As with Norgrove, a need to probe Munadi death
This morning, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who died in a rescue attempt after she was taken hostage in Afghanistan, may have been killed by a U.S. grenade rather than by her Taliban captors, as originally reported.
CPJ calls for UK to investigate Munadi death in rescue
Dear Prime Minister Brown: We last wrote to you on November 5 to urge you to authorize the Ministry of Defence to carry out an investigation into the September 9, 2009, military operation that rescued British-Irish journalist and New York Times correspondent Stephen Farrell and unfortunately led to the death of his Afghan colleague, Sultan Munadi. In our November 5 letter, we offered our condolences on the loss of British Parachute Regiment Cpl. John Harrison, but also pointed out that many questions about the operation remain unanswered. Among them is whether Munadi’s rescue was a central objective, what circumstances existed when he was killed, and why his remains were left behind after British forces withdrew.
As fighting surges, so does danger to press
By Bob Dietz As the United States redeploys forces to Afghanistan, and the Pakistani military moves into the country’s tribal areas, the media face enormous challenges in covering a multifaceted conflict straddling two volatile countries. Pakistani reporters cannot move freely in areas controlled by militants. International reporters in Afghanistan, at risk from kidnappers and suicide…
Attacks on the Press 2009: Afghanistan
Top Developments • Government tries to curb reporting on Election Day violence. • Abductions target foreign reporters, endangering local journalists, too. Key Statistic 20: Years that Parwez Kambakhsh would have spent in jail on an unjust charge. He was freed in August. Deepening violence, flawed elections, rampant corruption, and faltering development provided plenty of news…
Casualties of foreign journalists mount in Afghanistan
New York January 11, 2010—The death of U.K.-based Sunday Mirror reporter Rupert Hamer, who was killed in an explosion outside a village in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, is an indicator of the rising danger for journalists in Afghanistan. The explosion also wounded Hamer’s colleague photographer Philip Coburn and took the life of a U.S. Marine.
CPJ urges PM Brown to investigate Farrell rescue
Dear Prime Minister Brown: The Committee to Protect Journalists wishes to offer our condolences on the loss of British Parachute Regiment Cpl. John Harrison, who died in a September 9 military operation to rescue two journalists kidnapped by Taliban forces in Afghanistan. We are grateful that New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell, a British-Irish national, was safely rescued, but we’re saddened by the loss of his colleague, fellow New York Times reporter Sultan Munadi.
Afghan journalists call for justice in Munadi’s death
A large group of Afghan journalists met on Sunday in Kabul. They were angry about the death of New York Times journalist Sultan Mohammed Munadi in the September 9 British-led rescue attempt to free him and Times’ reporter Stephen Farrell, who survived unharmed, from kidnappers. After the meeting, they sent me a list of demands…