New York, December 23, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the indictment of New York Times researcher Zhao Yan on charges of leaking state secrets. Prosecutors notified Zhao’s lawyers today of the charges, which could 10 years or more in prison, according to international news reports. Zhao’s lawyers have not seen the indictment and do…
New York, December 23, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the indictment of two Nigerian radio journalists for airing an erroneous report of a bridge collapse, which their station retracted. Klem Ofuokwu and Cleopatra Taiwo, journalists for the private radio station Rhythm 93.7 FM in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt, were remanded…
New York, December 22, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists voiced outrage at the censorship of the Kazakh opposition newspaper Zhuma-Taims which has reported on vote rigging and corruption in the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The Economic Court in Almaty suspended the paper’s print-run in a December 20 ruling, according to the Kazakh International Bureau…
Washington, December 22, 2005—A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists that met today with the Ethiopian ambassador to the United States expressed outrage at the jailing of at least 16 journalists and demanded their immediate release. “Ethiopia and Eritrea are by far Africa’s worst jailers of journalists in 2005,” CPJ Africa Program Coordinator, Julia…
New York, December 22, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores a new law that makes criticism of authoritarian President Aleksandr Lukashenko and his government punishable by up to five years in prison. Lukashenko secretly signed the amendments to the penal code on December 15. They were registered on December 20 and will become law at…
New York, December 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes an appeals court’s ruling today ordering the release of magazine editor Ali Mohaqiq Nasab in the capital, Kabul. The court reduced his sentence from two years to six months, and suspended the remaining three months. Nasab will be released from prison within days, according to…
New York, December 21, 2005—Twenty-one Ethiopian journalists and the president of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association were charged today with involvement in an alleged attempt to overthrow the government, according to CPJ sources. Among those charged were five journalists of Ethiopian descent who work in Washington, D.C., for the Voice of America’s Amharic-language service,…
New York, December 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about recent attacks on ethnic Tamil journalists amid a spike in violence that threatens a ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels. On Monday, security forces assaulted three Tamil journalists reporting on a student demonstration…
New York, December 20, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly protests the detention on Friday of Mexican journalist and human rights activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro. She was released on bail on Saturday and faces criminal defamation charges. Cacho, a columnist for the Mexico City-based weekly magazines Día Siete and Tentaciones, was arrested around noon while…