New York, March 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s High Court conviction of seven editors, publishers and reporters from the Bangla-language daily Prothom Alo and the Bangla-language daily Bhorer Kagoj for publishing disputed reports about a judge’s educational background. Samaresh Baidya, senior reporter for Bhorer Kagoj, faces two months in jail and a…
New York, March 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists today wrote to Somalia’s president, Col. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, urging him to investigate the continuing detention of Abdirisak Ahmed Absuge by forces loyal to faction leader Mohamed Dhere. Absuge is editor of www.guulane.com, Dhere’s official website. According to local sources, Absuge was arrested on March 5…
New York, March 18, 2005—One of the few foreign journalists in Turkmenistan, the Ashgabat correspondent for the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, has been forced to leave the country under circumstances that remain unclear. Viktor Panov was seen in handcuffs at Ashgabat’s airport accompanied by several men in civilian cloths who led him to…
New York, March 16, 2005—More than 100 prominent writers, editors, and reporters throughout Latin America joined the Committee to Protect Journalists today in calling on Cuban President Fidel Castro to immediately release 23 jailed journalists, saying the two-year-long imprisonments violate “the most basic norms of international law” and represent “an affront to human dignity.” The…
New York, March 16, 2005—BBC reporter Raphael Tenthani and Mabvuto Banda of the independent daily The Nation have been released on bail after being held overnight by police in the capital, Lilongwe. The two journalists were arrested yesterday at their homes in the southern city of Blantyre for reporting that the president feared ghosts may…
New York, March 16, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that Mauritanian authorities detained a journalist for reporting on the illegal slave trade. According to press reports and a Mauritanian source, police detained freelance journalist Mohamed Ould Lamine Mahmoudi on Sunday, March 13, after he interviewed a woman in the southern town Mederdra who…
New York, March 16, 2005—Police delivered a letter today to Narayan Wagle, editor of Kantipur, Nepal’s largest daily, ordering him to present himself at the criminal investigation branch of the Kathmandu police office tomorrow morning. Wagle told CPJ that he has been asked for “clarification” of news published earlier in the week. “The harassment of…
New York, March 16, 2005—Russian authorities in Chechnya and the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod are escalating their campaign of harassment and intimidation against Pravo-Zashchita (Rights Defense), a monthly newspaper that covers human rights abuses in Chechnya, according to local press reports. The newspaper is published by the nongovernmental organization Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS)…
New York, March 16, 2005—In a major setback in the decade-long quest to bring the killers of slain Russian journalist Dimitry Kholodov to justice, the Military Collegium of Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld a June 2004 acquittal of six military officers accused of murdering Kholodov. Kholodov, a reporter for the Moscow-based independent newspaper Moskovsky…
New York, March 15, 2005—Two well-respected journalists were arrested today by police at their homes in the commercial capital of Blantyre, in southern Malawi, after reporting that the president feared ghosts may haunt the presidential palace. They are currently being detained at police headquarters in the capital, Lilongwe. According to international news reports and local…