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.
Seen and heard at CPJ benefit: ‘The pen is not broken’
Small in stature but strong in her words, Naziha Réjiba tells a reporter of all the things the Tunisian government does to try to frighten her. But Réjiba said that she will not be scared, that she will never allow such tactics to have power over her. Editor of Kalima, an online news Web site blocked in…
It’s an honor
Yesterday, CPJ received the Thomas J. Dodd Prize for International Justice and Human Rights at an outdoor ceremony at the University of Connecticut. It was one of those perfect, crisp fall mornings in New England with a strong wind blowing clouds across the sun and shaking the first leaves from the maples, which have already…
CPJ asks Iran to release imprisoned journalists
Dear Mr. President: While you are in New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly, your visit will be covered by the hundreds of journalists from around the world who are in the city for the annual gathering. But as many of these journalists report freely and openly on your speech and meetings they will no doubt be thinking of the dozens of journalists back in your country who are behind bars for trying to report on events in Iran.
In Iranian prison, journalists’ well-being in question
New York, August 28, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the conditions in which dozens of Iranian journalists are being held and is concerned about the health of many of them, particularly that of Ahmad Zaid-Abadi. The columnist, who worked for Rooz Online, a Farsi and English-language reformist news Web site, was arrested in mid-June…
Journalists face trial in Iran as arrests continue
New York, July 30, 2009–After more than a month of detention, several journalists may face trial beginning on Saturday on charges of “sending pictures to enemy media.” Three documentary filmmakers were arrested today, bringing the total of journalists currently held in Iranian jails to 42, the highest count in the world.
Iran claims photographers cooperated with ‘enemy’
New York, July 29, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists rejects the alleged confessions by two detained Iranian photographers held incommunicado in Iran since their arrests earlier this month. The two allegedly confessed to sending pictures to the “enemy” following the country’s disputed June 12 presidential elections, according to the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA).