New York, May 9, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply saddened by the death of Elizabeth Neuffer, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe, and her translator, who were killed today in a car accident while on assignment in Iraq. According to The Boston Globe, the 46-year-old Neuffer died “when the car…
New York, May 8, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned for the safety of Andrew Meldrum, Zimbabwe correspondent for the U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian. A group of immigration officers visited the journalist’s home unannounced yesterday evening and demanded to speak with Meldrum, according to his wife.
New York, May 7, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s police raid on the popular opposition radio station Krasnaya Armiya in the city of Noyabrsk, in Russia’s central Ural Region. The station was attacked after the City Election Committee annulled the results of Sunday, May 4, mayoral elections in four electoral districts, giving…
New York, May 7, 2003—The Shevchenko District Court in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, yesterday convicted and then amnestied Serhy Obozov, the former prosecutor of Tarashcha District, for obstructing the criminal inquiry into the September 2000 disappearance and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze, according to local and international press reports. Obozov, who was arrested in August…
New York, May 7, 2003—Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ruled today that a section of the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) that criminalizes “publishing falsehoods” is unconstitutional. Section 80 of AIPPA stipulated that it was an “abuse of journalistic privilege” to publish false information, whether it was intentional or not. Journalists convicted…
New York, May 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns yesterday’s attack on the offices on Yeni Musavat, a popular opposition daily in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. On the evening of Sunday, May 4, a group of nearly 30 men attacked the newspaper’s offices, destroying furniture, windows, and telephone equipment. The perpetrators also assaulted four…
New York, May 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is appalled by the death of James Miller, a British free-lance journalist who was fatally shot on Friday, May 2, in the Gaza Strip. Miller, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, was with a crew in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border…
New York, May 5, 2003—CPJ mourns the death of four journalists killed on Saturday, May 3, when a large firefighting helicopter they were traveling in crashed in the Chita Region, some 3,000 miles east of the capital, Moscow, according to local and international press reports. Seven crewmen and a forest management official also died.
New York, May 1, 2003—Russian government officials have been pressing Estonian authorities to shut down the pro-independence Chechen Web site KavkazCenter (www.kavkazcenter.com) for more than a week, according to local and international press reports. Sergei Yastrezhembsky, an advisor to President Vladimir Putin, warned last week that, “Countries which aspire to partnership and mutually advantageous relations…
New York, May 1, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the decision by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to restore the press accreditation of two correspondents working with the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera. Correspondents Ammar Shankari and Ramzi Shiber told CPJ they were notified on Tuesday, April 29, that their accreditation to cover…