TURKMENISTAN: New York, July 11, 2008—A contributing reporter for the Turkmen Service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who was forcibly held for two weeks in two different psychiatric facilities has now had his phone disabled, according to RFE/RL. Bowing to international pressure, authorities freed Sazak Durdymuradov on July 3. A security officer…
New York, July 8, 2008–Ecuadoran government agents seized two private television stations early this morning and shuttered a critical radio station late Monday night. The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by allegations that the actions were politically motivated. Members of the government’s Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD), backed by dozens of police officers, seized the…
Nova York, 8 de julho de 2008–Agentes do governo equatoriano intervieram em duas estações privadas de televisão nesta manhã e fecharam uma estação de rádio crítica na noite de segunda-feira. O Comitê para a Proteção dos Jornalistas (CPJ) está preocupado com as acusações que sugerem que tais ações tiveram motivações políticas.
New York, July 8, 2008–Cameroonian authorities have lifted a ban on three private broadcasters summarily closed in connection with their critical coverage in February, but police are withholding equipment seized from one station, according to local journalists and news reports.
New York, July 8, 2008—One month before the start of the Beijing Olympics, China needs to make enormous progress to ensure the free access it promised journalists when the Games were awarded, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Twenty-six Chinese journalists remain in prison and heavy government censorship remains in place despite Beijing’s broad…
Tunis, Tunisia, July 2, 2008—Jailed Tunisian journalist Slim Boukhdir should be freed immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today as it concluded a 10-day fact-finding mission that examined the government’s pattern of silencing the independent press through harassment, intimidation, and imprisonment. Boukhdir, a contributor to numerous Tunisian and Arab news Web sites, is serving…
SRI LANKA: New York, July 2, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by the attack Monday evening on Namal Perera, freelance journalist and deputy head of the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI), a media rights advocacy group. Perera was attacked by men with iron bars in Colombo while traveling in a car with…
RUSSIA: New York, July 2, 2008—Two journalists in Russia’s Bashkortostan Republic have been convicted under the country’s vague extremism law. Each has been sentenced to serve a suspended two-year prison term. Their newspaper has been shuttered. On June 25, the Kirov District Court in the regional capital of Ufa, in the central Russian Republic of…
New York, July 1, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists applauds the Argentine Supreme Court’s unanimous decision asserting that public officials should be held to a high level of scrutiny and overturning a civil judgment against a national daily that criticized a government agency. In a ruling that sets some of the clearest and broadest press…
New York, July 1, 2008—Ten to 15 men armed with AK-47 rifles stormed the offices of the Ugandan tabloid daily Red Pepper on Saturday, setting fire to a generator and the printing press, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. The men, riding in a convoy of five vehicles, carried out a well-orchestrated raid that…