New York, April 23, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the one-month prison sentence handed down by a Sudanese criminal court on April 10 to Islam Salih, Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Sudan. Salih’s lawyer, Abdel Salam Al-Gizouly, told CPJ that Salih was found guilty of several charges, including spreading false news and obstructing a…
New York, April 22, 2004—A journalist was killed in a mine explosion in India-controlled Kashmir on Tuesday, April 20. Asiya Jeelani died en route to the hospital after the van she was traveling in, which was being used by an elections monitoring team sent by a local umbrella organization, the Coalition of Civil Society, detonated…
New York, April 22, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s decision to veto a controversial media bill passed by both chambers of Kazakhstan’s Parliament earlier this year. In a speech today at the Third Eurasian Media Forum—a three-day summit of about 400 journalists, analysts, politicians, researchers, and scientists from more than…
New York, April 21, 2004—Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, confirmed yesterday that U.S. troops killed an Iraqi journalist and his driver near the Iraqi city of Samara, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Baghdad, on Monday. Asaad Kadhim, a correspondent for the U.S.…
New York, April 21, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the disappearance of French-Canadian freelance journalist Guy-André Kieffer, one of the few foreign investigative reporters still based in Ivory Coast. Kieffer had been receiving death threats in recent weeks, according to his family and friends, who fear that he has been…
New York, April 21, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about deteriorating press freedom conditions in Nepal. According to local and international press reports, security forces have harassed, physically attacked, and briefly detained hundreds of journalists since authorities banned protests in the capital, Kathmandu, and neighboring towns earlier this month. According to…
New York, April 19, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has learned that prosecutors in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, have suspended their criminal inquiry into the July 7, 2000, abduction of Dmitry Zavadsky, a 29-year-old cameraman for the Russian public television network ORT, who disappeared in July 2000. Ivan Branchel, deputy head of the prosecutor’s organized…
New York, April 19, 2004—Mathurin Constant Momet, publication director of the independent daily Le Confident, and Le Confident Editor-in-Chief Patrick Bakwa, were granted provisional release from police custody on April 17 after being held for about 24 hours. However, the two were today charged with criminal defamation, after Pierre Ouadda-Diale, a local lawyer, filed suit…
New York, April 19, 2004—A Japanese freelance journalist abducted near Baghdad last week has been released. Jumpei Yasuda, of the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun, and activist Nobutaka Watanabe were freed on Saturday, April 17, three days after they were abducted by an armed group outside Baghdad while driving to Abu Ghraib, west of the capital, to…
New York, April 19, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about reports that a correspondent for a U.S.–backed television station and his driver were killed today by U.S. fire in the central Iraqi city of Samara, north of Baghdad. Asaad Kadhim, a correspondent for the U.S.–funded Al-Iraqiya TV, and his driver, Hussein Saleh,…