Pentagon won’t reopen inquiry into Reuters’ abuse allegations
New York, March 22, 2005—The Pentagon will not reopen a military investigation that cleared U.S. troops of allegations that they abused three Reuters employees in Fallujah in January 2004, the news agency said today. Lawrence Di Rita, special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said in a letter to Reuters dated March 7 that the…
Court upholds sentence against imprisoned journalist
New York, March 22, 2005—An appeals court in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, today upheld a one-year prison sentence imposed on the editor of an opposition weekly that published opinion pieces harshly critical of the government’s fight against a rebel cleric. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the ruling and called for the editor’s release. Abdelkarim al-Khaiwani,…
Journalist detained
New York, March 16, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that Mauritanian authorities detained a journalist for reporting on the illegal slave trade. According to press reports and a Mauritanian source, police detained freelance journalist Mohamed Ould Lamine Mahmoudi on Sunday, March 13, after he interviewed a woman in the southern town Mederdra who…
CPJ mourns death of Tunisian cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui
New York, March 14, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalist mourns the death of cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui, who died of a heart attack on Sunday, March 13. Yahyaoui, founder of the Internet forum TUNeZINE, spent 18 months in prison in retaliation for his criticism of Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. He was released in November…
IRAQ
MARCH 14, 2005 Posted: June 17, 2005 Hussam Sarsam, Kurdistan TV KILLED—CONFIRMED Sarsam, a cameraman working with Kurdistan TV, a station affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was shot and killed by suspected insurgents a day after they kidnapped him in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Cameraman killed
New York, March 14, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating today’s murder of an Iraqi cameraman in Mosul who was working for a Kurdish television station. According to several international press reports, gunmen shot and killed Hussam Hilal Sarsam, listed in some reports Hussam Habib. The reports stated that the journalist was kidnapped before…
Cameraman killed
New York, March 14, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating today’s murder of an Iraqi cameraman in Mosul who was working for a Kurdish television station. According to several international press reports, gunmen shot and killed Hussam Hilal Sarsam, listed in some reports Hussam Habib. The reports stated that the journalist was kidnapped before…
Attacks on the Press in 2004: Facts
When U.S.-led forces waged an offensive in Fallujah in November and a state of emergency was declared, the Iraqi interim government’s Higher Media Commission directed the media to “set aside space in your news coverage to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear.” Those that didn’t comply…
Attacks on the Press in 2004: Preface by Tom Brokaw
Remember 1989? The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of democracy and democratic institutions in the old Communist bloc, including Mother Russia, inspired a new generation of journalists in places where a free press had been a state crime. Other journalists in other places, such as Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and…