New York, September 23, 2004—Two journalists and the general manager of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent were detained today for about six hours, charged under Zimbabwe’s repressive media law, and told to report back to police next Tuesday for a court appearance, according to local journalists and a defense lawyer for the three. The charges stem…
New York, September 22, 2004—Chinese government authorities have closed the prominent bi-monthly diplomacy journal Zhanlue Yu Guanli (Strategy and Management) after it published an article strongly criticizing the North Korean government and urging a revised strategy in China-North Korea relations, according to international news reports. Analysts and foreign media initially speculated that the August article,…
New York, September 21, 2004—On Monday, September 20, a magistrate’s court in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, acquitted four directors of the independent, banned newspaper the Daily News, who had been charged with publishing the newspaper illegally. The court ruled that the state had “failed to show a prima facie case against the accused,” according to international…
New York, September 21, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the deteriorating health of imprisoned writer Pham Hong Son, who was arrested in 2002 after using the Internet to distribute essays advocating democracy and human rights. Son is in very poor health and has been kept in solitary confinement for the last…
New York, September 21, 2004—Lithuania’s State Security Department (VSD) closed the pro-Chechen Web site KavkazCenter on Friday after coming under intense pressure from the Kremlin, according to local and international press reports. The closure came one week after Lithuanian Ambassador to Russia Rimantas Sidlauskas was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow for an…
New York, September 21, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by the recent closure of the bimonthly current affairs journal Khit-Sann. Supporters of the journal charge that military censors shuttered Khit-Sann because it covered international issues and U.S. political ideas, according to CPJ sources and Radio Free Asia. Burma’s government denied the charges last…
New York, September 17, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists and nine other nongovernmental organizations today wrote to Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki expressing alarm at his government’s growing repression of press freedom and calling for the release of 17 jailed journalists. The letter marks the three-year anniversary, on September 18, of a brutal clampdown in which…
Dear Sir: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to request an immediate and thorough investigation into the murder of Venezuelan journalist Mauro Marcano, who was killed by unidentified attackers while he was leaving his home on September 1 in the city of Maturín, the capital of eastern Monagas State.
Your Excellency: We are writing to express alarm over the deteriorating human rights situation and growing repression of freedom of expression in Eritrea. In particular, we are concerned about the ban that your government has imposed on all independent non-governmental press since September 2001, when an unknown number of critics of your government were detained. Those detained include more than a dozen journalists who have been incarcerated for over three years without being formally charged.
New York, September 16, 2004—A Dominican reporter was ambushed and killed by gunmen this week, moments after a radio broadcast in which he reported on a bloody crime wave that has pitted gang members against police in the southern town of Azua, according to local news reports. Juan Emilio Andújar Matos, host of Radio Azua’s…