Latin America & the Caribbean

Bolivia

{This graph represents scores that have been modified by CIMA so that higher scores indicate a better media situation. It is intended to show trends over time; each index measures significantly different factors of press freedom. To see an explanation for how this graph was created, click here.}
 

Reporters Without Borders Description:

The press has suffered, through a massive upsurge in physical assaults, from the polarisation resulting from ever more open confrontation between President Evo Morales and the separatist opposition. But it also bears a share in the responsibility for the institutional and political crisis which plunged the country into a state of near civil war, narrowly avoided by the intervention of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), on 15 September 2008. Demonstrations in support of the government and the opposition often targeted journalists according to the media they work for - public and seen as pro-government or private and presumed hostile to Evo Morales. In Santa Cruz, attacks against the state press by the regionalist extreme right Unión Juvenil Cruceñista went on occasion as far as murder attempts, while some local privately-owned media like Radio Oriental called for racial hatred and murder of the president and some ministers, who like him, were of indigenous origin. On the other hand, in La Paz, members of the Popular Civic Committee, an organisation close to the government, launched violent attacks against representatives of newspapers, TV and radios in the private sector. One of its activists, Adolfo Cerrudo, accused with others of a threat to rape and an assault against a woman journalist on the daily La Razon, is now behind bars. But impunity is still the rule in most cases.

Read more on RSF’s site…

Visit CPJ’s Site for Recent Developments in this Country

Visit IFEX’s Site for Recent News on Media in this Country