New York, March 23, 2001 — CPJ today submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in the case of Chilean journalist Alejandra Matus. Matus faces criminal defamation charges in Chile stemming from the April 1999 publication of The Black Book of Chilean Justice, her muckraking investigation of the Chilean…
New York, March 23, 2001 — Manuel Antonio González Castellanos, correspondent for the independent news agency CubaPress in the eastern province of Holguín, was freed on February 26 after serving the bulk of his 31-month sentence for criticizing President Fidel Castro Ruz. Independent journalist Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, founder of the Línea Sur Press news agency…
New York, March 23, 2001 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat permitted the West Bank bureau of the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al-Jazeera to reopen on Friday after a three-day closure, according to press reports and CPJ sources at the station. Acting on orders from Arafat’s office, Palestinian National Authority (PNA) security personnel closed the station’s…
New York, March 21, 2001 — In a letter sent today to Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, CPJ expressed alarm about the murder of editor Hidaya Sultan al-Salem, owner and editor of the weekly magazine Al-Majales. While a motive for this killing has not yet been established, we fear that al-Salem may have been…
New York, March 21, 2001 — CPJ welcomes last week’s release of Krishna Sen, editor of the leftist Nepali-language weekly Janadesh. Sen had been imprisoned for nearly two years on charges that were never proven in court. Nepalese authorities twice flouted Supreme Court orders for his release by secretly transferring him to a different jail…
New York, March 21, 2001 The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the ongoing legal persecution of Russian military journalist Grigory Pasko, whose second trial on espionage charges begins tomorrow in a closed Vladivostok military court. Pasko worked for Boyevaya Vakhta, a newspaper owned by the Pacific Fleet. On November 20,…
New York, March 20, 2001 — A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today met with Zimbabwean ambassador to the United States Simbi Mubako in Washington, D.C. to convey CPJ’s concern about serious threats to press freedom in Zimbabwe. During the two-hour discussion, CPJ executive director Ann Cooper said press freedom conditions have…
New York, March 14, 2001 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed by the ruling Taliban militia’s decision to expel BBC correspondent Kate Clark from Afghanistan. Authorities ordered Clark to leave the country within 36 hours in response to BBC reports about the militia’s destruction of ancient Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, some 100…
New York, March 14, 2001 — Police in Mozambique arrested two businessmen and a former bank manager accused of ordering the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, according to international news reports and CPJ sources. The three suspects, who are being held in a maximum security prison in the capital, Maputo, include Momade Abdul Assife…
New York, March 12, 2001—In a recent letter to Arturo González Rascón, Attorney General of the State of Chihuahua, CPJ expressed its concern about the murder of José Luis Ortega Mata, the editor of the weekly Semanario de Ojinaga, based in Ojinaga, Chihuahua State. Ortega Mata, 37, was shot twice in the head at close…