Iran

New York, May 19, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed the release today of radio journalist Tchanguis Vatankah after three weeks of arbitrary detention. Vatankah, who went on hunger strike in early May, told CPJ by telephone from the capital, N’Djamena, that he was “very happy” to be back home with his wife, and that…

Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that way. It helps them crush press freedoms and keep their population in the dark. That is why the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, has drawn up a league table of the world’s 10 most censored countries. We hope that the list, issued on World Press Freedom Day, will shine a light into the dark corners of the world where governments and their political cronies decide what people will read, see, and hear.

Robert Mahoney May 4, 2006 11:44 AMPublished in The Guardian’s Comment is Free blog http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/robert_mahoney/2006/05/press_freedom.html Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that…

New York, May 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed at the arrest on Friday of Tchanguis Vatankah, founder of an independent radio station and president of the Chadian Union of Private Radios. Police took Vatankah from his home in the capital, N’Djamena, but did not show any arrest warrant, according to Evariste Toldé,…

Dear President Musharraf: We are greatly concerned about the disappearance of our colleague Hayatullah Khan, who has been missing since he was abducted by unknown gunmen in North Waziristan along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan on December 5. Members of his family and his colleagues have repeatedly asked the Committee to Protect Journalists to find out where he is being held and seek his release.

Dear President Bush: We are greatly concerned about the disappearance of our colleague Hayatullah Khan, who has been missing since he was abducted by unknown gunmen in North Waziristan along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan on December 5. Members of his family and his colleagues have repeatedly asked the Committee to Protect Journalists to find out where he is being held and seek his release. With that in mind, we are writing to you and to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

February 28, 2006 Original Alert: February 16, 2006 Elham Afroutan and six other journalists, Tammadon-e Hormozgan IMPRISONED Elham Afroutan, one of seven journalists jailed after publishing a satirical article that criticized the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has been transferred from prison in Bandar Abbas to Tehran’s Evin Prison after she attempted suicide in custody, according to…

CPJ Update Committee to Protect JournalistsFebruary 17, 2006 CPJ’s Attacks on the Press released in four cities worldwide

AFGHANISTAN: 1 Ali Mohaqqiq Nasab, Haqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights) Imprisoned: October 1, 2005 The attorney general ordered editor Nasab’s arrest on blasphemy charges after the religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, Mohaiuddin Baluch, filed a complaint about his magazine. “I took the two magazines and spoke to the Supreme Court chief, who wrote to the attorney…