abducted

In 2003, President Yahya Jammeh’s ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) maintained a firm grip on power in this tiny West African country, despite signs of political and economic instability. In September and October, the president fired four ministers, including the communications minister, while a fifth, the justice minister, resigned.

The U.S.-led war in Iraq proved extremely dangerous for journalists. More than a dozen lost their lives reporting there in 2003, and many seasoned war correspondents have called the postwar environment the most risky assignment of their lives. With the demise of Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime, Iraqi media have flourished, but news organizations faced potentially…

There was hope for a peaceful resolution toe the political violence in Nepal on January 29, 2003, when the government and Maoist rebels signed a cease-fire agreement to halt their seven-year civil conflict. However, the deepening political crisis within the country’s constitutional monarchy and the eventual collapse of the cease-fire in August sparked a sharp…

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his coterie of former intelligence officials pressed ahead in 2003 with his vision of a “dictatorship of the law” in Russia to create a “managed democracy.” Putin’s goal of an obedient and patriotic press meant that the Kremlin continued using various branches of the politicized state bureaucracy to rein in…

In March 2003, President Yoweri Museveni proposed extending presidential term limits, allowing him to run for a third five-year term in office. Museveni, who came to power in a 1986 coup, retained power in the country’s first presidential election in 1996 and was re-elected in 2001. His proposal for a third term drew criticism from…

There were 138 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2003 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is the same as last year. An analysis of the reasons behind this is contained in the introduction on page 10. At the beginning of 2004, CPJ sent letters of inquiry to…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization committed to defending press freedom worldwide, is extremely concerned about escalating government persecution of Turkmen journalists working for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

New York, February 4, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the recent violent attack against Colombian journalist and human rights activist Inés Peña, who was assaulted and tortured in the city of Barrancabermeja, Santander Department, last week. On January 28 at around 3 p.m., two armed men abducted the journalist while she was…

New York, November 12, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating the motives behind a bomb attack on five journalists in Feni in southeastern Bangladesh on November 10. Police suspect that the assailants targeted one of the journalists, Bakhtiar Islam Munna, the local Feni correspondent for the daily Ittefaq and for the wire service…

New York, September 24, 2003—Investigators from the Moscow Prosecutor General’s Office searched the office of the Moscow-based independent news Web site Grani.ru on Friday, September 19. Investigators said they wanted an original copy of an anonymous e-mail that Grani.ru had received on August 18 containing a video recording of two prosecutors working for the pro-Russian…