New York April 4, 2002—CPJ commends the efforts of Pakistani authorities to apprehend and prosecute the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The trial of four men charged with the journalist’s kidnapping and murder is scheduled to begin tomorrow, April 5. Seven others accused in the case remain at large. “Around the world,…
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…
Working as a journalist in Pakistan has long been a tricky business, and the threats only intensified after September 11, when the military government repudiated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and then Islamist militant groups at home in order to align itself with the United States in a global “war on terror.”
There were 118 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2001 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is up significantly from the previous year, when 81 journalists were in jail, and represents a return to the level of 1998, when 118 were also imprisoned.
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…
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—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…
[Statement from the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists – issued February 2, 2002] From the Pakistani newspaper DAWN — 2.4.02 PFUJ’s concern over kidnap of newsman By Our Reporter LAHORE, Feb 3: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has expressed grave concern over the disappearance and fate of American journalist Daniel Pearl of The…