New York, March 11, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disappointed that today’s decision by Kazakhstan’s Almaty Regional Court in the city of Taldykorgan, north of Almaty, upheld the prison sentence of prominent independent journalist Sergei Duvanov. On January 28, Almaty’s Karasaisky District Court sentenced Duvanov to three-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly raping…
New York, March 11, 2003—Prominent Sierra Leonean journalist Paul Kamara, founding editor of the popular For Di People newspaper, was freed today after spending four months in prison on criminal libel charges. Kamara was released from Freetown’s Pa Demba Road Prison at around 10 a.m., according to sources there. Journalists, family members, and well-wishers greeted…
New York, March 10, 2003—Two Uzbek journalists working for U.S. governmentfunded radio stations were attacked by a group of men on Friday, March 7, while trying to cover an anti-government protest in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent. According to local and international press reports, Khusnutddin Kutbiddinov, of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Yusuf Rasulov, with Voice…
New York, March 7, 2003—A Belarusian court ruled on Tuesday, March 4, that jailed journalist Mikola Markevich, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly newspaper Pahonya, could serve the remainder of his sentence in his hometown of Hrodna, in western Belarus. Markevich will be allowed to reside with his family, but he will now have to register…
New York, March 7, 2003—Burundian president Pierre Buyoya has ordered the country’s private radio stations not to broadcast interviews with or statements from two rebel groups who have continued to fight the government amid negotiations to end the country’s 9-year-old civil war. On March 4, Buyoya called the editors of Burundi’s leading radio stations—including the…
New York, March 7, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) yesterday received a response from the U.S. Defense Department to a letter sent on February 5, 2003, to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. CPJ had written to Rumsfeld expressing concern about 18 journalists in Eritrea who are currently being held incommunicado, as well as the…
New York, March 6, 2003—Armenian police yesterday arrested six suspects in the December 2002 murder of Tigran Nagdalian, the 36-year-old head of the state-owned Armenian Public Television. The police continue to look for other individuals linked to the crime. Law enforcement authorities have not released the suspects’ names or details of the crime, including the…
New York, March 6, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about two Palestinian journalists injured in Gaza this morning during an Israeli army raid into the Jabalya refugee camp. Reuters Jerusalem bureau chief Tim Heritage told CPJ that cameraman Shams Odeh and photographer Ahmad Jadallah were both injured by shrapnel caused by an…
New York, March 5, 2003—A suspect accused of issuing death threats against Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent with the Moscow-based twice weekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was cleared of the criminal charge against him yesterday. Politkovskaya is well known in Russia for her investigative reports on human rights abuses committed by the Russian military in Chechnya. The…
New York, March 3, 2003—A bomb destroyed the vehicle of Nino Pavic, an influential independent newspaper publisher, on the morning of Saturday, March 1, in Croatia’s capital, Zagreb. According to local and international press reports, the 50-year-old publisher and his family were sleeping in their home in the affluent suburb of Tuskanac when a bomb…