Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
We issued this statement on the first anniversary of the brutal attack on Mikhail Beketov, editor-in-chief of the Khimki-based independent newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda, who was beaten nearly to death and left in his backyard. Beketov had criticized the Khimki administration’s decision to cut down a vast area of the region’s forest in order to build…
Jointly authored by CPJ’s Kati Marton and Nina Ognianova, an op-ed piece is running on The New York Times’ Web site today and will be published in the November 10 edition of The International Herald Tribune. The article is a follow-up to Marton and Ognianova’s mission to Russia to launch our special report Anatomy of Injustice: The…
Our news alert on Wednesday detailing a vicious attack on Albanian editor Mero Baze elicited e-mail comments from both victim and a businessman accused in the attack. Baze said he is recovering but is experiencing head pain. He also echoed reported witness statements that identified Rezart Taci, a principal in local oil companies, as being…
We issued this statement following today’s announcement by Russia’s Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor General’s Office that two individuals have been arrested and charged with the January 19 murder in Moscow of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova. The two suspects are 29-year-old Nikita Tikhonov and 24-year-old Yevgeniya Khasis, identified in the…
Dear Prime Minister Brown: The Committee to Protect Journalists wishes to offer our condolences on the loss of British Parachute Regiment Cpl. John Harrison, who died in a September 9 military operation to rescue two journalists kidnapped by Taliban forces in Afghanistan. We are grateful that New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell, a British-Irish national, was safely rescued, but we’re saddened by the loss of his colleague, fellow New York Times reporter Sultan Munadi.
New York, November 4, 2009—Assailants badly beat Mero Baze, chief editor of the independent Albanian daily Tema and host of the prime-time television show “Faktor Plus,” at a bar in the capital, Tirana, on Monday, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the attack and calls on authorities to bring the assailants…