Beketov convicted of defamation, his assailants still at large
New York, November 10, 2010–A court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki today convicted Mikhail Beketov, the editor of the independent newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda, of criminally slandering Khimki’s mayor, Vladimir Strelchenko, in a 2007 television interview. Beketov, who is in a wheelchair and unable to speak two years after a near-lethal attack, was wheeled into the courtroom for…
Moroccan authorities impeding Spanish journalists
New York, November 9, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by an increasing climate of hostility for Spanish journalists in Morocco, highlighted by official measures to prevent Spanish journalists from covering clashes in the Western Sahara. CPJ calls on Rabat to allow journalists to do their work unimpeded.
Help journalists in need: An appeal
Mikhail Beketov is lucky to be alive, although I’m sure there are days when he doesn’t think so. On November 13, 2008, the environmental reporter who campaigned against a highway that would have destroyed a forest in Khimki, a town outside Moscow, was beaten nearly to death by men with metal bars. The attackers made…
Russian reporters beaten; both covered highway project
New York, November 8, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces two attacks on journalists in the Moscow region and calls on authorities to end impunity in crimes against reporters in Russia. Both victims, Oleg Kashin of the business daily Kommersant and Anatoly Adamchuk of the independent weekly Zhukovskiye Vesti, have covered a contentious highway project…
Lugar: Umar Cheema case a ‘bellwether’ for Pakistan
Sen. Richard Lugar, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Pakistani Prime Minster Yousuf Raza Gilani on September 22 to express concern about the brutal attack on Umar Cheema. The journalist was abducted on the weekend of September 4-5 by men in black commando-style uniforms, who beat and humiliated him. It’s…
CPJ condemns attack on Kommersant reporter
New York, November 6, 2010–The Russian government must act immediately to arrest the assailants responsible for a brutal attack today on a reporter for the Moscow daily Kommersant. The brazen assault, which left Oleg Kashin, left, so badly injured he was placed in an induced coma, is a product in part of the government’s failure to…
The Burmese Internet on the eve of election
Burma tops CPJ’s “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger.” With the scheduled general election in the country approaching, there have been reports of growing interference with both local and exiled journalists. As Burma enters the final stretch of the campaign, CPJ’s senior South East Asia representative, Shawn Crispin, give me a brief summary of the…
Attackers lob grenade at Puntland radio station
New York, October 19, 2010–A pair of assailants lobbed a grenade Monday evening at Horseed FM, a private radio station broadcasting from the port city of Bossasso, the economic capital of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, according to local reports. After the grenade exploded, one of the attackers began shooting at an adjacent café, Horseed Managing…
Burma’s exile media hit by cyber-attacks
Bangkok, September 27, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned by cyber-attacks against three exile-run Burma news outlets, Irrawaddy, Mizzima News, and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks have shut Irrawaddy’s main website while temporarily blocking access to Mizzima’s site.
Critical Honduran reporter survives shooting attack
New York, September 16, 2010–Honduran authorities must fully investigate an attempted shooting on Tuesday of journalist Luis Galdámez Álvarez, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Unidentified gunmen in the capital, Tegucigalpa, shot at Galdámez outside his home, he told CPJ. Galdámez was uninjured.