Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about press freedom violations in Nepal during the recently declared State of Emergency. On November 26, King Gyanendra declared a State of Emergency throughout the country in response to an upsurge of violence between Maoist rebels and government security forces that killed at least 100 people over the weekend.
New York, November 28, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about the safety of Ken Hechtman, a Canadian free-lance journalist who is believed to be held captive in the border town of Spin Boldak. Hechtman, 33, was writing for the weekly Montreal Mirror. On November 27, a man who identified himself as…
New York, November 27, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague Ulf Strömberg, a cameraman for the Swedish channel TV4. He was murdered early this morning during a robbery at the house in Taloqan where he and several other journalists were staying. At around 2 a.m. Tuesday morning,…
New York, November 20, 2001—CPJ welcomes the release of Japanese free-lance journalist Daigen Yanagida, who was imprisoned for nearly a month by Taliban authorities in Jalalabad. Yanagida was detained on October 22 in Asadabad after entering Afghanistan without a visa. He was later brought to Jalalabad for questioning. On November 16, the Taliban released Yanagida…
November 19, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by the apparent murder of four journalists who were seized yesterday while traveling between Jalalabad and Kabul. The journalists have been identified by their news organizations as Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer for the Reuters news agency; Harry Burton, an Australian television cameraman for Reuters;…
New York, November 13, 2001—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the destruction of the Kabul offices of Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-based, Arabic language satellite television station. The building that housed the station was destroyed by a missile fired by a U.S. warplane early Tuesday morning, according to international news reports. No injuries…
New York, November 12, 2001—CPJ is deeply saddened by the deaths of three colleagues killed while reporting in northern Afghanistan. Johanne Sutton, a reporter for Radio France Internationale; Pierre Billaud, a reporter for Radio Television Luxembourg; and Volker Handloik, a free-lance reporter on assignment for the German news magazine Stern, were killed on the evening…
New York, July 11, 2001 — CPJ is dismayed that local authorities in Abbottabad have not dropped blasphemy charges brought against journalists from the Urdu-language daily Mohasib, even though officials at both the provincial and federal levels have issued statements noting that these charges are groundless. On May 29, Mohasib published an article entitled “The…