Roxana Saberi was released on Monday after more than four months imprisonment at Tehran’s Evin Prison. She had been convicted of spying for the U.S. in a closed-door, one-hour trial on April 18 in a notoriously harsh Iranian Revolutionary Court and given an eight-year jail sentence. On Sunday, a court of appeal in Tehran gave…
New York, May 12, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an ongoing campaign to suppress independent journalism in Yemen and urges President Ali Abdullah Saleh to immediately bring it to a halt and order the release of two detained bloggers. Also, authorities have announced a special court to try media and publishing offenses.
New York, May 9, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists is issuing a background paper today that describes the legal issues surrounding the appeal of journalist Roxana Saberi, who is imprisoned in Iran on espionage charges. The appeal is expected to be heard as early as Sunday.
On Thursday, I participated in a panel discussion about media in the Middle East at the United Nations to commemorate World Press Freedom Day. Other panellists included Alya Al-Thani, counsellor, Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations; Abderrahim Foukara, chief of the Washington Bureau of Al-Jazeera; Ebtihal Mubarak, journalist for Saudi Arabia’s English-language daily…
New York, May 8, 2009–Amid an increasing crackdown on the media in Yemen, the Committee to Protect Journalists called today for the Yemeni authorities to disclose the whereabouts of a journalist who has been held incommunicado since May 4 after he was arrested in southern Yemen. CPJ also called on the authorities to drop a…