New York, May 23, 2001 — After a postponement, the trial of a jailed Cuban journalist is now scheduled to begin on Friday, May 25. José Orlando González Bridón, a Cuban journalist and labor activist, has been jailed since December 15, 2000. While the nature of the charges against González Bridón was initially unclear, CPJ…
New York, May 22, 2001 — The head of Mali’s public broadcasting service is serving 30 days in jail on a criminal defamation charge brought by the local union of judges. On May 16, 2001, a court in Segou, some 80 miles north of the capital, Bamako, convicted Sidiki Konaté, head of the Office of…
New York, May 22, 2001 — CPJ today called on the Tunisian government to bring to justice the perpetrators of last year’s assassination attempt against Tunisian journalist Riad Ben Fadhel, who was wounded in a drive-by shooting outside his home in the capital, Tunis. Ben Fadhel was shot on May 23, 2000, just days after…
Bogotá, May 21, 2001 — Police bomb disposal experts defused a “cluster” bomb packed into a Chevrolet Luv pick-up truck outside the offices of the Communist Party newspaper Voz in downtown Bogotá today, a police spokesman said. The 550-pound bomb was placed directly outside the Voz offices in Bogotá’s central Teusaquillo district and concealed among…
:New York, May 21, 2001 — The Inter-American Court of Human Rights will convene in San José, Costa Rica tomorrow to discuss suspending a Costa Rican court ruling that found a local journalist guilty of criminal defamation. On November 12, 1999, the Penal Court of the First Judicial Circuit in San José convicted Mauricio Herrera…
New York, May 18, 2001 — The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed deep concern about the Algerian Parliament’s recent approval of new legislation that stiffens criminal penalties for defamation. On May 16, according to local news reports, the lower house of Parliament—the National People’s Assembly—approved new amendments to the Algerian Penal Code that prescribe…
New York, May 16, 2001 — CPJ welcomes the release of two journalists held in an Addis Ababa prison since 1997 under local press and anti-terrorism laws. Ethiopia has been Africa’s foremost jailer of journalists in recent years, with seven journalists in prison at the end of 2000. Since January 2001, however, authorities have released…
New York, May 15, 2001 — Panamanian radio journalist, columnist, and university professor Miguel Antonio Bernal goes on trial tomorrow in a criminal defamation case filed in 1998 by then-National Police director José Luis Sosa. During a February 1998 broadcast of the news program “TVN-Noticias”, Bernal held the National Police responsible for the decapitation of…
New York, May 15, 2001 — A Spanish journalist was severely injured after opening a letter bomb sent to his home in Zarauz, a town in the Basque region of northern Spain, near San Sebastian. While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, most observers link it to the Basque separatist group ETA. Gorka…
New York, May 14, 2001 — Three Colombian journalists have been killed so far this year, according to CPJ research. At least one of the journalists, Flavio Bedoya, appears to have been targeted for his work. At around midday on April 27, four unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed Bedoya, 52, as he stepped…