Attacks on the Press 2009: Zimbabwe
Top Developments• Government fails to implement reforms allowing private media to operate.• Two international broadcasters allowed to resume operation. Key Statistic $32,000: Application and accreditation fees imposed on international journalists. In a measure of the deplorable state of press freedom in Zimbabwe, a year marked by harassment and obstruction was considered a small step forward. “Journalists…
Attacks on the Press 2009: Writing Credits
AFRICA Country summaries were researched and written by Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes and Research Associate Mohamed Hassim Keita. AMERICAS Country summaries were researched and written by Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría, Senior Research Associate María Salazar-Ferro, Washington representative Frank Smyth, and program consultants Mike O’Connor and Claudia Duarte. ASIA Country summaries were researched and…
Amid crackdown, two blogs shuttered in Vietnam
New York, February 12, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Vietnamese government’s apparent shutdown of two politically oriented blogs, Blogosin and Bauxite Vietnam. The sites, both of which published critical perspectives on sensitive government issues, had been the targets of ongoing hacking, The Associated Press and the Agence France-Presse reported.
U.S military releases detained Reuters photographer in Iraq
New York, February 10, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is relieved that the U.S military has released Iraqi photographer and cameraman Ibrahim Jassam today after holding him without charge for 17 months in Iraq, but calls on the U.S. government to ensure that this release marks the end of its policy of open-ended detentions of journalists. Jassam,…
Freedom of information laws struggle to take hold in Africa
In Uganda, a ruling this week in a landmark case of two journalists seeking to compel their government’s disclosure of multinationals oil deals highlighted the challenges to public transparency just before media leaders, press freedom advocates, officials, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter gather in Ghana next week at the African Regional Conference on the Right…
Karimov chastises Uzbekistan’s ‘toothless’ reporters
Addressing the joint session of Uzbekistan’s parliament on Wednesday, President Islam Karimov urged his lawmakers to be more active in their work, saying that laws should address public needs, and blaming the local press corps for being “toothless” in its reporting, regional news Web site Ferghana reported. In his speech, available on the parliament’s Web site, Karimov, at…
Haiti’s Radio Tele Caraïbes lost its offices, not its mission
Radio Tele Caraïbes is out on the street after losing the use of its offices in the January 12 earthquake, but the Port-au-Prince broadcaster has resumed operations nonetheless. A makeshift newsroom has been set up in a tent in the middle of a street. Staff meetings and discussions are being held under the gaze of…
In meeting, delegation presses for Fatullayev’s freedom
Washington, January 20, 2010—A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists met today with Azerbaijani Charge d’Affaires Khazar Ibrahim at the Azerbaijani Embassy to deliver a letter carrying the names of more than 500 international journalists petitioning for the immediate release of imprisoned editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award.…
Petitioners urge Azerbaijan to free Eynulla Fatullayev
President Aliyev: The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to open a new page in your government’s policies toward the independent and opposition press, one that would demonstrate tolerance for the critical role of media in a democracy. No other action would contribute to this goal as much as the immediate release of Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of the now-closed independent Russian-language weekly Realny Azerbaijan and the Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan, who has been imprisoned since April 2007 on charges that range from defamation to terrorism.