Pentagon should implement its own recommendations to protect civilians, U.S. forces
New York, June 17, 2005—The U.S. military’s inadequate checkpoint procedures in Iraq endanger civilians, including journalists, as well as U.S. service members, Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists said today in a joint letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The letter called on Rumsfeld to immediately implement a series of…
Dubai-based journalist harassed, detained
New York, June 17, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the harassment and brief detention of Bassma al-Jandaly, a reporter with the Dubai-based, English-language daily Gulf News. Immigration officers detained al-Jandaly at Dubai’s international airport as she prepared to board a flight for Athens, Greece, with other journalists on Wednesday, the journalist told CPJ. Al-Jandaly…
Television journalists threatened
New York, June 16, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about a series of threats being made against Afghan journalists at the popular private television station Tolo TV in the capital, Kabul. Sayed Sulaiman Ashna, a senior journalist with Tolo TV and Radio Arman and the host of the evening news program “Tawdi Kharabari”…
Russian prosecutors identify alleged mastermind in Klebnikov murder
New York, June 16, 2005—The Russian Prosecutor-General’s office said today that a Chechen separatist leader ordered the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of Forbes Russia, according to local and international press reports. Vasily Lushchenko, spokesman for the prosecutor-general’s office, identified the suspected mastermind as Khozh Akhmed Nukhayev, the subject of Klebnikov’s 2003 Russian-language…
Court sentences journalist to five years in prison colony
New York, June 15, 2005—An arbitration court in the central Russian city of Smolensk convicted independent journalist Nikolai Goshko on charges of criminal defamation and sentenced him to five years in a prison colony for defaming three Smolensk officials in a July 2000 broadcast on the independent station, Radio Vesna.
Correspondent released after serving hooliganism’ sentence
New York, June 15, 2005—Police in the southern Uzbek city of Karshi yesterday released Tulkin Karayev, a correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), after he served a 10-day detention on charges of hooliganism, IWPR Central Asia Editor Filip Noubel told CPJ. Police arrested Karayev on June 4 after an unidentified…
Journalist arrested after reporting president depressed’
New York, June 14, 2005—Radio and online journalist Etienne Ndikuriyo was arrested today by the national intelligence agency in connection with a story that questioned the health of President Domitien Ndayizeye, according to The Associated Press and sources interviewed by the Committee to Protect Journalists. He was being held at the intelligence agency’s headquarters in…
Khartoum Monitor’s license canceled
New York, June 14, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday’s decision by Sudanese justice officials to cancel the license of Sudan’s English-language daily, The Khartoum Monitor. Alfred Taban, the paper’s chairman, said he was notified in a letter from the National Press Council, the government agency that regulates the press. Taban told CPJ that…
Prominent newspaper distributor imprisoned
New York, June 13, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the arrest and imprisonment of a prominent newspaper distributor in the capital, Addis Ababa. Fikre Gudu, who buys thousands of copies of newspapers to distribute to news vendors, has been in detention since the evening of June 8, when he was arrested at…
Penn’s video camera briefly seized
New York, June 13, 2005—Iranian authorities briefly seized the video camera of actor-turned-journalist Sean Penn as he was recording a demonstration in Tehran on Sunday, The Washington Post reported. Penn, accredited as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, is providing coverage of the Iranian presidential election for the newspaper. “While this incident was not…