2003

  

Information Ministry closes independent newspaper for three months

New York, May 30, 2003—CPJ is disturbed that the independent, Minsk-based newspaper Belaruskaya Delovaya Gazeta was forced to cease publication for three months on order of Belarusian information minister Mikhail Podgayny. Minister Podgayny issued the order on Wednesday, May 28, and the papers closed yesterday. The Information Ministry had given three official warnings to Belaruskaya…

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Your Royal Highness: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned by the dismissal this week of Jamal Khashoggi from his job as editor of the Saudi daily Al-Watan. On May 27, the government removed Khashoggi from his post without explanation, according to international media reports. His dismissal came in response to Al-Watan’s provocative editorial…

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Information Ministry closes independent newspaper for three months

New York, May 30, 2003–CPJ is disturbed that the independent, Minsk-based newspaper Belaruskaya Delovaya Gazeta was forced to cease publication for three months on order of Belarusian information minister Mikhail Podgayny. Minister Podgayny issued the order on Wednesday, May 28, and the papers closed yesterday. The Information Ministry had given three official warnings to Belaruskaya…

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Journalists attacked by gunmen in Aceh

New York, May 29, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by a recent series of sniper attacks in which unknown gunmen have targeted journalists in Aceh, a conflict-riven province on the northwestern tip of the Indonesian archipelago. We are also gravely concerned by mounting evidence of a systematic effort by Indonesian security forces…

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Supreme Court orders retrial of defendants previously acquitted of journalist’s murder

New York, May 28, 2003—The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court yesterday overturned the June 2002 acquittal of six men accused of organizing the 1994 murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a popular journalist for the Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets. The Supreme Court ruled that the Moscow Circuit Military Court had “failed to take all available evidence…

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Four Internet writers sentenced to lengthy prison terms

New York, May 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns today’s sentencing of Internet journalists Xu Wei, Jin Haike, Yang Zili, and Zhang Honghai. This morning, the Beijing Intermediate Court sentenced Xu Wei and Jin Haike to ten years in prison on subversion charges, according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights in…

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Imprisoned journalist released

New York, May 27, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the recent release of Ibrahim Hemaidi, the Damascus bureau chief of the pan-Arab, London-based daily Al-Hayat. Hemaidi, who was released on Sunday, May 25, had been detained since December 23, 2002, when he was arrested for writing an article discussing the Syrian government’s alleged…

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CPJ RELEASES INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ON PALESTINE HOTEL ATTACK

New York, May 27, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released an investigative report today about the April 8 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad by U.S. forces, which killed two journalists and wounded three others. CPJ’s investigation, titled “Permission to Fire,” provides new details suggesting that the attack on the journalists, while not…

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CPJ LAUNCHES WEB RESOURCE ON CRACKDOWN

New York, May 23, 2003—With 28 journalists behind bars in Cuba serving lengthy prison sentences for alleged counterrevolutionary crimes, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) launched a new press freedom information resource on its Web site today titled “Crackdown on the Independent Press in Cuba”.

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Military curbs press coverage in Aceh

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the efforts of Indonesian military authorities in Aceh to control press coverage of the conflict there. Your government declared martial law in Aceh effective at midnight on Monday, May 19, beginning a massive military offensive to crush the separatist Free Aceh Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym as GAM. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, the military commander and head of the martial law administration in Aceh, warned journalists that they should neither report on statements issued by GAM leaders nor carry news that supports the separatist cause. “There should be no reports from GAM and no reports that praise GAM,” Suwarya said, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

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