Foreign journalists have started making their way to Kashgar today after the official Xinhua News Agency reported that 16 police officers were killed when two terrorists drove a truck into an electricity pole and threw two home-made explosives sometime around 8 a.m. Monday. So far, the few foreigners who have made the double-hop plane connection…
CPJ has set up a press freedom hotline for journalists in China covering the Olympic Games. At +852 6717 0591, the CPJ hotline will take calls in English or Mandarin from journalists facing censorship, threats, attacks, or other press freedom abuses. CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz, who is reporting from Hong Kong during the…
Coverage of today’s attack on a police station in Kashgar will be important to watch. The coming hours will determine if the government’s more liberal rules on foreign reporters’ travel will be observed or ignored. The policy–which ostensibly allows foreign media to travel and interview people freely–was put into place in January 2007 as part…
Dear President Barzani, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the wave of threats against journalists in northern Iraq in the last few weeks. CPJ has documented an alarming number of cases recently, ranging from the murder of a journalist to an attack on another by a mob to at least three death threats directed at journalists in less than a month.
New York, August 4, 2008–An Ethiopian judge overseeing the high-profile trial of an imprisoned pop singer jailed the editor of an independent weekly for contempt of court today. The contempt charge came after the weekly published an interview with the singer’s lawyer, according to local journalists.
Hong Kong, August 5, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Chinese government to allow unrestricted reporting of Monday’s attack on police in the city of Kashgar, in the western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Local and international media outlets relied largely on the official Xinhua News Agency’s reports, which said two men killed 16…
We released the following statement after news reports that two men attacked and killed 16 policemen in an apparent suicide attack in Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region: “Journalists must be allowed to travel to Kashgar to report on this terrible incident. The world must not be forced to rely only on government-approved reports of…
With the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games only four days away, attention in the news media continues to center on the issues of openness and freedom in China. The Miami Herald has an editorial in today’s edition of the paper that wonders if the Chinese government can escape the grip of “their…
Information about today’s attack on border police in the western Chinese city of Kashgar is coming almost entirely from the official Xinhua News Agency. What’s interesting is the huge difference in the agency’s own reports, depending on what language you’re reading. In English, the attack was a suspected act of terrorism by Uighur separatists. In…