Attacks on the Press 2005: Ukraine
UKRAINE Expectations were high that new President Viktor Yushchenko would sweep away the legacy of repression left by Leonid Kuchma’s authoritarian regime. Yushchenko won a December 26, 2004, presidential runoff held after hundreds of thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the capital, Kyiv, to denounce an earlier, rigged vote in which Kuchma protégé Viktor…
Belarusian election undermined by state abuses against media
Moscow, February 10, 2006—The Belarusian government’s persecution of the country’s few independent newspapers undermines the integrity of the March 19 presidential election in which Aleksandr Lukashenko seeks a third term, the Committee to Protect Journalists and two regional press freedom organizations said today. The groups called on the Russian Federation, the European Union, and the…
Two journalists reportedly kidnapped in Baghdad
New York, February 1, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a report that two Iraqi broadcast journalists were abducted in western Baghdad today. Journalists Marwan Ghazal and Reem Zaeed, from the privately owned television station Samaria TV, were abducted by gunmen in Baghdad’s Yarmouk district after covering a meeting at the offices of…
Journalists wounded in Iraq blast flown to Germany
New York, January 30, 2006—A U.S. news anchor and a cameraman wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq were flown to Germany today where doctors described their injuries as very serious. ABC World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff, 44, and ABC cameraman Doug Vogt, 46, were evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany…
Freedom fighters in the Arab press
Clarence Page Chicago Tribune January 29, 2006 SAN`A, Yemen: A lot of people were alarmed to see that Palestinians gave the terrorist Hamas organization an upset victory last week over the reputedly corrupt Fatah in parliament elections. But, in this part of the world, any change of power through ballots instead of bullets is a…
CPJ welcomes calls by leading Muslims for Carroll’s release
New York, January 19, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes calls by prominent Muslims around the world for the release of U.S. reporter Jill Carroll who faces death at the hands of her Iraqi kidnappers. A brief video aired on Tuesday showing the 28-year-old freelancer in captivity has prompted an outpouring of appeals for her…
CPJ issues appeal as kidnappers in Iraq threaten reporter
New York, January 17, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply alarmed by a report today that kidnappers in Iraq have threatened to kill U.S. reporter Jill Carroll if the United States does not free all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours. The Arabic-language TV network Al-Jazeera aired a 20-second video in which a pale…
CPJ appeals for release of freelance journalist seized in Iraq
New York, January 9, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the abduction of U.S. reporter Jill Carroll in Baghdad, and the murder of her Iraqi interpreter. Carroll, a freelancer on assignment in Iraq for the Christian Science Monitor, was seized on January 7 by unidentified gunmen in the Adil neighborhood of western Baghdad…
IRAQ
DECEMBER 26, 2005 Posted: January 20, 2006 Phil Sands, freelancer ABDUCTED British freelance journalist Sands, 28, was freed on January 1, 2006 by U.S. soldiers who happened upon him by chance during a routine hunt for insurgents. Sands, who contributed to the San Francisco Chronicle and The Scotsman, was abducted by gunmen while on his…
CPJ protests criminal prosecution of local reporter
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists wishes to express its grave concern about the criminal prosecution of Ayad Mahmoud al-Tamimi and Ahmed Mutair Abbas, editor-in-chief and managing editor respectively of the now-defunct Iraqi daily Sada Wasit, a local newspaper in the southern city of Kut. Both men face more than 10 years in prison or heavy fines if convicted of four separate defamation charges brought by local government officials in Wasit Province in response to critical articles that they published in 2005.