The Toll: 1995-2004 Each year in January, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) publishes a list of journalists killed in the line of duty around the world. This list has become the most widely cited press freedom statistic and is often seen as a barometer of the state of global press freedom. While the correlation…
Around the world, 122 journalists were in prison at the end of 2004 for practicing their profession, 16 fewer than the year before. International advocacy campaigns, including those waged by the Committee to Protect Journalists, helped win the early release of a number of imprisoned journalists, notably six independent writers and reporters in Cuba.
This article originally appeared in The International Herald Tribune December 13, 2004 www.iht.com/opinion.html NEW YORK–When Raúl Rivero was released from prison and reunited with his family in Havana last week, newspapers around the world published photographs of the smiling Cuban writer embracing his wife, Blanca.
New York, December 7, 2004—The man who headed an independent Havana news agency has been freed after more than 20 months behind bars, becoming the sixth Cuban journalist to be released in recent months. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Cuban officials to immediately release the 23 journalists still jailed after the government’s massive…
New York, November 30, 2004—Cuban writer Raúl Rivero was released from a Havana prison today, the second imprisoned journalist to be granted medical parole in as many days. Twenty-five other journalists swept up in a March 2003 government crackdown on the independent press remain behind bars. Rivero’s discharge and the release of journalist Oscar Espinosa…
New York, November 29, 2004—At least one of the 27 journalists imprisoned in Cuba since a March 2003 crackdown on the independent press has been released from custody on a medical parole, and several others have been transferred to prison hospitals in Havana. CPJ called on Cuban authorities today to release all of the journalists…