CPJ is alarmed by the resignation of Shaheen Sehbai, the influential editor of The News, one of Pakistan’s leading English-language newspapers. Sehbai said today in a resignation letter addressed to his boss but circulated among colleagues and friends that he was leaving his post under pressure from the government, warning that Pakistani officials were sending…
Bangkok, February 25, 2002— Thai immigration authorities have ordered the expulsion of two foreign correspondents for the Hong Kongbased Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) magazine on the grounds that they are a threat to national security. Shawn Crispin, the magazine’s bureau chief, and correspondent Rodney Tasker, who is also president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club…
Dear Little Pearl: By the time you read these words, God willing, you will not be a “Little Pearl” anymore. As I write these words, you are not yet born. It is March and you are due in May. Last weekend President Bush mentioned you at the annual dinner of the Gridiron Club. The 117-year-old…
New York, February 14, 2002—Facing strict government regulations, capricious censors, and corrupt bureaucrats, journalists in Burma persevere against odds unheard of in almost any other country, according to a CPJ special report, “Under Pressure: How Burmese journalism survives in one of the world’s most repressive regimes.” The report was released as United Nations envoy Paulo…
New York, February 14, 2002—CPJ welcomes the release yesterday of Burmese journalist Myo Myint Nyein, former editor of the magazine Pe-Phu-Hlwar, who was freed along with four other political prisoners during a visit by United Nations envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. Myo Myint Nyein had served more than 11 years of a 14-year prison term. “CPJ…
New York, New York, February 14, 2002–CPJ delivered nearly 600 petitions to Chinese president Jiang Zemin today calling for the release of journalist Jiang Weiping, a recipient of CPJ’s 2001 International Press Freedom Award. The petitions urge President Jiang to “release Jiang Weiping and other jailed Chinese journalists immediately and unconditionally, and to uphold the…
New York, February 14, 2002—CPJ remains hopeful that kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is alive, despite today’s statement by a key suspect in the abduction that he thinks the reporter has been killed. Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man investigators say is responsible for Pearl’s kidnapping, told an anti-terrorism court in Karachi today…
New York, February 12, 2002—CPJ is hopeful that apparent progress made by Pakistani authorities in their investigation of the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will soon lead to the journalist’s safe release. Police said today that they have arrested Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, whom they have identified as the chief suspect in…
New York, February 12, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about reported threats to journalists from the Abu Sayyaf, an armed group active in the southern Philippines that American and Filipino officials have linked to the al-Qaeda network. More than 600 American troops arrived recently on the southern island of Basilan to help…