New York, April 29, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the brutal killing of leading Tamil journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram, who was abducted yesterday and found dead this morning near the capital, Colombo, from gunshot wounds to the head. Four unidentified men forced Sivaram into a jeep at 10:30 last night as he left a restaurant…
New York, April 27, 2005—A court in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, handed brief jail sentences today to two Russian journalists arrested while covering an opposition rally, according to local and international press reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was alarmed by the action and called for the release of the two reporters. The…
New York, April 27, 2005— Sudanese security forces in Darfur, Sudan, detained an American freelance photographer yesterday as he photographed a refugee camp. Hartford-based Brad Clift is under house arrest at a United States Agency for International Development office building after being detained in Nyala in the Darfur region of Sudan, the daily Hartford Courant…
New York, April 26, 2005–The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement today in response to press reports that a U.S.-led inquiry has cleared U.S. troops of wrongdoing in a March 4 shooting in which Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena wounded. Italian officials have disputed the findings,…
New York, April 26, 2005 – The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of Zheng Yichun, who was tried today in Yingkou Intermediate Court on charges of inciting subversion. Zheng, a prolific Internet writer and poet, has been imprisoned since December 3 after writing articles critical of the Communist Party and Chinese…
New York, April 26, 2005 —The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s arrest of Dwarika Uprety, publisher of the weekly Roadmap. Plainclothes security officers detained Uprety while he was walking to work this morning in the Putalisadak district of Kathmandu, according to the Kantipur news Web site. The editor of Roadmap, Kamal Koirala, said in…
New York, April 26, 2005—Independent Uzbek journalist Ulugbek Haydarov remained hospitalized today after a severe weekend beating at the doorstep of his home by an assailant who shouted, “I will teach you how to write,” according to local and international press reports. Haydarov suffered a broken collarbone and multiple bruises in the assault reported at…
New York, April 25, 2005—An Iraqi cameraman working for Associated Press Television News was killed on Saturday while covering fighting in the Iraqi city of Mosul, bringing to 41 the number of journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003. Saleh Ibrahim was killed by gunfire near the city’s al-Yarmouk Circle, the scene of an earlier…
New York, April 25, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision of an antiterrorism court in the southwestern city of Quetta to acquit Khawar Mehdi Rizvi and his two associates, Allah Noor and Abdullah Shakir, of treason. Judge Shaukat Ali Rakhshani acquitted the three on Saturday because of lack of evidence by the prosecution,…
New York, April 25, 2005—Police in the Russian city of Volokolamsk detained Irina Petrushova, editor of the Kazakh opposition weekly Respublika Delovoye Obozreniye, for two days at the request of Kazakh authorities, she told the Committee to Protect Journalists shortly after her release today. Petrushova, a 2002 winner of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, said…