CPJ protests 30-year jail term for Kurdish writer on defamation conviction
New York, January 11, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the authorities in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region to overturn the conviction and 30-year prison sentence handed down to Kurdish writer Kamal Karim for defamation. Karim, whose name is also given as Kamal Sayid Qadir, was convicted by a state security court in the…
Kurdish editor sentenced to one year in jail
New York, October 19, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the one-year prison sentence given to Kurdish journalist and human rights activist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand by an Iranian court. The court declared Kabudvand, managing editor of the bilingual Kurdish and Farsi Payam Mardom Kordestan, guilty of “inciting the population to rebel against the central state,”…
IRAQ
APRIL 15, 2005 Updated September 29, 2005 Saman Abdullah Izzedine, Kirkuk TV KILLED—CONFIRMED Unidentified assailants gunned down Izzedine, a 33-year-old news anchor for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-backed Kirkuk TV as he was driving on the main highway from Kirkuk to Baghdad. Kurdish journalists in Kirkuk said that Izzedine’s car was fired on by…
Two Iraqi journalists killed in Baghdad bombings
New York, April 15, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the deaths of two Al-Hurriya television journalists who were killed in suicide bombings while on their way to an assignment in Baghdad yesterday morning. The station’s Baghdad director, Nawrooz Mohamed, told CPJ today that producer Fadhil Hazem Fadhil and cameraman Ali Ibrahim Issa were killed…
IRAQ
MARCH 14, 2005 Posted: June 17, 2005 Hussam Sarsam, Kurdistan TV KILLED—CONFIRMED Sarsam, a cameraman working with Kurdistan TV, a station affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was shot and killed by suspected insurgents a day after they kidnapped him in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Journalist killed in drive-by shooting in Baghdad
New York, October 14, 2004—An Iraqi reporter for a local Arabic-language television station was killed in a drive-by shooting today in Baghdad’s Adhamiya district. Dina Mohammed Hassan, a correspondent for Al-Hurriya TV, was gunned down in front of her Baghdad residence as she waited for a car to transport her to work, station staff told…
Attacks on the Press 2003: Turkey
In an effort to meet European Union criteria for membership, Turkey continued in 2003 to rewrite laws that restrict press freedom. That effort has improved the country’s spotty press freedom record, but many impediments remain. Journalists continued to face criminal prosecution for their work, although the number of jailed journalists has drastically declined in recent…
Attacks on the Press 2002: Turkey
In November, the Islamist-oriented Justice and Development Party won parliamentary elections in Turkey. The new prime minister, Abdullah Gul, and influential party head Recep Tayyip Erdogan affirmed that joining the European Union would be a top government priority. To that end, they promised greater democratic reform, including an easing of long-standing restrictions on freedom of…
Journalist killed in northern IraqOther journalists missing, detained as hostilities intensify
New York, March 22, 2003— An Australian journalist was killed, and several British journalists disappeared today while covering escalating hostilities in Iraq. Free-lance Australian cameraman Paul Moran, who was on assignment for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was killed today in an apparent suicide bombing when a man detonated a car at a checkpoint in…