2010
Taliban threats, abducted journalists in Pakistan
Over the last few days, several papers in Pakistan reported that a Taliban organization in North Waziristan gave a “last warning” to Pakistani media. The story was widely reported, quoting an e-mail message from Muhammad Umar, a “spokesman for the Taliban Media Center,” the papers said. The group is angry about the way it is being portrayed on Pakistani…
Is Brazil the censorship capital of the Internet? Not yet
Last week, Google published its first set of global government request statistics, showing how many demands it receives to remove content from its servers or hand over private information on its users. Transparency by Internet companies about how much information they are compelled to remove or release helps us understand how online journalism worldwide may…
Independent editor brutally beaten in Russia
New York, April 27, 2010—Regional prosecutors should immediately investigate the brutal attack on Monday on Arkady Lander, editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Mestnaya (Local) in the southern city of Sochi, and bring his assailants to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Three journalists killed in Nigeria
New York, April 26, 2010—Three Nigerian journalists were killed in two separate incidents over the weekend. Muslim rioters killed two reporters working with a local Christian newspaper on Saturday, according to local journalists and news reports. Also on Saturday, court reporter Edo Sule Ugbagwu, at left, from the private daily The Nation was shot dead at his home by two…
Lauría in Washington Post
CPJ Senior Americas Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría is quoted in an article in Washington Post about the seventh Honduran journalist killed since March 1. Most of the victims had reported on organized crime in the northern coastal region of Honduras, a key transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine. Please follow this link to read the article…
FOIA needs new muscle behind it, not just promises
These are busy days for Freedom of Information. On April 5, the watchdog Web site that knows no borders, WikiLeaks, posted a classified U.S. military video showing U.S. forces firing on Iraqi civilians, killing many, including two Reuters journalists, as well as wounding children. Two days later, the Pentagon posted a redacted U.S. military assessment of the same incident concluding that U.S. troops fired “in accordance…
CPJ seeks Pentagon investigations in Iraq journalist deaths
Dear Secretary Gates: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by a video recently disclosed by the Web site WikiLeaks showing a U.S. military strike that took place on July 12, 2007. The attack killed an unspecified number of individuals, including Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant, Saeed Chmagh.
Cameroon must investigate jailed editor’s death
Dear President Biya: Following Thursday’s death of newspaper editor Germain S. Ngota Ngota, whose health deteriorated while he was incarcerated in Kondengui Prison in the capital, Yaoundé, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on you to launch a public, thorough, and transparent inquiry into the circumstances of his death. We urge you to provide guarantees for the well-being of three other journalists held in Cameroonian prisons and address ongoing abuses—including allegations of state torture—against independent journalists who raise questions about the administration’s performance.