New York, December 4, 2003—Zaw Thet Htway, editor of the Burmese sports magazine First Eleven, has been sentenced to death for high treason. Although death sentences are rarely carried out in Burma, exiled Burmese journalists call the sentence “disturbing.” According to international press reports, Zaw Thet Htway and eight other individuals, including a lawyer and…
The vicious murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan focused international attention on the dangers faced by journalists covering the U.S. “war on terror,” yet most attacks on journalists in Asia happened far from the eyes of the international press. In countries such as Bangladesh and the Philippines, reporters covering crime and…
Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from 19 months of house arrest on May 6 did nothing to improve conditions for the media in one of the world’s most repressive countries. More than seven months after the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was freed with the help of a U.N. special rapporteur, the ruling State…
Shortly after U.S. president George W. Bush arrived in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, in February 2002 for a state visit, the North Korean state news agency, KCNA, reported a miracle: that a cloud in the shape of a Kimjongilia, the flower named after the country’s leader, Kim Jong Il, had appeared over North Korea. “Even…
New York, July 24, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the deteriorating health of imprisoned journalist U Win Tin, one of Burma’s most prominent political prisoners. A former editor-in-chief of the daily Hanthawati and vice-chairman of Burma’s Writers Association, U Win Tin, 73, is currently serving the 13th year of a…
New York, July 18, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns recent moves by both Burmese and Thai authorities to crack down on the media in response to heightened tensions between the two countries. A series of official orders in both nations has restricted journalists’ ability to report on important cross-border developments. Already tense relations…
New York, May 15, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of journalist Sein Hlaing, one of nine political prisoners freed this week by Burma’s military rulers. The journalist had spent more than 11 years in prison. A spokesman for the regime announced yesterday, May 14, that the prisoners, all members of the opposition…
IN THE WAKE of September 11, 2001, journalists around the world faced a press freedom crisis that was truly global in scope. In the first days and weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., governments across the globe–in China, Benin, the Palestinian Authority Territories, and the United States–took actions to…
Journalists across Asia faced extraordinary pressures in 2001. Risks included reporting on war and insurgency, covering crime and corruption, or simply expressing a dissenting view in an authoritarian state. CPJ’s two most striking indices of press freedom are the annual toll of journalists killed around the world and our list of journalists imprisoned at the…