Mexican reporter released from U.S. detention center
According to U.S. and Mexican news reports, reporter Emilio Gutiérrez Soto was released on Thursday from a detention center in El Paso, Texas, where he had been held for seven months while awaiting an immigration hearing. Gutiérrez illegally entered the United States in June fearing for his life and that of his son after receiving…
What’s become of the people in this photo?
This week, as CPJ finalized its annual list of journalists imprisoned for their work, my thoughts turned to Eritrea and this photo. Taken in 2000, near the end of a two-year border war with neighboring Ethiopia and during the heyday of a burgeoning private press movement in Africa’s youngest nation, the photo shows the staff…
Mexican journalist languishes in Texas detention
Emilio Gutiérrez Soto began fearing for his life when approximately 50 armed soldiers entered his home in Ascensión on May 5 without a permit. They told Gutiérrez they were searching for “weapons or drugs,” he told CPJ. The soldiers did not find any evidence of illegal activity and left. Gutiérrez said he believed the search…
Q & A: An Ethiopian speaks from exile
Feleke Tibebu, deputy editor of private Ethiopian newspaper Hadar, was arrested in a 2005 government-led crackdown on dissidents and the private media. Tibebu (right) and 13 other journalists were charged with “outrages against the constitution or constitutional order,” “impairment of the defensive power of the state,” and “attempted genocide,” after the publication of editorials critical…
A temporary home for exiled Ethiopian
Merid Estifanos was still in his afternoon French class when I arrived at the Maison des Journalistes (MDJ) this afternoon to meet him. I was greeted instead by Maison’s director, Philippe Spinau, who gave me the grand tour of the house that has been home to many journalists who, like Estifanos, were forced into exile…