New York, May 3, 2006—Two journalists from Botswana’s state broadcaster were arrested by Zimbabwean police on April 30, held for two days, and charged with violating Zimbabwe’s draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), Botswana’s director of broadcasting services, Bapasi Mphusu, confirmed today. Botswana Television (BTV) reporter Beauty Mokoba and cameraman Koketso…
New York, May 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the detention of an opposition newspaper editor for criticizing the president of the Russian republic of Bashkortostan. Viktor Shmakov, editor-in-chief of Provintsialniye Vesti (Provincial News), was arrested April 28 by Federal Security Service (FSB) agents in Ufa, the capital of the semi-autonomous republic,…
New York, May 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s attack on the Tamil-language daily Uthayan. Editor N. Vithayatharan confirmed to CPJ that five masked gunmen killed two employees and wounded at least two others, one seriously, when they sprayed the paper’s office with automatic weapons fire in Jaffna. CPJ calls on the government…
New York, May 2, 2006—The trial of journalist Yang Xiaoqing has been set for May 10 in the county court of Longhui, in south central China’s Hunan province, the same county where Yang’s reporting exposed alleged graft among local officials, his wife and lawyer told CPJ today. “It is ludicrous to think that Yang Xiaoqing…
New York, May 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the recent arrests and criminal prosecutions for defamation of three journalists with the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region. On Tuesday, a criminal court in the city of Sulaymaniyah sentenced Twana Osman, editor-in-chief of Hawlati, and Asos Hardi, the paper’s…
New York, October 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that Sudanese security forces have held Abu Obeida Abdallah, a reporter for the pro-government daily Al-Ra’y Al-Aam, incommunicado and without charge since Friday. “No evidence has been disclosed to suggest Abu Obeida Abdallah has committed a crime,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said.…
APRIL 24, 2006 Posted: May 1, 2006 Anselme Masua, Radio Okapi ATTACKED Soldiers from the Republican Guard, a military detachment that falls under the president’s authority, attacked Masua, a journalist for Radio Okapi, at a military base in the central city of Kisangani, according to a United Nations spokesman and the local press freedom organization…
New York, May 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the criminal charges brought against two Danish reporters accused of leaking state secrets by publishing intelligence reports that questioned the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Danish journalists say it is the first time that reporters have been indicted in their country…
New York, May 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed at the arrest on Friday of Tchanguis Vatankah, founder of an independent radio station and president of the Chadian Union of Private Radios. Police took Vatankah from his home in the capital, N’Djamena, but did not show any arrest warrant, according to Evariste Toldé,…