By Anderson CooperSilence. When a journalist is killed, more often than not, there is silence. In Russia, someone followed Anna Politkovskaya home and quietly shot her to death in her apartment building. The killer muffled the sound of the gun with a silencer. Her murder made headlines around the world in October, but from the…
By Joel SimonAs Venezuelan elections approached in November, President Hugo Chávez accused news broadcasters of engaging in a “psychological war to divide, weaken, and destroy the nation.” Their broadcast licenses, he said, could be pulled–no idle threat in a country where a vague 2004 media law allows the government to shut down stations for work…
ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…
Leftists Lean on the Latin American MediaBy Carlos Lauría Latin America’s new leftist leaders may try to portray themselves as good news for the press, using the rhetoric of liberal democracy. But political and media analysts say these recently installed left-wing administrations are deeply rooted in the region’s longstanding culture of authoritarianism.
CUBA Facing intense international interest in President Fidel Castro’s hospitalization and the transfer of power to his brother, the Cuban government severely restricted information about Castro’s illness in the name of state security and selectively blocked foreign journalists’ entry into the country. In a July 31 proclamation aired on Cuban television without advance notice, Castro…
UNITED STATES After consuming the press freedom landscape for more than two years, an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s name wound down with a whimper. News organizations reported in August that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald apparently knew from the day his investigation began in December 2003 that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard…
ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…
UPDATE December 12, 2006 Original alert: December 6, 2006 Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia, Jóvenes sin censura IMPRISONED Rodríguez Albacia, a reporter for the independent news agency Jóvenes sin censura, was released at 10 p.m. on December 12, after being detained for nine days at Havana’s police station, 100 y Aldabó. He told CPJ that authorities filed…
New York, December 7, 2006–The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work increased for the second consecutive year, and one in three is now an Internet blogger, online editor, or Web-based reporter, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.