AFGHANISTAN: 1 Ali Mohaqqiq Nasab, Haqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights) Imprisoned: October 1, 2005 The attorney general ordered editor Nasab’s arrest on blasphemy charges after the religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, Mohaiuddin Baluch, filed a complaint about his magazine. “I took the two magazines and spoke to the Supreme Court chief, who wrote to the attorney…
PAKISTAN Striking contradictions emerged during the sixth year of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s rule. Baton-wielding police attacked journalists in several high-profile incidents, including two on World Press Freedom Day in May, even as the administration publicly proclaimed its commitment to press freedom. Journalists faced new threats of imprisonment for defamation and programming deemed “vulgar,” while the…
New York, January 23, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists appealed today to Pakistani authorities to answer inquiries about the fate of abducted reporter Hayatullah Khan and to stop harassing journalists in the tribal areas. On the eve of a White House meeting between Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and U.S. President George W. Bush, CPJ…
New York, January 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply alarmed by the failure of the Pakistani authorities to respond to inquiries about the fate of journalist Hayatullah Khan more than a month after he was seized by unidentified gunmen in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Family and colleagues have had no…
DECEMBER 23, 2005 Posted January 4, 2006 KhabroonATTACKED Armed men threw a gasoline bomb into the offices of the Sindhi-language daily Khabroon in the southern city of Sukkur, setting the reception area on fire, according to local news reports. The attackers threatened the newspaper staff, including journalists, and fired shots into the office.
DECEMBER 5, 2005 Posted: December 5, 2005 Hayat Ullah Khan, Ausaf ABDUCTED Khan was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where authorities said a top Al-Qaeda leader was killed on December 1, 2005. Five men with AK-47 assault rifles forced Khan’s car off the road, his brother Mohammad Ehsan,…
New York, December 5, 2005 —The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Pakistani authorities to act with the utmost speed to find journalist Hayat Ullah Khan, who was kidnapped today by unidentified gunmen in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where authorities say a top Al-Qaeda leader was killed last week. Five men…