New York, January 31, 2005—Gunmen shot the publisher of a weekly newspaper four times in the chest as he left his office in Mindanao’s Tagum City on Saturday morning, leaving the journalist critically injured. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating the attack on Maximo “Max” Quindao, who also serves as editor of the weekly…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is heartened by your stated commitment to improve the poor press freedom climate in Ukraine. There is much to be remedied–and many benefits to be gained–as your administration ushers in what is widely hoped to be a new democratic era.
JANUARY 31, 2005 Posted: February 4, 2005 Patricia Poleo, El Nuevo País LEGAL ACTION The Attorney General’s Office announced that Poleo, a columnist and director of the Caracas daily El Nuevo País, would be prosecuted on charges of illegally obtaining and disclosing sealed case documents and violating anticorruption legislation. Poleo was accused of publicizing confidential…
JANUARY 31, 2005 Posted: February 14, 2005 José Wakadila, La Référence PlusIMPRISONED Wakadila, a reporter with the private daily La Référence Plus, was taken into custody and imprisoned in the western town of Matadi on defamation charges brought by two national oil executives.
JANUARY 29, 2005 Posted: March 28, 2005 Zhang Lin, Freelance IMPRISONED, LEGAL ACTION Zhang, a political essayist who wrote regularly for overseas online news sites, was detained on his return to Anhui Province after traveling to Beijing to mourn the death of Zhao Ziyang, the ousted general secretary of the Communist Party.
JANUARY 28, 2005 Posted: February 7, 2005 HornAfrik Radio ATTACKED Two unidentified men threw two grenades at the premises of private radio station HornAfrik in the capital, Mogadishu, at around 10 p.m., according to local press freedom group SOJON. The grenades exploded, but the station confirmed that there were no serious casualties or serious damage…
New York, January 28, 2005—Intelligence agents have been assigned to look for anyone who might have provided interviews or information for the January 23 New York Times article on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh, according to a Bangladeshi intelligence source quoted in the Dhaka-based newspaper The Daily Star. The search has been extended…
New York, January 28, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that a Colombian photographer is missing and feared abducted. On Saturday, January 22, Hernán Echeverri Arboleda, a photographer with the bimonthly regional newspaper Urabá Hoy (Urabá Today), disappeared on a rural highway in northwestern Colombia. Assailants thought to be members of the Revolutionary Armed…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed that the Ministry of Justice suspended two Arabic-language weeklies. According to press reports and local journalists, intelligence agents notified the editors of the Oujda-based weeklies Al-Sharq and Al-Hayat Al-Maghribiya on January 18 that they were to cease publication of their weeklies immediately for three months on order of the ministry.