Pakistan: Police attack TV crews covering religious rally in Lahore
New York, September 18, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the police beating of television crews covering a religious rally in Pakistan. Journalists said police officers attacked two journalists from Pakistan’s ATV terrestrial network who were covering a meeting of the Sunni Tehrik (Sunni Movement) religious organization in the eastern city of Lahore on Saturday…
AP photographer held by U.S. military for months without charge
New York, September 17, 2006 – The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by news that a Pulitzer Prize-winning freelance photojournalist working for The Associated Press in Iraq has been held by U.S. military forces for five months without charge. “U.S. authorities who have detained Bilal Hussein in Iraq must either charge him or release…
Appeals court upholds jail sentence of Kurdish journalist
New York, September 15, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the ruling of an Iranian appeals court upholding a one-year prison sentence against Kurdish journalist and human rights activist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand. The court of appeals in the northwestern province of Kurdistan ordered him to serve the suspended jail term, the semiofficial Iranian…
After five years, Eritrean journalists still jailed in secret prisons without due process
New York, September 15, 2006—Five years after Eritrea’s brutal crackdown on the independent press, the Committee to Protect Journalists today called for the release of 13 journalists held incommunicado in secret jails and two other journalists forced into extended military service. Basic information about the jailed journalists—most of whom were swept up in a September…
Jailed state TV journalist freed without charge and fired
New York, September 15, 2006—A state television reporter jailed secretly for almost a week was released without charge on Thursday but learned that he had been fired from his job, according to CPJ sources. Dodou Sanneh, a senior TV producer with Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), was arrested on September 8 after covering an…
A third journalist is sentenced to prison
New York, September 15, 2006—A court in Niger’s capital, Niamey, today sentenced journalist Salif Dago to six months in prison for publishing “false information,” according to local sources contacted by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Dago, a reporter for the private newspaper L’Enquêteur, is the third journalist to be sentenced to jail for his work…
Pakistan: Reporter killed by masked gunmen
New York, September 15, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists called today on Pakistani authorities to conduct a thorough and timely investigation into the shooting death of journalist Maqbool Hussain Sail. Two masked gunmen on a motorcycle shot Sail late Thursday in Dera Ismail Khan, 175 miles (280 kilometers) southwest of Islamabad, according to the Rural…
Authorities intensify newspaper censorship and seizures
New York, September 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by increasing censorship of opposition and independent newspapers in Sudan. The press climate in the country has deteriorated in recent months against a backdrop of continuing ethnic killings in the western region of Darfur, and growing political unrest and protests over price rises.
Singapore: Leaders again resort to lawsuits to muzzle press critics
New York, September 14, 2006— The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces the defamation suit brought by the Singapore leadership against the publisher and editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review over an article about an opposition politician in the tightly controlled city-state. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, former premier turned Minister Mentor,…
RFE/RL reporter dies in prison
New York, September 14, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the death in prison of a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Turkmenistan. CPJ called for an inquiry into the death of Ogulsapar Muradova of RFE/RL’s Turkmen service whose body was released to her family today.