2008
CPJ calls on Burma to allow in foreign journalists
Prime Minister Thein Sein: The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes your government’s recent decision to allow foreign aid and relief workers into Burma. We now urgently call on you to extend this openness to foreign journalists so that they may report on the relief efforts to deal with the disastrous aftermath of Cyclone Nargis.
TV reporter slain in northern Sri Lanka
New York, May 29, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the brutal murder of a television journalist in the conflict-ridden Jaffna peninsula in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday. Paranirupasingham Devakumar, Jaffna correspondent for the Maharaja Television news channel News 1st, was stabbed to death by a group of unidentified people on Wednesday evening, according to…
CPJ mourns death of photographer in Kenya
New York, May 29, 2008—CPJ is deeply troubled by the death of award-winning photojournalist Trent Keegan, whose body was found on Wednesday in a ditch in Nairobi, Kenya. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe told Agence France-Presse that Keegan was found with head injuries in a drainage trench along a central highway. Police have opened an inquest,…
CPJ condemns ban of Guinean paper over editorial
New York, May 28, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a two-month ban summarily handed to a Guinean independent newspaper last week over an editorial that raised critical questions about the health of President Lansana Conté’s second wife. The state-run National Communications Council decided on the ban, which is the third suspension of a newspaper…
Newspaper’s distributors beaten in Zimbabwe, papers burned
New York, May 27, 2008–CPJ condemns the beating of distributors for private weekly The Zimbabwean on Sunday last week. Unknown assailants hijacked and burned down the distributors’ truck, which was carrying 60,000 copies of the paper. “Attacking these media workers and burning newspapers is nothing but brutal censorship of one of the country’s last remaining…
Tibetan blog hacked
May 27, 2008 POSTED June 11, 2008 Woeser, www.woeser.middle-way.net HARASSED The Web site of a leading Beijing-based Tibetan commentator with the single name Woeser was hacked and her Skype identity stolen, according to Robbie Barnett, who runs Columbia University’s Tibetan Studies program.
Sri Lankan columnist badly beaten during abduction
New York, May 23, 2008—Prominent Sri Lankan columnist Keith Noyahr, who went missing late Thursday, returned home this morning after being severely beaten, according to the editor of his newspaper and news reports. Lalith Alahakoon, chief editor of English-language weekly The Nation, told CPJ by telephone this morning that Noyahr, who is also the paper’s…
Chilean police officer strikes photographer
New York, May 23, 2008—Chilean photographer Víctor Salas suffered a serious eye injury on Wednesday when he was struck by a police officer as he was covering a protest outside parliament in the southwestern city of Valparaíso. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the assault and called on Chilean authorities to hold the officer accountable.
Philippine Supreme Court should intervene in murder case
Dear Chief Justice Puno, The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about the recent ruling of a Cebu Court of Appeals to indefinitely suspend the murder trial of journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat. The two suspects, Osmeña Montañer and Estrella Sabay, face allegations of plotting the March 24, 2005, murder.
CPJ urges Egypt to free jailed interpreter
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly protests the continued detention without charge of Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree, an Egyptian media worker seized by Egyptian authorities while covering riots last month in the northern industrial city of Mahalla al-Kubra.