New York, March 19, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the early release of freelance photojournalist Jae Hyun Seok but remains concerned that the charges against him have not been dropped. Seok, a South Korean national, was released today from prison in Shandong Province. He arrived at Inchon International Airport in Seoul late this…
New York, March 19, 2004—Ali al-Khatib, a reporter for the United Arab Emiratesbased satellite news channel Al-Arabiyya who was wounded yesterday when U.S. troops fired on a car carrying four station employees, has died. Al-Arabiyya news director Saleh Negm told CPJ that al-Khatib died in a hospital from a bullet wound to his head. Another…
New York, March 18, 2004—The Chinese government today announced that South Korean freelance photographer Jae Hyun Seok will be released from prison tomorrow, March 19. Seok is serving a two-year prison term on charges of human trafficking. In responding to a reporter’s question at a press briefing today, Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesman Kong Quan confirmed…
New York, March 18, 2004 —The Central Jakarta District Court today ordered Tempo magazine to publicly apologize and to pay a fine of 500 million rupiah (US$59,000) in a case filed by prominent businessman Tomy Winata. “This verdict, coming on the heels of a criminal defamation suit filed by Tomy Winata, sends a chilling message…
New York, March 18, 2004—U.S. troops in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, today shot and killed a journalist from the United Arab Emiratesbased satellite news channel Al-Arabiyya and seriously wounded another. Cameraman Ali Abdel-Aziz was fatally shot at a checkpoint in Baghdad. The AP reported that Al-Arabiyya correspondent Ali al-Khatib was also wounded. In a separate incident…
New York, March 18, 2004—Imprisoned freelance journalist Khawar Mehdi Rizvi is scheduled to appear at a court hearing tomorrow in the southwestern city of Quetta, Pakistan. According to local journalists, the court will consider whether Rizvi’s upcoming trial on sedition charges will be held in anti-terrorism court or regular court. The charges against Rizvi stem…
March 18, 2004, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has learned that Ruslan Soltakhanov, a fixer and driver working for Atlanta-based Cox Newspapers, was released from captivity on March 12 after being abducted in February. On February 13, several unidentified men abducted Soltakhanov from his home in Mozdok, just west of Chechnya in North…
March 17, 2004, New York—Uzbek authorities have allowed imprisoned journalist Ruslan Sharipov, who has been jailed since May 2003, to complete his sentence under house arrest. On Friday, March 12, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry announced that Sharipov would be moved from Tavaksay Prison in Tashkent Region to a low-security prison near Kibray District, also in…
New York, March 16, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today sent more than 600 appeals—including more than 50 from some of the most renowned journalists in Latin America—to Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz calling for the release of jailed Cuban journalist Manuel Vázquez Portal, a recipient of CPJ’s 2003 International Press Freedom Award, and…
New York, March 15, 2004—Last week, Pakistan’s Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, acknowledged that the government had suspended advertising in newspapers belonging to the Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Publications, including the English-language daily The Nation and the Urdu-language daily Nawa-i-Waqt. He denied, however, that an official ban had been issued. In February, the government effectively stopped…