Press freedom in the news 8/28/08
The International Herald Tribune has picked up an Associated Press report about the arrest of a Colombian politician in the murder of Nelson Carvajal, a broadcaster for Radio Sur killed in 1998. The Pakistan Times and the Kashmir Observer are both covering the continued violence in Kashmir and mention our condemnation of the assaults and…
Press freedom in the news 8/27/08
The Washington Post has an column from Joe Davidson today that expresses concern about the CIA recruitment of journalists at a recent conference. Davidson discusses how the line between journalist and spy is often blurred abroad and how reporters like CPJ board member Terry Anderson have found themselves taken hostage when neutrality of journalists is…
Journalists under increasing threat in Iraqi Kurdistan
Reuters has an in-depth story today on the increasingly dangerous reporting environment in Iraqi Kurdistan. Part of the problem, the article reports a local editor as saying, is that “the government thinks that journalists are the opposition.” Killings, threats, and attacks against journalists are on the rise, with about 60 occurrences reported to CPJ in…
Q & A: An Ethiopian speaks from exile
Feleke Tibebu, deputy editor of private Ethiopian newspaper Hadar, was arrested in a 2005 government-led crackdown on dissidents and the private media. Tibebu (right) and 13 other journalists were charged with “outrages against the constitution or constitutional order,” “impairment of the defensive power of the state,” and “attempted genocide,” after the publication of editorials critical…
Deputy sheriff poses as Newsweek journalist
It sounds like the plot of a B movie. The charred corpse of a missing female U.S. Marine and her fetus are found buried beneath a fire pit in the backyard of a male U.S. Marine whom she had previously accused of rape. The Marine suspect flees North Carolina for south of the border where…
Press freedom in the news 8/26/08
Agence France-Presse is covering the abduction of two foreign journalists, their fixer, and driver in Somalia. Australian Nigel Brennan and Canadian Amanda Lindhout, along with their Somali support staff were kidnapped outside Mogadishu as they traveled to report on local humanitarian aid camps. We released an alert urging their release yesterday. AFP quotes Africa Program…
Brutally attacked in Guatemala…again
Two days after being abducted and badly beaten in Guatemala, prominent journalist José Rubén Zamora was still in shock. “I can’t remember what happened, but I was drugged and left unconscious in a hospital in the outskirts of Guatemala City,” he told me on Saturday after he was released from the local hospital.His colleagues at…
Press freedom in the news 8/25/08
As the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing came to an official close yesterday, many news outlets are looking at back what the Games mean for human rights in China. The Canadian Press has a piece arguing that nothing has changed, despite the pleasant face China put on for its international visitors. The Ottawa Citizen is…
Olympics: Games over, censorship renewed
With the Games completed, it’s back to Internet censorship as usual. Remember the issue about Web sites being blocked inside the Main Press Center? The problem was only partially resolved. After complaints, more sites became available to reporters inside the MPC and around the country, though many remained blocked. Research by OpenNet Initiative said that…
Olympics: China banishes iTunes
The Apple iTunes store Web site and all 8 million or so of its songs, (“Imagine an entertainment superstore that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week” the site urges) are not available in China and haven’t been for more than a week. Not a great loss for iTunes in the very short…