Anti-press violence in Iraqi Kurdistan, past and present
Kurdistan is different, as nearly every Iraqi Kurd I have ever met has said. Far less violent than the rest of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the parts of the north controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government have escaped the kind of sectarian unrest that continues to flare in the south. But in…
Tim Hetherington: A star inexorably, humbly rising
I first met Tim Hetherington in Monrovia in 2005, in the run-up to Liberia’s then historic elections, which officially drew the line under the country’s 14-year civil war. Tim had already reported from Liberia in the chaotic final stages of that war in 2003, marching for days on end through dense and unforgiving tropical bush…
Photojournalists Hetherington, Hondros dead in Libya
New York, April 20, 2011–Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, acclaimed photojournalists who had worked in conflict zones around the world, were killed in an explosion in the western Libyan city of Misurata today. Two other photographers were injured. Hetherington co-directed the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Restrepo,” while Hondros was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist for “his…
CPJ condemns attack on office of news website
New York, April 19, 2011–Six men raided the office of a news website in Amman on Monday, threatening its staff and destroying equipment. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assault on Al-Muharrir and calls on Jordanian authorities to investigate the attack thoroughly.
Two Swiss journalists barred from leaving Qatar for 13 days
New York, April 19, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the detention and questioning of two sports journalists working in Qatar for the public Swiss broadcaster Radio Television Suisse (RTS). Both journalists were prevented from leaving the country for 13 days.
Al-Jazeera journalist pans China’s Libya coverage
In reporting on the Libyan conflict, China’s media “emphasize only the humanitarian disasters caused by Western air bombardments, and [report] sparingly if at all on the violent suppression and massacre of the people by Qaddafi,” Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau chief, Ezzat Shahrour, writes on his blog. Chinese readers so far have been largely supportive of his…
