FOTP 2013 Full Report

2012 and the nine-month search to replace them, along with a two-year delay in appointing threemembers to the TRM Supervisory Board, effectively stalled the public broadcaster’s internalreforms during the year. The AIE made limited progress in reorganizing, privatizing, orshuttering some 40 state-owned local newspapers. Due to the global economic downturn, privatemedia remained highly dependent on financial subsidies and advertising revenue from affiliatedbusinesses and political groups, rather than market-driven advertising and circulation revenue.Economic pressures continued to force media outlets to cut costs and intensified the shift fromprint to online operations.An underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure, coupled with high fees forinternet connections, has resulted in limited internet usage, though access is generally notrestricted by the authorities. Approximately 43 percent of the population had access to theinternet in 2012. News portals and social-networking sites have become popular, with some onemillion users registered on the Russian site Odnoklassniki and some 200,000 on Facebook,according to the IJC.MonacoStatus: FreeLegal Environment: 3Political Environment: 7Economic Environment: 6Total Score: 16Survey Edition 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Total Score, Status 16,F 16,F 16,F 16,F 16,FMongoliaStatus: Partly FreeLegal Environment: 13Political Environment: 12Economic Environment: 12Total Score: 37Survey Edition 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012Total Score, Status 38,PF 41,PF 39,PF 39,PF 37,PFFreedom of speech and freedom of the press are protected under Mongolian law, and thegovernment generally respects both of these rights in practice. However, press freedomcontinued to be compromised in 2012 by legal harassment of journalists, political influence overnews outlets, and financial difficulties faced by media workers.Officials frequently file criminal and civil defamation suits in response to critical articles,with a quarter of journalists reportedly affected. In July 2012, criminal defamation charges werefiled against a reporter from the Uls Turiin Toim daily newspaper over an article claiming the273