Attacks on the Press 2007: Kazakhstan
KAZAKHSTAN President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his administration played down the country’s troubling press freedom and human rights record as they successfully pursued chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Vienna-based human rights monitoring body.
Attacks on the Press 2007: Venezuela
VENEZUELA The Venezuelan government’s unprecedented decision not to renew the broadcast concession of the country’s oldest private television station, RCTV, represented a major setback for free expression and democracy. The decision, aimed at silencing Venezuela’s most critical media outlet, was part of President Hugo Chávez Frías’ aggressive strategy to challenge the influence of the private…
CPJ asks Rice to discuss Ethiopian press freedom
Dear Secretary Rice, In advance of your meeting with Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa, the Committee to Protect Journalists would like to draw your attention to our concerns regarding press freedom conditions there. You may know that 15 Ethiopian journalists were recently released from prison, but this development belies the country’s sustained record of contempt for independent media, which manifests itself in a variety of legal and administrative restraints. The 15 jailed journalists were sentenced on trumped-up charges such as genocide in connection with the media’s coverage of Ethopia’s 2005 post-election unrest.
CPJ urges Rice to seek probe in Turkmen journalist’s death
Dear Secretary Rice: In advance of your meeting in New York with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov during the 62nd session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Committee to Protect Journalists draws your attention to the unexplained death of an independent journalist in Turkmenistan.
Journalist shot and wounded after corruption reports
August 6, 2007—Mexican journalist Alberto Fernández Portilla was shot and wounded early Sunday morning as he arrived at his home in Salina Cruz, a Pacific port city in the southern state of Oaxaca. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Mexican authorities to investigate the attack. Fernández told CPJ that the shooting occurred around 1:50…
Jordan blocks newspaper edition over story on ’secret’ Palestinian plan
New York, April 30, 2007—Jordanian authorities should lift their ban on today’s edition of an independent paper, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. Fahd al-Rimawi, editor of the weekly Al-Majd, told CPJ that security agents moved Sunday to prevent printing of the edition because of a front-page story about a “secret plan” to oust the…