Attacks on the Press 2004: Nepal
Nepal Amid an explosive civil conflict between Maoist rebels and government forces, the safety of the Nepalese press hung on the fragile prospects for peace. Estimates of the death toll since the collapse of a six-month cease-fire in August 2003 vary, but local journalists say heavy fighting in 2004 killed several thousand people. According to…
Attacks on the Press 2004: Paraguay
Paraguay In a major advance for press freedom in the Americas, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found in September that a 1994 criminal defamation conviction in Paraguay violated international law. The court ruled that the criminal proceedings themselves violated the American Convention on Human Rights because they were an “excessive limitation in a democratic…
Attacks on the Press 2004: Russia
RussiaA midyear purge of independent voices on state television and an alarming suppression of news coverage during the Beslan hostage crisis marked a year in which Russian President Vladimir Putin increasingly exerted Soviet-style control over the media. Using intelligence agents and an array of politicized state agencies, Putin pushed for an obedient and patriotic press…
Ukrainian prosecutors report progress in the Gongadze case
New York, March 11, 2005—The questioning of Ukraine’s former president and negotiations to obtain a potentially key tape recording capped a week of developments in the Ukrainian government’s investigation into the September 2000 abduction and murder of Internet journalist Georgy Gongadze. The once-dormant investigation, given life when President Viktor Yushchenko took office this year, also…
Freed Italian journalist wounded by coalition fire
New York, March 4, 2005—Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, held hostage in Iraq for a month, was wounded shortly after her release today and an Italian security agent was killed when U.S.-led coalition forces fired on their car near a military checkpoint in Baghdad. Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based daily Il Manifesto who was held…
Freed Italian journalist wounded by coalition fire
New York, March 4, 2005—Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, held hostage in Iraq for a month, was wounded shortly after her release today and an Italian security agent was killed when U.S.-led coalition forces fired on their car near a military checkpoint in Baghdad. Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based daily Il Manifesto who was held…
Editor of opposition weekly gunned down
New York, March 2, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of Elmar Huseynov, the founder and editor of the opposition weekly news magazine Monitor, who was gunned down this evening in his apartment building in the capital, Baku. Huseynov was shot several times while walking up the stairwell of his building on his…
Captors release video of kidnapped Italian journalist
New York, February 16, 2005—The kidnappers holding Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena have released a video showing her pleading for her life and calling on U.S. and coalition troops to leave Iraq, The Associated Press (AP) has reported. On February 4, gunmen seized Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based Italian daily Il Manifesto, near Baghdad University,…
IRAQ
FEBRUARY 15, 2005 Posted: March 14, 2005 Meutya Hafid, Metro TV Budiyanto, Metro TV ABDUCTED Gunmen seized reporter Hafid, cameraman Budiyanto and their driver, Ibrahim Abdel Khader, near the city of Ramadi. They were en route from Amman, Jordan, to cover the observance of Ashura, one of the most important religious events for Shiites, according…