New York, May 1, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release today of an Al-Jazeera cameraman who was held for six years without charge or trial at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Al-Jazeera reported late this afternoon that Sami al-Haj had been freed and was on a plane that was expected…
New York, May 1, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about the latest in a series of anonymous threats received by Radio Free Asia (RFA) investigative reporter Lem Pichpisey in Cambodia. On April 10, Pichpisey’s 11-year-old daughter found six AK-47 rifle bullets placed neatly in a row in front of his family’s house…
New York, May 1, 2008–An amendment that would allow the Russian courts to close media outlets for publishing defamatory statements has made its way through the parliament’s lower house, according to local press reports. On April 25, the State Duma approved on a first reading a restrictive bill that would add the dissemination of “deliberately…
New York, April 30, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today about reports of growing hostility toward foreign journalists in China 100 days before the start of the Beijing Olympics. At least 10 correspondents have reported receiving anonymous death threats, according to a Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) report released today. The group…
New York, April 28, 2008—A story on claims of torture at alleged secret government-run detention centers led authorities in Uganda to arrest three top journalists and seize materials and documents on Saturday, according to local journalists and news reports. The journalists, including top political journalist Andrew Mwenda, are free on bail in the capital, Kampala,…
Radio director’s home shot at by unidentified gunmen New York, April 25, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the shooting of a Mexican journalist’s house in the southern state of Oaxaca, in what appears to have been a targeted attack, on April 18. The day before the shooting, Melchor López, general director of…
New York, April 24, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today at the harassment in Chechnya of Jane Armstrong, Moscow correspondent for the Canadian national daily The Globe and Mail. Armstrong and her Russian photographer and interpreter Olga Kravets had traveled from Moscow to the Chechen capital of Grozny to report on social and…
New York, April 24, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today at the harassment in Chechnya of Jane Armstrong, Moscow correspondent for the Canadian national daily The Globe and Mail. Armstrong and her Russian photographer and interpreter Olga Kravets had traveled from Moscow to the Chechen capital of Grozny to report on social and…
New York, April 23, 2008—A prosecutor dropped two-year-old charges against freelance journalist Sydney Saize in restive Zimbabwe on Tuesday, while a magistrate denied bail to freelancer Frank Chikowore, who has been detained for more than a week. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called for Chikowore’s immediate release. Mutare prosecutor Malvern Musarurwa declined to pursue…