New York, March 3, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Tuesday’s criminal defamation conviction of Mexican journalist Isabel Arvide for a 2001 article alleging links between state officials and organized crime. Judge Octavio Rodríguez Gaytán, of the Second Penal Court in the state of Chihuahua, sentenced Arvide to one year in prison and ordered her…
TEMPLATE New York, March 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by death threats against a reporter for the Colombian newspaper Vanguardia Liberal which says it is also the target of government surveillance. Jenny Manrique said she fled the city of Bucaramanga, in the western province of Santander, in January after receiving death threats…
New York, March 2, 2006—Police today turned on journalists in Belarus trying to cover an attack by plainclothes police officers on an opposition candidate in March 19 presidential elections. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the assault. Aleksandr Kozulin, one of three candidates challenging president Aleksandr Lukashenko, was beaten and detained by police in the…
New York, March 2, 2006—A judge in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, has convicted Boyuk Millat Editor-in-Chief Samir Adygozalov of criminal libel and insult and sentenced him to one year in prison, according to local press reports. Adygozalov was immediately taken into custody after the verdict was read in Nizami District Court on February 23. The…
New York, March 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by criminal charges filed against the daily Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal, its editor-in-chief, and a staff reporter for defaming President Emile Lahoud. The charges were brought by Beirut prosecutor Joseph Me’mari on Tuesday, four days after Al-Mustaqbal published an interview with former Lebanese ambassador to…
New York, March 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by death threats against a reporter for the Colombian newspaper Vanguardia Liberal which says it is also the target of government surveillance. Jenny Manrique said she fled the city of Bucaramanga, in the western province of Santander, in January after receiving death threats for…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned by a recent string of attacks on the media in Kenya, where your Excellency promised to strengthen press freedom and democratic institutions. Early this morning, police raided Kenya’s oldest newspaper, the Standard, and a television station owned by the Standard Group, temporarily disabling both media outlets. The raids are particularly troubling in light of events over the past two weeks, when police detained three journalists from the Standard’s weekend edition, charging them with publishing “alarming” statements, and raided two tabloid newspapers, detaining several journalists and issuing arrest warrants for four more.
New York, March 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Paraguayan authorities to fully investigate an attack against newspaper reporter Juan Augusto Roa, whose car was fired on by unidentified gunmen on Monday night near the southern city of Encarnación. The reporter was unharmed. Roa, a correspondent for the Asunción-based daily ABC Color, told…
New York, March 1, 2006—One year after the founder and editor of the opposition weekly Monitor was slain in the entrance of his apartment building in Baku, Azerbaijan, no suspects are in custody and many colleagues and relatives believe the government’s investigation is on the wrong track. The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for…