Alerts
2006
Iraq: Detained CBS cameraman acquitted of charges
New York, April 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision today by an Iraqi criminal court to acquit a CBS cameraman held in U.S. custody in Iraq for one year without due process. A three-judge panel from Iraq’s Central Criminal Court dismissed charges against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, an Iraqi cameraman working for…
Government blocks reporting on hunger
New York, April 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Niger’s attempt to censor coverage of hunger and malnutrition in parts of the West African state. The government withdrew accreditation last week from a BBC television crew after it reported on hunger in the central region of Maradi and has forbidden officials to…
Video’s accusation raises alarm in Colombia
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that a little-known group is seeking to link Colombian journalist Hollman Morris to a leftist guerrilla group. The claim, which Morris dismissed, is contained in a recently circulated video and could endanger the reporter’s life. Two weeks ago, Morris told CPJ, he received a…
Bangladesh: CPJ urges court to dismiss sedition charges against journalist
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Bangladeshi authorities to dismiss sedition charges against journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury whose trial begins April 5 in Dhaka’s Additional Metropolitan Session Court. Sedition carries the death penalty. Choudhury, editor of the Bangladesh tabloid weekly Blitz, was originally charged with passport violations after he…
Burma: Two journalists arrested and summarily tried for filming
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest and summary trial of two journalists accused of filming the countryside from a public bus outside Burma’s controversial new capital. Ko Thar Cho, a photojournalist, and Ko Kyaw Thwin, a columnist at the Burmese-language magazine Dhamah Yate, were arrested on March 27 while…
China: Reporter detained after alleging local corruption
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing detention of Hunan-based newspaper reporter Yang Xiaoqing who wrote about corruption in the sale of a state-owned company. Yang’s wife, Gong Jie, told CPJ that he was under threat for months before his arrest in January, and had gone into hiding…
Philipines: CPJ calls for probe of killing of journalist
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an immediate and full investigation into the shooting death today of part-time newspaper editor and columnist Orlando Tapios Mendoza. Philippine media reports and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) said Mendoza was shot several times by unidentified men as he was returning…
Thailand: Police ban edition of political journal after articles on king
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a ban on an edition of Thai-language political quarterly Fah Diew Kan. On March 30, national police chief Gen. Kowit Wattana sent a notice to the journal’s editor Thanapol Eawsakul informing him of a decision to ban further distribution of the publication’s October-December 2005 edition.…
Journalist released after year in jail for anti-constitutional activity
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release by an Uzbek court of journalist Sobirdjon Yakubov who spent one year in jail on subversion charges. A court in the capital Tashkent freed Yakubov, a reporter for the state-run weekly newspaper Hurriyat (Liberty), on Monday for lack of evidence against him, the…
CPJ urges Haiti’s Préval to make Dominique case a priority
New York, April 3, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists remembers Jean-Léopold Dominique, owner and director of Radio Haïti-Inter and one of the country’s most renowned journalists, who was gunned down six years ago today in a still-unpunished assassination. CPJ called on Haiti’s president-elect, René Préval, to make the murder investigation a priority of his administration…