New York, September 11, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned that Iosif Costinas, a 62 year-old reporter for the Romanian independent daily Timisoara, has been missing since early June. Costinas’ journalism focused on highly sensitive political issues, including a number of unsolved murders that occurred during the 1989 anti-communist revolt, which began in…
New York, September 6, 2002—The Interior Ministry of Macedonia announced today that it is filing criminal libel charges against Marjan Djurovski, a journalist with the weekly magazine Start, which is based in the Macedonian capital, Skopje. The ministry also stated that additional steps would be taken against other local journalists. According to the Interior Ministry,…
New York, August 29, 2002—A prominent Kazakh journalist was seriously beaten by unknown assailants on the evening of August 28, according to sources in Almaty, a southern city in Kazakhstan. Sergei Duvanov, who writes for opposition-financed Web sites, returned to his home in Almaty at around 9:45 p.m. yesterday after attending an English class. He…
New York, August 29, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA), a banking and investment watchdog agency, to respect the confidentiality of sources in its discussions with news organizations over leaked documents pertaining to Interbrew, the Belgium-based brewing group. The discussions follow Interbrew’s July 26 decision to stop legal…
August 28, 2002 His Excellency Jiang Zemin President, People’s Republic of China C/o Embassy of the People’s Republic of China 2300 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20008 Via facsimile: (202) 588-0032 Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the safety of Web publisher Wan Yanhai, who has been missing in…
August 28, 2002 His Excellency Jiang Zemin President, People’s Republic of China C/o Embassy of the People’s Republic of China 2300 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20008 Via facsimile: (202) 588-0032 Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the safety of Web publisher Wan Yanhai, who has been missing in…
New York, August 19, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the recent attack on Artur Platonov in Almaty, a city in southern Kazakhstan. Platonov is a well-known host of the weekly television program “Portrait of the Week” on the private station KTK. Three assailants brutally assaulted Platonov as he was driving…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by your government’s continued use of libel lawsuits and official harassment in its unyielding assault on the independent press in Belarus. Your Excellency’s repressive regime systematically violates the fundamental right of press freedom and forces independent journalists to work in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
August 9, 2002, New York—A court in the Turkish breakaway region of northern Cyprus yesterday sentenced two editors from the opposition daily Afrika to six months in prison for criticizing a Turkish Cypriot leader, according to international press reports and CPJ sources. On Thursday, August 8, Afrika editor-in-chief Sener Levent and editor Memduh Ener were…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by your government’s recent use of defamation lawsuits and official pressure to silence the Baku-based independent magazine Monitor, which is known for its critical reporting on government officials. We are also troubled by the ongoing harassment of the magazine’s publisher and editor-in-chief, Elmar Huseynov.