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Top Stories: Thailand | Honduras | Iraq | Sri Lanka | Cuba
Reuters/Hiro Muramoto

In Thai unrest,
deaths, doubts

Security forces and protesters engaged in lethal recklessness leading to the deaths of two journalists and injuries to nine others, CPJ says in a special report. Official investigations are incomplete and opaque. At left, an image from the final video taken by slain Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto.
Muramoto's last footage

Honduran government fails as murders spike

CPJSeven Honduran broadcast journalists have been shot to death already this year. In a new report, CPJ finds an alarming pattern in which the government has neglected to take obvious steps to investigate the crimes and arrest the perpetrators. At right, an autopsy is performed on one of the victims--three months after he was slain.
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Campaign Against Impunity

Deadly bomb hits Al-Arabiya in Baghdad

AP A suicide bomb kills four Al-Arabiya support staff in Baghdad. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia claims responsibility on its website. "The bureau is completely ruined," says Al-Arabiya's Tareq Maher. The station reports 16 others wounded in the blast.
Killed in Iraq
2006: Al-Arabiya crew killed
2004: Al-Arabiya reporters shot
Prageeth Eknelygoda

Missing in
Sri Lanka

Cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda is missing for six months, but Sri Lankan police fail to investigate. Right is one of Eknelygoda's cartoons, the caption for which is: "Your passionate dream can be the noose of the other."
Slideshow of his cartoons
CPJ Blog: A wife's anguish
Background: No peace for press
More on Sri Lanka
AP

For Cubans,
difficult choices

Negotiations for the release of jailed Cuban journalists lead to difficult choices and moral dilemmas. Newly freed Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez, right, greets a well-wisher at the airport in Madrid.
11th journalist freed
CPJ Blog: Victory from failure
CPJ Blog: Wife in shock
Full coverageEspañol
22 journalists killed in 2010
823 journalists killed since 1992
527 journalists murdered with impunity since 1992
454 journalists in exile worldwide

New York, July 30, 2010The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Palestinian authorities in the West Bank to release Amer Abu Arfa, a correspondent for the Shihab news agency who was convicted and imprisoned in connection with his news coverage. The agency, based in the Gaza Strip, is perceived by the Palestinian Authority as being pro-Hamas.

In Italy, vote postponed on Berlusconi's ‘gag law’

Berlusconi finds a wiretap bill more difficult to pass than expected. (AP/Riccardo De Luca)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is leaving for vacation in a very bad mood. On Thursday, the House of Deputies, although dominated by Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, decided to postpone until September its vote on a wiretap bill that had been considered a bellwether by a government wracked by internecine wars and confronted with ominous poll predictions.

New York, July 30, 2010An Indonesian search team this morning recovered the body of reporter Ardiansyah Matra’is in a river in the small town of Merauke, on the southern tip of Papua province, according to news reports and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AIJ). 

Your Excellency: As you celebrate the 10th anniversary of your ascent to power this month, we are writing to draw your attention to conditions that continue to undermine press freedom in Syria. In 10 years, conditions for the media have hardly improved, with the government still deciding who is and isn’t a journalist, filtering the Internet, and imprisoning reporters for their critical work.

Voice of Asia Network torched in Sri Lanka

No Wikileaks, but cocoa piece typifies fight over leaks

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No Wikileaks, but cocoa piece typifies fight over leaks

Protesters seek release of three Ivorian editors jailed in a leaked document case. (AFP/Sia Kambou)

WikiLeaks’ publication of tens of thousands of pages of confidential U.S. military documents on the Afghanistan war has drawn a lot of attention, perhaps overshadowing the many, more common cases around the world in which journalists publish stories based on leaked documents. This week, for instance, three journalists in Ivory Coast were found guilty of disclosing confidential judicial information after they published a story that shook the political establishment in this West African nation.

New York, July 28, 2010—Authorities arrested a journalist on Tuesday on criminal defamation charges in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hours earlier, in an unrelated incident, armed men briefly forced the city’s three main opposition broadcasters off the air, according to local journalists and news reports.

The three defendants handcuffed in court prior to their release. (AFP/Issouf Sanogo)

New York, July 27, 2010—An Ivorian judge on Monday ordered the release of three journalists who had been jailed for a story citing a leaked official document, but he imposed a fine and suspension on their newspaper, according to local journalists and news reports

From 9/11 to 7/11, balancing security, liberty

Museveni at the African Union summit. (AP/Stephen Wandera)

Ugandan President Museveni urged his peers at this week's African Union summit to unite in the battle against terrorism in the aftermath of the terrible 7/11 bombings in Kampala. Security measures pursued by Ugandan authorities after the twin bombings, however, have left some Ugandans and other East African residents wary. East African journalists were among those detained by Ugandan security forces following the bombing. Uganda’s parliament, meanwhile, quickly passed a telephone surveillance bill.

Swazi prince threatens journalists who ‘write bad things'

Ghana police criminally prosecute journalist over sources

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New York, July 28, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Mexican government today to do everything in its power to bring four journalists who are being held hostage by an alleged criminal group to safety. The group’s members have demanded press coverage of videos they made in exchange for the reporters’ release, according to international and local news reports.

Hollman Morris, labeled 'terrorist,' finally Harvard-bound

Courtesy Hollman Morris

For a month, U.S. officials in Bogotá told Colombian journalist Hollman Morris that his request for a U.S. visa to study at Harvard as a prestigious Nieman Fellow had been denied on grounds relating to terrorist activities as defined by the U.S. Patriot Act, and that the decision was permanent and that there were no grounds for appeal. It was the first time in the storied history of the Nieman Foundation that a journalist had been prohibited from traveling not by his own nation, such as, say, South Africa’s apartheid regime back in 1960, but by ours, noted Nieman Curator Bob Giles in the Los Angeles Times.

Three hikers in Iran, one year on

American hikers Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd wait to see their mothers at a hotel in Tehran, in May. (AP/Press TV)On July 30, three American hikers in Iran will have endured an entire year in custody, held without charge or a modicum of due process. This is obviously a terrible injustice, so much so that it surprises me when I mention their situation to skeptical friends or colleagues who believe that the three were foolish to hike along the Iranian border and should have anticipated the consequences.
Seven journalists are murdered in a matter of weeks. After minimizing the crimes, Honduran authorities are slow and negligent in pursuing the killers. The government is fostering a climate of lawlessness that is allowing criminals to kill journalists with impunity. A CPJ Special Report by Mike O’Connor

President Porfirio Lobo during a televised press conference in January. (AP/Esteban Felix)

U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill

Cuban reporter freed, flown to Madrid; 11 now released

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New York, July 30, 2010An Indonesian search team this morning recovered the body of reporter Ardiansyah Matra’is in a river in the small town of Merauke, on the southern tip of Papua province, according to news reports and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AIJ). 

New York, July 30, 2010—Two employees were injured in an arson attack today on the offices of the Voice of Asia Network in the heart of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, according to international and local media reports. The fire destroyed the studios of the group’s Siyatha TV station, but the network’s three radio stations have been able to remain on the air.

An Afghan MP is accusing President Hamid Karzai, left, of shutting down his TV station under pressure from Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at right. (AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

New York, July 29, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Afghan government to allow privately owned Emroaz TV back on the air, after its owner said it was shut down under pressure from Iran. According to local and international media reports, the station went dark on Tuesday almost immediately after the station's owner, Member of Parliament Najib Kabuli, protested on-air the government’s order to shut the station down. In his address, Kabuli said the Ministry of Information had made a “one-sided decision” under Iran’s influence to silence Emroaz.

Afghan media push bill to ensure access to information

When we report on Afghanistan, it’s often about something horrific—a deadly explosion, a murder, a kidnapping. But when you ask many Afghan journalists about the biggest challenge they face daily, it’s not danger or harassment that they cite. Although Article 50 of the Afghanistan Constitution guarantees access to public information, journalists say that obtaining such information from the government is their greatest ongoing concern. 

In Thailand unrest, journalists under fire

Hiro Muramoto's last footage

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In Italy, vote postponed on Berlusconi's ‘gag law’

Berlusconi finds a wiretap bill more difficult to pass than expected. (AP/Riccardo De Luca)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is leaving for vacation in a very bad mood. On Thursday, the House of Deputies, although dominated by Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, decided to postpone until September its vote on a wiretap bill that had been considered a bellwether by a government wracked by internecine wars and confronted with ominous poll predictions.

New York, July 27, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by an Azerbaijani court’s decision to deny early release to jailed video blogger Adnan Hajizade, and it called on the appeals court to set him free. 

New York, July 26, 2010—Serbian authorities must thoroughly investigate the brutal attack on Teofil Pancic, a reporter for the independent weekly Vreme, and consider journalism as a potential motive, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill

This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill shielding journalists and publishers from “libel tourism.” The vote on Monday slipped past the Washington press corps largely unnoticed. Maybe it was the title that strove chunkily for a memorable acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act. Journalists and press freedom defenders outside the United States did, however, pay attention to the legislation, which they hope will spur libel law reform in their countries.

Using https to secure the Web for journalism

Investigative reporter gunned down in Athens

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New York, July 30, 2010The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Palestinian authorities in the West Bank to release Amer Abu Arfa, a correspondent for the Shihab news agency who was convicted and imprisoned in connection with his news coverage. The agency, based in the Gaza Strip, is perceived by the Palestinian Authority as being pro-Hamas.

Your Excellency: As you celebrate the 10th anniversary of your ascent to power this month, we are writing to draw your attention to conditions that continue to undermine press freedom in Syria. In 10 years, conditions for the media have hardly improved, with the government still deciding who is and isn’t a journalist, filtering the Internet, and imprisoning reporters for their critical work.

An Afghan MP is accusing President Hamid Karzai, left, of shutting down his TV station under pressure from Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at right. (AP/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

New York, July 29, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Afghan government to allow privately owned Emroaz TV back on the air, after its owner said it was shut down under pressure from Iran. According to local and international media reports, the station went dark on Tuesday almost immediately after the station's owner, Member of Parliament Najib Kabuli, protested on-air the government’s order to shut the station down. In his address, Kabuli said the Ministry of Information had made a “one-sided decision” under Iran’s influence to silence Emroaz.

Three hikers in Iran, one year on

American hikers Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd wait to see their mothers at a hotel in Tehran, in May. (AP/Press TV)On July 30, three American hikers in Iran will have endured an entire year in custody, held without charge or a modicum of due process. This is obviously a terrible injustice, so much so that it surprises me when I mention their situation to skeptical friends or colleagues who believe that the three were foolish to hike along the Iranian border and should have anticipated the consequences.

Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for Al-Arabiya bombing

U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill

Complete Middle East & North Africa information »

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The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981. We promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
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