New York, April 9, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for charges to be dropped against South African journalists Sipho Moses Maseko and Abdulla Ismail Gaibbe and their passports returned. The case was tossed out once by a court magistrate but charges were later reinstated. The men, working for the South African satellite company…
New York, April 9, 2008—The Committee Protect Journalists welcomes an Iraqi judicial committee’s decision to drop legal proceedings against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been held by U.S. authorities for two years on allegations shrouded in secrecy. The committee ordered that Hussein be freed “immediately” if no other charges were pending, AP reported today.…
New York, April 9, 2008—Two Haitian reporters were injured by rubber bullets while covering clashes between protesters and Haitian and U.N. forces in Port-au-Prince Tuesday, according to news reports and interviews. A third journalist was wounded by pellets that were fired by protesters, a press advocate said. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on…
New York, April 8, 2008–Bolivian authorities must thoroughly investigate and promptly bring to justice those responsible for the slaying of Carlos Quispe Quispe, a journalist working for a government-run radio station in Pucarani, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Quispe died March 29 after being severely beaten two days earlier by protesters demanding the…
Dear Mr. Bassiouni, The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express its deep concern about your company’s decision to stop carrying the signal of the London-based Al-Hewar Television. Nilesat, an Egyptian government-owned satellite transmission company, stopped carrying the channel on April 1 without warning or explanation, according to international news reports and Egypt-based journalists. The station remains accessible to viewers on the Atlantic Bird satellite system, according to news reports.
New York, April 8, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern over the murder of a journalist in Pasig city in the metropolitan region of the Philippine capital of Manila yesterday. CPJ is investigating to determine whether the killing has any connection to his reporting. Benefredo Acabal, 34, was shot several times at close range…
New York, April 8, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns yesterday’s murder of popular writer Georgi Stoev, author of a series of books on the origins and rise of Bulgaria’s criminal underworld since the fall of communism in 1989. Stoev, 35, was on a busy street when two unidentified men stopped him near the Pliska…
New York, April 8, 2008—A Russian district court judge on Monday acquitted a man accused in the killing of Vagif Kochetkov, Tula correspondent for the Moscow daily Trud and a columnist for the local newspaper Molodoi Kommunar, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. Prosecutors had charged Yan Stakhanov, a local businessman, with robbery and…
New York, April 7, 2008—The editor of a New York-based weekly told CPJ he received a death threat. Majeed Babar, executive editor of the Weekly Asia Tribune, said a man called him on March 29 and told him, “We will cut you to pieces” in Urdu. Babar said the threat was linked to opinion columns…
New York, April 7, 2008—A New York Times reporter and a British national were released on bail from Zimbabwe’s Harare Central Prison today after spending five days in detention on charges of reporting without accreditation. The award-winning Times journalist, Barry Bearak, is currently receiving medical treatment for a chest infection and a back injury he…