2006
Defamation bill threatens free press
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to refrain from signing a bill before you that threatens freedom of the press and free expression by imposing harsh penalties for defamation. As you know, Prime Minister Mari bim Altakiri approved on December 6, 2005, a bill revising the penal code, which had been passed by the National Parliament. The penal code revisions now before you allow for up to three years imprisonment and unlimited fines for publishing statements deemed defamatory of public officials.
CPJ condemns campaign to silence dissent
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrests and detentions of Cambodian journalists Mam Sonando, Hang Sakhorn, and Pa Guon Tieng. These detentions come as Cambodia wages an alarming campaign to stifle the voices of numerous government critics and human rights activists. In the cases of the three journalists, your government resorted to charges of criminal defamation to justify imprisonment.
Polish journalist to be jailed in rare criminal libel prosecution
New York, January 12, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the imminent jailing of Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Wiesci Polickie in the northwestern town of Police. Convicted of libeling a local official in articles published in 2001, Marek is due to begin serving a three-month sentence on Monday, according to…
Prosecutor threatens legal action against two editors
New York, January 12, 2006—The top prosecutor in the Kyrgyzstani capital, Bishkek, said today he had issued formal warnings to two newspaper editors and may take legal action against them for allegedly slandering President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, according to press reports. “Recently some media have published articles distributing unreliable information, some of it slanderous with regard…
CPJ urges Mexico’s Fox to move on special prosecutor for free expression crimes
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disappointed that a special prosecutor has not been appointed to investigate crimes against free expression despite your pledge to seek the position in response to a wave of murderous violence against the media in northern Mexico.
CPJ protests 30-year jail term for Kurdish writer on defamation conviction
New York, January 11, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the authorities in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region to overturn the conviction and 30-year prison sentence handed down to Kurdish writer Kamal Karim for defamation. Karim, whose name is also given as Kamal Sayid Qadir, was convicted by a state security court in the…
Radio station censored
December 28, 2005 Radio Kasumai CENSORED Police entered the studios of Radio Kasumai, a community radio station in the northern town of Saõ Domingos, and ordered employees to stop broadcasting. The police also threatened several journalists. According to local journalists, the threats stemmed from a recent program in which callers complained on-air that police were…