New York, December 11, 2003—Two journalists working with the U.S. newsmagazine Time were wounded today in a grenade attack in Baghdad while accompanying U.S. troops. Senior correspondent Michael Weisskopf and photographer James Nachtwey suffered undisclosed injuries when unidentified assailants threw a grenade into a Humvee the men were traveling in, Time managing editor Jim Kelly…
November 24, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns today’s closure of the Iraq offices of the Dubai-based satellite news channel Al-Arabiyya. The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council announced today that the station’s Baghdad-based news operations were banned from working in Iraq for an indefinite period, according to press reports. The move came after the station…
November 14, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that unidentified Iraqi gunmen opened fire on a convoy of Portuguese journalists and abducted one reporter today in southern Iraq. According to news reports and Portuguese editors who spoke with CPJ, the gunmen—who were armed with Kalashnikov rifles and other small arms—attempted to intercept a…
New York, November 3, 2003—Coalition forces in Iraq have released two Iranian journalists who had been held for four months on suspicion of spying. Said Abu Taleb and Soheil Kareemi, two journalists with Iranian State Television, were released today and returned to Iran. According to their colleagues, the journalists were in Iraq working on a…
New York, October 29, 2003–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today released an updated version of its journalist security handbook, titled “On Assignment: A Guide to Reporting in Dangerous Situations.” This new edition, which is available in hard copy and online (read or download PDF), draws on lessons learned in the most recent war in…
New York, October 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by reports that editor Ahmed Shawkat was murdered today in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. According to The Associated Press (AP) and an Agence France-Presse correspondent in Mosul, Shawkat, editor of the Iraqi weekly Bilah Ittijah (Without Direction), was shot and killed…
New York, October 8, 2003—Exactly six months after the U.S. shelled the Palestine Hotel in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, and an air strike hit the Baghdad bureau of the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) filed three new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the incidents with the U.S. Defense…
September 25, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns a bomb attack on a Baghdad hotel this morning, in which a journalist from the U.S. network NBC was injured. The attack may have been aimed specifically at NBC’s Baghdad bureau, whose journalists were the hotel’s only residents, according to the network. NBC News reported…
New York, September 23, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the decision of Iraq’s Governing Council to sanction Arabic satellite channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya. Today, Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council announced that it would bar the broadcasters’ reporters from covering official press conferences and from entering official buildings for two weeks, according…
New York, September 23, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is saddened by the death of veteran Los Angeles Times correspondent Mark Fineman. According to The Los Angeles Times, Fineman died today of an apparent heart attack while on assignment in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. Fineman, 51, had been waiting for an interview in the office…