A letter to the American hikers being held in Iran
The families of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd, the three hikers detained in Iran, said today they are concerned about their children’s emotional well-being after nearly four months in prison. They asked supporters to send letters, which they will seek to deliver to them in Evin Prison in Tehran, where the three are…
Free Speech Protection Act could slow ‘libel tourism’
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
Mexican court did not call for release of Brad Will suspect
New York, November 11, 2009—A court in Oaxaca has not ordered the release of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, who was charged last year for the 2006 killing of U.S. journalist Bradley Roland Will, contrary to initial news reports in the Mexican press.
Obama should press Chinese for release of jailed journalists
Dear President Obama: We are heartened by news reports that you plan to talk to Chinese leaders about human rights and related issues when you visit the country next week. On World Press Freedom Day in May, you specifically raised the cases of two of China’s jailed journalists—Shi Tao, imprisoned for allegedly “leaking state secrets,” and Hu Jia, behind bars for alleged “incitement to subvert state power.” Both men remain jailed, and we ask that you now press for their immediate release.
Playing the spy card against WSJ in Pakistan
Last Thursday, Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper published a reckless and unsubstantiated story accusing Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent Matthew Rosenberg of being a spy. It’s an accusation that gravely endangers Rosenberg’s safety. Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded with a scathing letter to The Nation’s editor, Shireen Mazari, expressing his disgust at the publication…
Toronto’s Citizen Lab uses forensics to fight online censors
A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and…
CNN’S Lou Dobbs threatened; shot fired at home
On October 26, 2009, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs announced on the air that a shot had been fired at his home while his wife and her driver were standing outside in the driveway. Dobbs made the announcement on CNN and his syndicated radio program, saying the gunshot struck his home about three weeks earlier as…
Brad Will killing unresolved three years on
Three years ago today, an independent journalist named Bradley Roland Will was killed in Mexico while reporting on a heated protest movement in the capital city of the southern state of Oaxaca. Today, the crime remains unresolved. A man from Oaxaca, Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, who many close followers of the case believe is innocent,…
An Iraqi journalist in America: Gathering my family
Nearly six months after my arrival in the U.S., most of my family has finally joined me in Arizona. Making the trip from Baghdad was my father, who turned 63 in October; my mother, who is 50; and my 16-year-old brother, Anas, who is very eager to discover this big country.