Journalists reported no serious incidents preventing them from covering the news, but the inequitable distribution of state advertising threatened to dampen a vigorous press. Mocaltate Agencies–the largest advertisers in Uruguay–have been accused by journalists of depriving critical media outlets of government advertising while bestowing favors on sympathetic publications. Journalists report that while the practice has…
A series of February bomb explosions in Tashkent that killed 16 people and injured more than 100 prompted Uzbek authorities to crack down on press freedom and other civil liberties, already nearly nonexistent in one of the most repressive countries of the former Soviet Union. Uzbek authorities claimed that the bomb attacks marked an attempt…
President Hugo Chávez Frías, who took office in February in a landslide victory, excoriated the press for criticizing his plan to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. Voters ratified the constitution in December by an overwhelming margin; journalists worry that an amendment guaranteeing the public’s “right to timely, truthful, and impartial information” could be used as justification to…
Hunkering down to defend the Communist Party as the country’s sole voice of political power, Vietnam’s Politburo continues to bar virtually all attempts at free expression that violate the guidelines of the party leadership. Vietnam’s National Assembly amended and tightened an already repressive press law in June, centralizing media control–including the Internet–within the Ministry of…
During the heady days following the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990, there was a remarkable proliferation of private newspapers and a new vigor in public discourse. In recent years, however, the Yemeni government has been following the repressive example of its regional neighbors. Although Yemen still boasts one of the freest…
President Slobodan Milosevic first used the threat of war, then an actual war, and finally international hostility toward his regime to justify the use of government censorship and crippling fines to decimate Serbia’s various independent media. The press crackdown was particularly brutal in Kosovo, where a 1998 military offensive by the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army…
Algeria (2) Please send appeals to: His Excellency Abdel Aziz Bouteflika President of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria c/o His Excellency Ambassador Driss Djazairi Embassy of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria 2118 Kalorama Road N.W. Washington, DC 20008 Fax: 202-667-2174
Zambia continued to be one of southern Africa’s worst press freedom offenders. Under the repressive government of President Frederick Chiluba, local journalists faced illegal and arbitrary detention, abuses of the judicial process, and a dearth of proper media laws. A severe crackdown on Zambia’s biggest independent newspaper, The Post, came in the context of increasingly…
Beset by economic problems and controversy over its military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo civil war, President Robert Mugabe’s government increasingly clamped down on independent media and their efforts to question his rule. The most egregious attack on press freedom in Zimbabwe last year was the illegal arrest and torture in January of…
New York, March 20, 2000 — Jagdish Bhattarai, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Nava Janachetana (“New Public Conscience”), was released yesterday from Palpa Jail, where he had served one week after being found guilty of contempt of court. The charge stemmed from an editorial about corruption in the local judiciary, headlined “Saviors of Justice Corrupt,”…