U.S. officials raise concern about jailed Internet journalist
New York, August 26, 2003— In an August 14 letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William J. Burns said that U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed their concern about the ongoing imprisonment of Internet journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui. “In the last week both Acting Assistant Secretary…
Agents accused in journalist’s death
New York, August 25, 2003— An Iranian criminal court investigating the death of Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi in July announced today that two interrogators were responsible for her murder. The official news agency IRNA reported that court officials called Kazemi’s death in custody a “quasi intentional murder” and ordered the two interrogators, who were not…
CPJ calls for full and public investigation into journalist’s death
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near Baghdad yesterday. We demand a full, public investigation into this incident. According to several press accounts, Dana was struck in the chest while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad, late in the afternoon on August 17. Dana had been reporting near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. Eyewitnesses quoted by international media said that several journalists had been near the prison at the time of the incident and that a soldier in the tank fired on Dana as he filmed it approaching him from about 50 meters (55 yards).
Dana was recipient of CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2001
New York, August 17, 2003—Mazen Dana, a veteran television cameraman for Reuters, was killed in Baghdad on Sunday while filming outside the city’s Abu Ghraib prison. According to wire service reports, Dana was shot by U.S.soldiers riding on a tank in the Iraqi capital. The 43-year-old Palestinian was honored by CPJ two years ago for…
Journalist briefly detained and handcuffed
New York, August 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed that U.S. forces forcibly detained Hassan Fattah, editor of the English-language daily Iraq Today, on Monday, August 11, after preventing him from attending a press conference. In an e-mail to CPJ, Fattah described the incident, which occurred at Baghdad’s conference center when he…
Al-Jazeera cameraman and assistant wounded during grenade attack
New York, August 11, 2003—A cameraman for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera and his assistant were injured yesterday, Sunday, August 10, during a grenade attack on U.S. troops in Baghdad. Cameraman Hussein Ali Hassan and his assistant Mustafa Hazem suffered shrapnel wounds to their legs after an assailant or assailants dropped a grenade from a…
Journalist remains in detention
New York, August 6, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled that Sudanese free-lance journalist Youssef al-Bashir Moussa, a contributor to the private daily Al-Sahafa, has been jailed for more than a week. Editors at Al-Sahafa told CPJ that the paper ran a story by Moussa on July 28 reporting that several students…
Three journalists sentenced to prison
New York, August 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s decision by a Rabat court sentencing three journalists to prison for violating Morocco’s new anti-terrorism law. Editors Mohammed al-Herd and Abdel Majid Ben Taher, of the weekly newspaper Al-Sharq, and Mustapha Qashnini, editor of the weekly Al-Hayat al-Maghribiya, were found guilty of “extolling…
Government revokes private weekly’s license
New York, August 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Syrian government’s closure of the privately owned satirical weekly Al-Domari. Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer representing the paper, told CPJ that the government canceled the newspaper’s license on July 31. On Sunday, August 3, the state-owned daily Tishrin reported that the Ministry of Information…
New York, July 30, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Saudi Arabian Information Ministry’s decision to ban Saudi writer Hussein Shobokshi from writing his weekly newspaper column. According to a July 29 Reuters report, Shobokshi received a call from his editors at Okaz, the Saudi daily that published his weekly columns. “I got…