Serbian police arrest suspects in deadly Croatian bombing
New York, June 3, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the arrests of three additional suspects in the October 2008 murders of Ivo Pukanic, owner and editorial director of the Zagreb-based political weekly Nacional, and Niko Franjic, the publication’s marketing director. Three other suspects had been arrested in November 2008.
Call for journalists’ release as trial date nears in North Korea
New York, June 3, 2009–On the eve of the June 4 criminal trial date for U.S. television journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls for all countries involved in the Six Party Talks to work together to ensure their freedom. The countries in the talks are North…
Speaking out in Oslo
Oslo is reputed to be the world’s most expensive city, and while I can’t absolutely affirm it, I can tell that I paid $15 for a beer and $5 for a coffee. The International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a network of press freedom organizations from around the world, is holding its general assembly here in…
Eritrean president slams ‘CIA-financed’ media
Last week, President Isaias Afeworki of Eritrea, Africa’s leading jailer of journalists, discussed press freedom during an extensive interview with Swedish broadcaster TV4. Afeworki, a revered guerrilla commander who led this Red Sea country to nationhood in 1993, banned Eritrea’s budding private media in 2001 and threw journalists in secret prisons without charge or trial.…
Journalist El Malick Seck freed by Senegal presidential pardon
On April 24, 2009, journalist El Malick Seck, who was serving a three-year prison sentence over an editorial implicating President Abdoulaye Wade and his son in an alleged money laundering scandal, was released on presidential pardon, according to local journalists and news reports. The sentence had been upheld in February. He was first imprisoned on…
China blocks Twitter before Tiananmen
“Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of YouTube descends on it one day,” veteran Chinese blogger Michael Anti told the media blog Danwei in a May 27 interview.
Colombia must investigate spying allegations
In response to a story in the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald that Colombian journalists’ e-mails and phone calls with international human rights and press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, were monitored by Colombian national intelligence, we issued the following statement today…