2007
CPJ mission to Bolivia finds growing difficulties for media
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, June 8, 2007—Despite a relatively open press climate, President Evo Morales’s intolerance of media criticism is making working conditions for reporters increasingly difficult, a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists found during a week-long visit to Bolivia. Morales, while pledging to respect press freedom, accused the media of…
CPJ urges Azerbaijan to end persecution of imprisoned editor
New York, June 7, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling on Azerbaijani authorities to release an editor imprisoned on libel charges who says he has been denied food and water, and has received death threats. Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the independent Russian-language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and the weekly Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan, told presiding…
ETHIOPIA: Police interrogate business weekly staffers for 11 hours
JUNE 7, 2007 Posted June 26, 2007 African Best Business Index Weekly HARASSED Police in the capital, Addis Ababa, summoned 17 staffers of the private English-Amharic African Best Business Index Weekly (ABBI), including Editor-in-Chief Yohannes Rufahel, for questioning about the paper’s license to publish, according to news reports and local journalists.
Iraqi journalist who endured abductions, threats is slain in Mosul
New York, June 7, 2007—An Iraqi journalist who had been abducted, shot and threatened with death was slain in Mosul today by unidentified gunmen who answered her cell phone after the killing and told the caller “she went to hell.” The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the murder of Sahar Hussein Ali al-Haydari, 44, a…
Somali government cracks down on media over security coverage
New York, June 7, 2007—Three private broadcasters covering a government security crackdown in the aftermath of Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing of the residence of the Somali prime minister in the capital, Mogadishu, were indefinitely shuttered on Wednesday after authorities accused the stations of fomenting unrest, according to news reports and local journalists. HornAfrik Radio, the…
In Afghanistan, second female journalist killed in a week
New York, June 6, 2007-The Committee to Protect Journalists is horrified by the murder in her home of radio station director Zakia Zaki in Afghanistan’s Parwan province, north of the capital Kabul. Unidentified gunmen shot her several times near midnight this morning in the bedroom she was sharing with her small children, according to international…
Gambia: Reporter for shuttered newspaper convicted over coup story
New York, June 6, 2007—A court in the capital, Banjul, on Tuesday fined a reporter for a now-banned newspaper in connection with a March 2006 story reporting the arrest of several suspects in the aftermath of a purported coup attempt, according to local journalists and news reports. Lamin Fatty of the private bi-weekly The Independent…
Government probes Michael Moore’s work in Cuba
MAY 2, 2007 Michael Moore, Goldflat Productions LEGAL ACTION The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) opened a civil investigation of journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore following his March 2007 trip to Cuba, according to a May 2 letter sent to Moore by Dale Thompson, chief of general investigations and field…
Prosecutor shuts down two Web sites
New York, June 5, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on prosecutors in the Kazakh financial capital, Almaty, to rescind their decision to close the Web sites of the weekly newspaper Karavan and the online news agency Kazakhstan Today. On Monday, the prosecutor general ordered the indefinite closure of Karavan’s Web site for a May…