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…
Iranian journalist Ganji freed after six years in prison
New York, March 20, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from prison of prominent Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, freed on Friday after six years behind bars, but the organization calls on authorities to release all Iranian journalists jailed for their work. At least nine journalists are now jailed in Iran, CPJ research shows.
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…
CPJ calls on Moroccan king to probe government-organized protests against magazine
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by evidence that Moroccan authorities played a role in organizing demonstrations against the magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire for publishing a photograph of a French newspaper showing some of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. These state-orchestrated protests placed the lives of the entire staff of the Casablanca-based weekly at risk, yet the government has failed to launch a credible investigation or call those responsible to account.
Kidnappers free foreign journalists in Gaza
New York, March 15, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is relieved that Palestinian kidnappers have released French and South Korean journalists abducted in Gaza. Caroline Laurent, a reporter for the French women’s weekly ELLE, Alfred Yaghobzadeh, a photographer from the photo agency SIPA, and Yong Tae-young, a correspondent for South Korea’s public broadcaster KBS, were…
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…
Journalists, others kidnapped as prison siege sparks violence
New York, March 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by reports that Palestinian gunmen abducted journalists and other foreigners in Gaza City today. A wave of violence erupted in Gaza and elsewhere in the West Bank, after Israeli forces laid siege to a Jericho prison to arrest militants believed responsible for the…
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…
Egyptian court sentences journalist to a year in prison
New York, March 10, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the one-year prison sentence handed down to Egyptian journalist Amira Malash for defamation. On Tuesday, a court in Giza near Cairo convicted Malash, a reporter for the independent weekly Al-Fagr, of defaming Judge Attia Mohammad Awad in an article she wrote in July…