New York, May 24, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in Bangladesh to drop sedition charges against Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, the editor and publisher of the now-defunct weekly tabloid Blitz. Choudhury will appear in court tomorrow to apply for an extension of his bail, which he received on April 30 after spending…
New York, May 24, 2005—Hundreds of journalists took to the streets of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, today in a silent protest of reported government moves to amend the media law to impose further restrictions on the press. The Kathmandu-based dailies Kantipur and Kathmandu Post, citing an unnamed source, reported late last week that officials had moved…
New York, May 23, 2005—The former presenter for a popular MTV-style music video program was shot and killed in her home in Kabul last week. Shaima Rezayee, 24, hosted the daily music program “Hop” on the private television channel Tolo TV until March. Police told The Associated Press that Rezayee was killed May 18 by…
MAY 22, 2005 Posted: June 7, 2005 TBC Radio ATTACKED The offices of the London-based exiled Tamil news radio Tamil Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) were broken into and looted in the early morning hours, forcing the station to suspend programming, according to the station’s program director V. Ramaraj.
MAY 19, 2005 Posted: June 15, 2005 Allan Sison, DZRH-Dagupan THREATENED Sison, operations manager and a program host for the local radio station in Lingayen in the northern Pangasinan province, was leaving a wedding reception at a hotel around 1 p.m. when he heard a shot. When Sison arrived at his truck in the hotel…
MAY 19, 2005 Posted: June 7, 2005 Ghodaghodi FM ATTACKED A group of 40 armed men thought to be Maoist rebels stormed the private FM radio station in Attariya, a village in the far western Kailali district, 375 miles west of Kathmandu. The group looted the station’s broadcasting equipment, computers, and furniture valued at US…
MAY 18, 2005 Posted: June 10, 2005 Nepal Television ATTACKED Rebels bombed the state-owned Nepal Television tower in the western district of Palpa, according to local and international news reports. No one was hurt, but broadcasts of Nepal Television in the region were disrupted, according to the online version of the daily Kantipur and The…
MAY 18, 2005 Posted: June 15, 2005 Pablo Hernandez, Bulgar ATTACKED Hernandez, a self-described “hard-hitting’ crime columnist with the tabloid Bulgar (Expose), survived an apparent assassination attempt when he exchanged gunshots with two motorcycle-riding assailants just before dawn in the Valenzuela suburb of Manila. It was the second attack on Hernandez this year; he survived…
New York, May 18, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about the safety of reporter Som Sharma, who was abducted from his residence in the eastern district of Ilam late last week. The abduction is one of several serious attacks on the press in recent days by both Maoist rebels and the government.…