Americas

New York, March 13, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is pleased that a federal appeals court on Tuesday temporarily blocked a lower court’s ruling requiring a former USA Today journalist to pay thousands of dollars of fines out of her own pocket for refusing to disclose sources. On February 29, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B.…

FEBRUARY 18, 2008 Posted March 10, 2008 Elvira Lobato, Folha de S. Paulo LEGAL ACTION, HARASSED At least 54 individual members of a Brazilian church have filed civil defamation suits in different cities across the country against the national daily Folha de S. Paulo and Lobato, its business reporter. The plaintiffs claim the reporter and…

UPDATE MARCH 5, 2008 Posted March 28, 2008 Original case: February 25, 2008 Gabriel Huge Córdoba, Notiver

CPJ asked Manuel Vázquez Portal, a Cuban writer, poet, and journalist swept up in the 2003 crackdown, to describe the year he spent in prison before being freed in 2004. He chose to describe his imprisonment in nightmare imagery. Vázquez Portal now lives and works in Miami.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Adopted by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of December 10, 1948.

MARCH 2008 Posted March 12, 2008 “Toronto 17” LEGAL Several news organizations have asked a Canadian appeals court to overturn a publication, broadcast, and Internet ban imposed on the ongoing bail hearings of 17 suspects accused of alleged terrorist activities concerning the Canadian capital of Toronto. Authorities announced the arrest of the suspects, since known…

Compiled by María Salazar as of March 3, 2008

March 2008 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, February 28, 2008—The Cuban government should release 22 imprisoned independent journalists in keeping with an international accord protecting free expression that was signed today by Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Pérez Roque signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which provides “the right to freedom…