New York, September 8, 2004—A cameraman with the Chisinau-based state television station Moldova One was arrested and sentenced to 15 days in prison this week after trying to cover the seizure of a Moldovan railway station in the breakaway enclave of Trans-Dniester. The cameraman, Dinu Mija, and Moldova One correspondent Lyudmila Munteanu were on assignment…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by an alarming government attack against the Lagos-based news magazine Insider Weekly, one that is fundamentally at odds with the most basic democratic principles. Members of the State Security Service (SSS) recently raided the newspaper, arrested employees, seized equipment, censored the news, and shut its…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the August 31 police attack on Guatemalan journalists covering the eviction of peasants from a ranch in the southern department of Retalhuleu. The police operation ended with several deaths and scores of injuries.
New York, September 7, 2004— Independent media coverage of last week’s hostage crisis in Beslan, Russia, was obstructed several times by detentions or harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. Thirty to 40 heavily armed fighters, allegedly of Chechen, Ingush and North Ossetian origin, took more than 1,000 children, parents and teachers hostage on…
New York, September 7, 2004—Iraq’s interim government has imposed an indefinite ban on newsgathering by Al-Jazeera, extending a temporary suspension and saying the satellite news channel had failed to properly explain its coverage. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Iraqi leaders to reverse the ban immediately, saying it “amounts to censorship that further…
Jakarta, Sept. 7, 2004—Under intense scrutiny from the international media and press advocates from around the world, a court yesterday delayed its verdict in a criminal defamation case widely seen as a grave threat to press freedom in Indonesia. No official reason was given for delaying a verdict in the trial of Tempo editor Bambang…
New York, September 7, 2004—Jailed Ethiopian journalist Tewodros Kassa was freed yesterday after serving out a sentence of more than two years in prison for “press offenses,” according to CPJ sources. With Kassa’s release, no journalists are jailed in Ethiopia, but many have criminal charges pending against them, the sources said. Kassa, the former editor…
New York, September 3, 2004-—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged at today’s decision of a Moscow court to sentence prominent journalist Andrei Babitsky, a correspondent for the Russian Service of the U.S. governmentfunded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to five days in prison for “hooliganism.” According to local press reports, police at Vnukovo Airport…
New York, September 2, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned last night en route to Beslan, North Ossetia, where about 40 heavily armed fighters, reportedly of Chechen and Ingush origin, seized hostages at an elementary school yesterday.
New York, September 2, 2004–Police arrested the editor-in-chief of the independent Somali-language daily Jamhuuriya and its weekly English-language edition, The Republican, in the self-declared republic of Somaliland this week. Hassan Said Yusuf was still in police custody today, and local journalists have not been allowed to visit him, according to local sources. Yusuf was arrested…