New York, July 25, 2002—To mark the one-year anniversary of the murder of Georgy Sanaya, a popular anchor for the Tbilisi-based independent television station Rustavi-2, Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Ann Cooper issued the following statement: “We are disheartened that one year after Georgy Sanaya’s July 26, 2001, murder, justice has not been done.…
New York, July 25, 2002–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by news reports that Czech investigative reporter Sabina Slonkova was the target of a murder plot allegedly planned by Karel Srba, the former general secretary of the Czech Foreign Ministry. Srba was arrested on July 19–in addition to three others who were arrested…
Eritrea: FESSHAYE YOHANNES Languishing in prison since the fall of 2001, prominent Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes staged a hunger strike in May with nine other colleagues in hopes of spurring their release. Instead, government officials transferred the journalists to an undisclosed location–and no one has heard from them since. Fesshaye (who is also known as…
Bangladesh: TIPU SULTAN For Tipu Sultan, an award-winning free-lance reporter from Bangladesh, writing the truth almost cost him his life. On January 25, 2001, Sultan was abducted and savagely beaten by about 15 thugs wielding baseball bats, hockey sticks, and iron rods after producing an article accusing a local legislator of criminal activity. Joynal Hazari,…
Kazakhstan: IRINA PETRUSHOVA Fearless journalism runs in Irina Petrushova’s family. A generation ago, her father, Albert Petrushov, a reporter for Pravda, wrote exposés that brought down the corrupt Communist Party boss of Kazakhstan, then a republic in the Soviet Union. Now Irina, 36, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly Respublika, routinely challenges post-Soviet…
Colombia: IGNACIO GÓMEZ Colombia is a country of terrible secrets, none of which are safe from Ignacio Gómez. In almost two decades as an investigative reporter, Gómez has exposed alliances between drug lords and politicians, foreign mercenaries operating in Colombia, corrupt soccer teams, and the role of the Colombian military and paramilitary forces in many…
New York, October 22, 2002–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will present its 2002 International Press Freedom Awards to four journalists–from Colombia, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, and Eritrea–who have reported fearlessly on government malfeasance. They have survived brutal physical attack, endured death threats, defied criminal charges, and suffered imprisonment, all in reprisal for their work. The 12th…
New York, July 19, 2002—After delaying its decision for nearly four years, the Tajik government last week refused a broadcast license to the independent media agency Asia Plus. Asia Plus applied in August 1998 to open a radio station in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, where only state-run television and radio stations operate. The agency received…
New York, July 16, 2002—In the latest instance of Kazakhstan’s official harassment of independent and opposition journalists, a prominent journalist has been charged with defaming Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Sergei Duvanov, who writes for several Web sites financed by Kazakhstan’s political opposition, was summoned to the Almaty office of the National Security Committee (KNB, successor…