New York, April 8, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sent a letter today to U.S. secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld expressing concern about U.S. military strikes against known media locations in Baghdad this morning that left three journalists dead and several wounded. CPJ called for an “immediate and thorough investigation into these incidents” and…
Dear General Franks: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about two recent incidents in which U.S. forces allegedly interfered with and mistreated journalists working in Iraq. On March 25, four “nonembedded,” or independent, journalists—Dan Scemama, of Israel’s Channel One television; Boaz Bizmuth, of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot; and Radio Televisão Portuguesa’s…
New York, April 7, 2003—Two journalists embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq were killed this afternoon, bringing to six the total number of journalists killed in action during the current war in Iraq. The Spanish daily El Mundo reported that its correspondent Julio Anguita Parrado died in an Iraqi missile attack while he accompanied the…
New York, April 6, 2003—CPJ is saddened by the death of Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, a translator who was working for the BBC when he was killed today in northern Iraq in a “friendly fire” incident after a U.S. warplane dropped a bomb on a convoy of Kurdish soldiers who were traveling close to city of…
New York, April 4, 2003—Michael Kelly, editor-at-large of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist with the Washington Post, was killed today while traveling with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, according to a statement from the Washington Post.
New York, April 3, 2003—During a NATO press conference today in Brussels, Belgium, Fabienne Nerac urged U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell to provide more information on her missing husband, ITV cameraman Fred Nerac. “I give you my personal promise we will do everything we can to find out what happened,” Powell told her, according…
New York, April 2, 2003— Kaveh Golestan, an Iranian free-lance cameraman on assignment for the BBC, was killed today in northern Iraq after stepping on a land mine, the BBC confirmed. Golestan accidentally detonated the mine when he exited his car near the town of Kifri, John Morrissey of the BBC’s foreign desk told CPJ.…
New York, April 1, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is pleased that four journalists, who were last seen in Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel on March 24, are now safe in Jordan. Free-lance photographer Molly Bingham; Johan Rydeng Spanner, a free-lance photographer with the Danish daily Jyllands Posten; and correspondent Matthew McAllester and photographer Moises Saman,…
The Arab world continues to lag behind the rest of the globe in civil and political rights, including press freedom. Despotic regimes of varying political shades regularly limit news that they think will undermine their power. Hopes that a new generation of leaders would tolerate criticism in the press have proved illusory, with many reforms…
With the threat of U.S. military action looming, President Saddam Hussein invited the foreign press to cover a sham election in October, in which the government reported that he took 100 percent of the vote, extending his rule another seven years. A few days later, the media covered demonstrations that followed Hussein’s order to empty…