Iraq: Detained CBS cameraman acquitted of charges
New York, April 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision today by an Iraqi criminal court to acquit a CBS cameraman held in U.S. custody in Iraq for one year without due process. A three-judge panel from Iraq’s Central Criminal Court dismissed charges against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, an Iraqi cameraman working for…
CPJ welcomes release of Jill Carroll
New York, March 30, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s release of Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor who had been held captive in Iraq for nearly three months. Carroll was freed at mid-day in Baghdad. She was reported in good health and told reporters that she was…
Writer sentenced to 18 months in Kurdistan
New York, N.Y., March 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the 18-month prison sentence handed down against an Austrian writer for defaming local officials in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region. A court in the Iraqi city of Arbil sentenced Kamal Karim, whose name is also given as Kamal Sayid Qadir, on Sunday for articles…
U.S. military pledges to expedite cases of detained journalists
New York, March 24, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes U.S. officials’ pledge this week to begin prompt, high-level reviews of cases in which journalists are detained by troops in Iraq. CPJ documented seven cases in 2005 alone in which U.S. forces detained Iraqi journalists for periods of many weeks or months without charge or…
Iraq: Kurdish journalist detained, faces prosecution
New York, March 22, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the detention and prosecution of a Kurdish journalist, who was seized by Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq. On March 17, security forces affiliated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) arrested Hawez Hawezi, a 31-year-old high school teacher who also writes for the…
Trial of CBS cameraman postponed
New York, March 22, 2006—The trial of an Iraqi cameraman working for CBS News has been put off until next month, The Associated Press reported. Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein was scheduled to appear in court today, but an Iraqi judge postponed the trial until April 5, CBS News bureau chief in Baghdad, Larry Doyle, told…
In Iraq, CBS cameraman faces trial Wednesday
New York, March 21, 2006—An Iraqi cameraman held by U.S. forces for nearly a year without charge will stand trial in Baghdad on Wednesday, CBS News and a U.S. military spokesman said late today. Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a freelance cameraman working for CBS News, will be prosecuted at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq…
Local journalists increasingly targeted, CPJ finds In Iraq, murder top cause of journalist deaths
New York, March 17, 2006—Murder has overtaken crossfire and other acts of war as the leading cause of work-related deaths among journalists and media support workers in Iraq, and local journalists are far and away the most vulnerable to attack, a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. CPJ research, compiled for…
Iraqi editor gunned down in Baghdad
New York, March 14, 2006—Muhsin Khudhair, editor of the news magazine Alef Ba, was killed by unidentified gunmen near his home in Baghdad Monday night, becoming the third journalist killed in Iraq in the last week, Reuters and Agence France-Presse reported. The shooting took place just hours after Khudair attended a meeting of the Iraqi…
Insurgents kill head of Iraq state television
New York, March 13, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of Amjad Hameed, head of programming for Iraq’s state television channel Al-Iraqiya. Gunmen apparently affiliated to Al-Qaeda killed Hameed and his driver Anwar Turki in an ambush in Baghdad Saturday. Hameed, 45, had run the station since July. “We deplore the senseless murder…