New York, February 20, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed at subpoenas recently served to several Mexican and American journalists. All of them were ordered to hand over material related to 1999 news articles about the Hank family of Mexico, which has been linked to drug trafficking activities. On February 22, a U.S.…
New York, February 19, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deplores the suspended prison sentences and fines imposed last week on two journalists from the weekly Le Journal Hebdomadaire. On February 14, a Casablanca court of appeals convicted Abou Bakr Jamai, publications director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, and Ali Ammar, the newspaper’s general director, of…
New York, February 14, 2002—Facing strict government regulations, capricious censors, and corrupt bureaucrats, journalists in Burma persevere against odds unheard of in almost any other country, according to a CPJ special report, “Under Pressure: How Burmese journalism survives in one of the world’s most repressive regimes.” The report was released as United Nations envoy Paulo…
New York, February 14, 2002—CPJ welcomes the release yesterday of Burmese journalist Myo Myint Nyein, former editor of the magazine Pe-Phu-Hlwar, who was freed along with four other political prisoners during a visit by United Nations envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. Myo Myint Nyein had served more than 11 years of a 14-year prison term. “CPJ…
New York, New York, February 14, 2002–CPJ delivered nearly 600 petitions to Chinese president Jiang Zemin today calling for the release of journalist Jiang Weiping, a recipient of CPJ’s 2001 International Press Freedom Award. The petitions urge President Jiang to “release Jiang Weiping and other jailed Chinese journalists immediately and unconditionally, and to uphold the…
New York, May 8, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Monday, May 6, confiscation of the intellectual and political magazine Wijhat Nadhar. Wijhat Nadhar editor El-Mostafa Soulaih told CPJ that staff contacted him from Al-Najah al-Jadidah printing press in Casablanca and told him that agents from the secret service, the Direction de la…
New York, February 14, 2002—CPJ remains hopeful that kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is alive, despite today’s statement by a key suspect in the abduction that he thinks the reporter has been killed. Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man investigators say is responsible for Pearl’s kidnapping, told an anti-terrorism court in Karachi today…
New York, February 13, 2002—CPJ commends today’s decision by the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court to nullify a clause in a 1990 Defense Ministry decree used to convict military journalist Grigory Pasko. Pasko was convicted of treason in December 2001, based on the charge that he intended to leak classified information to Japanese…
New York, February 12, 2002—CPJ is hopeful that apparent progress made by Pakistani authorities in their investigation of the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will soon lead to the journalist’s safe release. Police said today that they have arrested Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, whom they have identified as the chief suspect in…
New York, February 12, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about reported threats to journalists from the Abu Sayyaf, an armed group active in the southern Philippines that American and Filipino officials have linked to the al-Qaeda network. More than 600 American troops arrived recently on the southern island of Basilan to help…