Afghanistan
2010
Kidnapped Japanese freelancer released in Afghanistan
New York, September 7, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the weekend release of Japanese freelance journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka, who spent more than five months in captivity in Afghanistan. Tsuneoka’s kidnappers released him to the Japanese Embassy on Saturday night and he returned to Japan on Monday, according to local and international news reports. He…
Afghan MP’s television station pulled off the air
New York, July 29, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Afghan government to allow privately owned Emroaz TV back on the air, after its owner said it was shut down under pressure from Iran. According to local and international media reports, the station went dark on Tuesday almost immediately after the station’s owner,…
Afghan media push bill to ensure access to information
When we report on Afghanistan, it’s often about something horrific—a deadly explosion, a murder, a kidnapping. But when you ask many Afghan journalists about the biggest challenge they face daily, it’s not danger or harassment that they cite. Although Article 50 of the Afghanistan Constitution guarantees access to public information, journalists say that obtaining such…
On Pakistan’s frontier, home is often the cost of reporting
In an alert on Monday, we reported on an attack that left at least six women and children seriously injured at the home of local television journalist Zafarullah Bonari along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. A group of unidentified attackers threw grenades and opened fire on Bonari’s house. The information was scant when we first heard about…
Moby Media executive urges global support for Afghan press
Mujahid Kakar, head of news and current affairs for Afghanistan’s Moby Media Group, was at the United Nations on Monday to give a speech on World Press Freedom Day. He stopped by CPJ’s office afterward, and we talked for more than an hour about journalism in Afghanistan. Kakar, left, whose oversight includes the influential Tolo…
In Afghanistan, at least 3 journalists still held captive
On Wednesday, I posted an item about the dangers to journalists in Pakistan, reminding readers that at least two reporters–Canadian freelancer Beverley Giesbrecht, who goes by the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar, and British journalist Asad Qureshi–are being held captive somewhere along the border with Afghanistan. I later received a few e-mail messages reminding me that…
Getting Away With Murder
CPJ’s 2010 Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, April 20, 2010—Deadly, unpunished violence against the press has soared in the Philippines and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail…
In Afghanistan, concern about journalists held by Taliban
New York, April 14, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the new demands made by a Taliban group that is holding captive two French television journalists, Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier, translator Mohammed Reza, and the group’s driver. They were taken in Kapisa province, northeast of Kabul, in December.