Bangkok, Thailand, January 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Thai government’s recent moves to disrupt the signal of the satellite-based television news station Asian Satellite TV (ASTV) and to block access to a popular news Web site. Both actions appeared to be aimed in part at veteran journalist and media owner Sondhi Limthongkul,…
Sana’a, Yemen, January 26, 2006—A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed alarm today at the deterioration of press freedom in Yemen. Over the last several months, a growing number of Yemeni journalists have been the victims of brutal assaults, arrests, intimidation, and government-sanctioned newspaper closures. They now also face the prospect of a…
New York, January 26, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of freelance Internet journalist Nguyen Khac Toan but deplores the continued imprisonment of two other online reporters in Vietnam. Authorities in Hanoi freed Toan on Tuesday, according to Doan Viet Hoat, a prominent U.S.-based dissident, and international news reports. Toan had been sentenced…
New York, January 26, 2006—A Polish journalist convicted in a rare criminal libel prosecution has been freed two days into his prison term after the country’s top constitutional court ordered the suspension of his sentence, according to news reports. Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly Wiesci Polickie in the town of Police, was released from…
New York, January 25, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Caracas judge’s decision on Monday to issue a gag order prohibiting news outlets from reporting on the investigation into the 2004 murder of prosecutor Danilo Anderson. Judge Florencio Silano, acting at the request of Attorney General Isaías Rodríguez, barred the “publishing, spreading or exposition”…
New York, January 25, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the United States military today to investigate the killing of an Iraqi television correspondent during clashes between U.S. forces and Sunni rebels in Ramadi. Mahmoud Za’al, 35, a correspondent for the Iraqi television station Baghdad TV was shot in the insurgent stronghold, 70 miles…
New York, January 25, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a continuing crackdown on free expression in China. The Communist Party management of the Beijing-based China Youth Daily scrapped the paper’s influential supplement, Bing Dian (Freezing Point), on Tuesday amid a dispute with editors known for challenging free-expression boundaries. And the U.S.-based Internet…
New York, January 25, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the three-year jail sentence given to Chinese journalist Li Changqing on Tuesday. The Gulou district court in southern China’s Fuzhou city convicted Li of “spreading false and alarmist information,” defense lawyer Mo Shaoping told CPJ. The charge was linked to an article published on the…
New York, January 24, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the dropping of charges of “insulting Turkishness” against an acclaimed author but is appalled that journalists still face jail under the same draconian statute. A court in Istanbul dismissed Monday the prosecution under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code of novelist Orhan Pamuk who…
New York, January 24, 2006—Six trustees of the independent news production company Voice of the People were charged today with broadcasting without a license, which carries a potential two-year prison penalty. Defense lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said her clients appeared in court this morning in the capital, Harare, after learning that police were seeking their arrest.…