation on an end to the 17-year civil war and to human-rights abuses, including restrictions on the press. State harassment of journalists and newspapers has been a persistent feature of…
After enduring four years under a government dominated by the party of strongman Desi Bouterse, journalists in Suriname breathed a bit easier when Ronald Venetiaan returned to power in August, as the leader of a coalition of ethnic parties that had won the popular election in May. Soon after taking office on August 12, Venetiaan,…
PRESIDENT HAFEZ AL-ASSAD’S DEATH IN JUNE, after a 30-year reign, marked the passing of one of the most repressive dictators in modern Middle Eastern history. Assad ruled a police state that eliminated political opponents and stifled all independent debate. No independent or private media existed, and newspapers, television, and radio were mere propaganda outlets for…
WITH NO LEGAL FRAMEWORK TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF SPEECH, journalists in Swaziland are at the mercy of a government that actively discourages critical reporting about the royal family and the political system in general. King Mswati III is Africa’s last absolute monarch. He rules by decree, maintaining a decades-old ban on political parties and labor…
TAIWAN’S FREEWHEELING MEDIA GENERALLY OPERATE with little interference from a government that presents itself as a model for democracy in the region. However, the young administration of President Chen Shui-bian and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) did suffer a few embarrassments arising from its treatment of (and by) the press. Chen narrowly won election in…
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.…
LONG-STANDING SOVEREIGNTY DISPUTES BETWEEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar continued to affect relations between government and the media. Several journalists were arrested, interrogated, and then released without charge during the run-up to general elections in late October, which were marred by violent outbreaks in Zanzibar and resulted in the reelection of…
IN A COUNTRY PLAGUED BY CORRUPTION AND CRONYISM, the Thai press is taking advantage of constitutional reforms and a more open political environment to investigate official misdeeds. In late December, the leading opposition candidate for prime minister, telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, was indicted on charges of violating rules on the declaration of assets. The charges,…
WIELDING A HARSH NEW PRESS CODE, THE TOGOLESE GOVERNMENT stepped up its harassment of the media last year. At the same time, local and international monitors sharpened their focus on human rights violations in the country. The new Press Code, which replaced a widely praised and far more reasonable 1998 law, was passed on January…
PRIME MINISTER BASDEO PANDAY, WHO HAS SPENT MUCH of his five years in office feuding with the media, found his government embroiled in a constitutional crisis at year’s end, after winning a narrow victory in elections held on December 11. The population of this oil- and gas-rich country is equally divided between people of African…