Many observers labeled the 1999 presidential election, in which socialist candidate Ricardo Lagos defeated conservative hopeful Joaquín Lavín, a watershed event. The election was run on the issues and was largely devoid of the ideological polarization that had characterized Chilean politics for decades. But the press has played a minor role in this emerging political…
Conditions for the heavily-controlled Chinese press worsened dramatically in 1999 as a broad clampdown on dissent and free expression led to fresh arrests of journalists, massive propaganda campaigns and systematic efforts by the secret police to monitor and control the Internet. Eleven journalists were arrested in 1999, bringing the total number of journalists in prison…
In a year that saw both an escalation of Colombia’s armed conflict and a tentative beginning of peace negotiations, the press found itself in the crosshairs of nearly every party to the increasingly complicated civil war. Five journalists were killed in the line of duty, while scores of others were threatened, attacked, or kidnapped. Colombian…
Despite efforts to resolve secessionist tensions that have long beset the three Indian Ocean islands of Comoros, ongoing political conflict has done little to foster a free press. On the island of Anjouan, the employees of Radio Ushababi, established in June 1999 by journalists opposing the local separatist movement, were repeatedly harassed and interrogated by…
President Denis Sassou-Nguesso’s Mbochi ethnic group dominates the government, including the subservient state-owned media. As in past years, journalists from the Kongo group of ousted President Pascal Lissouba and those from the Lari group of exiled former prime minister Bernard Kolelas suffered particular discrimination. In the capital, Brazzaville, street battles raged all year between various…
Legal and political wrangling shook Costa Rica’s media and threatened to undercut the country’s normally vibrant and independent press. In a June 25 decision, the Costa Rican Supreme Court upheld a libel verdict against three journalists from La Nación, Costa Rica’s leading daily. The case stemmed from a 1997 article reporting that the National Association…
Croatia’s new center-left ruling coalition, elected in parliamentary polls on January 3, 2000, has pledged to improve the country’s dismal press freedom and civil- rights record after a decade of abuses by the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). The newly elected government and president, the latter to be chosen in a runoff presidential poll on…
President Fidel Castro Ruz’s government did its best to stamp out independent journalism in Cuba this year, promulgating a bill that virtually outlaws free expression and perfecting preemptive repression. The Cuban constitution grants the Communist Party the right to control the press; it recognizes “freedom of speech and the press in accordance with the goals…
The Czech Republic became a member of NATO in March and continues to look westward toward EU membership in the next few years. The country is moving steadily toward stability and respect for democratic rights, but its overall good record on press freedom was tarnished by the new government’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the press.…
The civil war that began as a rebel insurgency in August 1998 continued to destabilize the entire region, with Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia supporting President Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s government and Rwanda and Uganda fighting on the side of Congolese rebel forces. From the beginning, President Kabila has tended to blame his military setbacks on the local…