AUGUST 12, 2005 Posted October 31, 2005 Relangi Selvarajah, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corp. KILLED—UNCONFIRMED Popular Tamil broadcaster Relangi Selvarajah and her husband, a political activist, were killed by unidentified gunmen in Colombo on the same day that Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, was assassinated. Political leaders blamed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam…
JULY 8, 2005 Posted: August 9, 2005 Mei Magsino-Lubis, Philippine Daily Inquirer THREATENED Lubis, Batangas correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, went into hiding after a caller told her that two prisoners from the provincial jail had been released with orders to kill her. The caller suggested that she leave Batangas, the provincial capital of…
New York, August 11, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a Nepalese judge’s decision on Wednesday to block a government order that could have shut Nepal FM 91.8. Authorities have sought to close the station for defying a government ban on broadcasting news. Buoyed by the preliminary court ruling, several FM stations in Nepal have…
Bangkok, Thailand, August 11, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the Thai government’s escalating harassment and intimidation of the media. Police on Tuesday raided and shut down FM 92.25, a Bangkok community radio station known for its critical reporting of the prime minister, and threatened to arrest its journalists if they continued…
New York, August 10, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Taiwanese government’s recent actions against the cable television news station ETTV-S. The government halted the station’s broadcasts and revoked its license last week, citing “irresponsible” reporting. The Government Information Office, the official agency tasked with monitoring the media, accused the station of abusing broadcast…
AUGUST 9, 2005 Posted: August 17, 2005 Manjur Morshed, Jugantor ATTACKED Many journalists THREATENED In the southern city of Baufal, witnesses told local reporters and CPJ sources that a large group of cadres from the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) abducted Morshed from a local college at noon and forcibly escorted him to a nearby…
JULY 26, 2005 Posted: August 9, 2005 Iqbal Athas, The Sunday Times THREATENED Speaking to a closed meeting of 1,000 top military and police officials in Colombo, President Chandrika Kumaratunga accused Athas of publishing sensitive information harmful to Sri Lanka’s national security, sources told local news reporters.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the charge of espionage leveled on Friday against Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong, who has been detained since April without access to legal representation or his family. As an independent organization of journalists dedicated to defending our colleagues worldwide, we are gravely concerned that a pattern of using national security charges against journalists is seriously inhibiting the ability of the press to cover important events in China.