abducted

AZERBAIJAN Two prominent journalists were viciously assaulted in unsolved attacks, and the 2005 murder of another top reporter was wrapped in questions. President Ilham Aliyev and his allies used the courts as a hammer against the independent media, filing criminal defamation lawsuits, lodging spurious drug charges, and imprisoning critical journalists. Interior Minister Ramil Usubov, the…

IRAQ For the fourth consecutive year, Iraq was the most dangerous reporting assignment in the world, exacting a frightening toll on local and foreign journalists. Thirty-two journalists and 15 media support staffers were killed during the year, bringing to 129 the number of media personnel killed in action since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.…

ISRAEL and the OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY Israeli troops and armor re-entered the Gaza Strip in late June to stop Palestinians from firing crudely made rockets from the north into Israeli towns along the border. Nearly 370 Palestinians, half of them civilians, were killed in the ensuing six-month Israeli offensive, which intensified after the seizure of…

Israel’s summer offensive in Lebanon was filled with danger for hundreds of journalists who braved bombs and bullets to cover fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah guerrillas. The offensive began after guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed eight near the Lebanese-Israeli border. During the 34-day conflict, one journalist and a media worker were killed,…

PAKISTAN The military-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf, now in its eighth year, said in 2006 that it was fostering a free press, but the details belied the claim, and journalists continued to be targeted from many sides. While the government has allowed the expansion of broadcast media, a three-person CPJ delegation that met with…

YEMEN Presidential elections provided the backdrop for a series of troubling attacks against Yemen’s increasingly vocal independent and opposition press. As expected, President Ali Abdullah Saleh extended his nearly three decades in power by another six years, but the run-up to the September vote saw an upsurge in violence, intimidation, and legal harassment, along with…

ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…

New York, February 2, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that more than a year after Iraqi journalists Marwan Ghazal and Reem Zaeed were abducted by gunmen in Baghdad they remain missing. “The plight of Marwan Ghazal and Reem Zaeed underscores the enormous dangers faced by all journalists covering this conflict, but especially…

Dear Minister Sherpao and Secretary Shah: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by the Interior Ministry’s failure to publicly produce investigative records as promised in regard to the deaths of eight journalists and to attacks and detentions involving more than 50 others in Pakistan since 2002.

New York, December 26, 2006–Four unidentified men severely beat Nijat Huseynov, a reporter for the Baku-based opposition daily Azadlyg, on Monday morning, according to local and international press reports. Huseynov told the Turan news agency that he had received anonymous threatening phone calls recently. The callers made reference to Huseynov’s work but did not cite…