Various news outlets had coverage over the weekend of press freedom in Russian in light of last week’s brutal assault on Mikhail Beketov, a Moscow newspaper editor who still remains comatose in a local hospital. The Chicago Tribune as well as the UK-based newspapers The Guardian and The Sunday Herald are running stories about the dangers…
Fitting honors for those who risk their lives to do their jobsThe Washington PostNovember 21, 2008 Plainclothes Ugandan police officers descended yesterday on the newsroom of the weekly newsmagazine the Independent, seizing computer documents and attempting to deliver an arrest warrant to managing editor Andrew M. Mwenda. “Unluckily, I was out of Uganda,” Mr. Mwenda…
New York, November 21, 2008–A Burmese court sentenced entertainer, blogger, and activist Maung Thura–known by his stage name, “Zarganar”–to 45 years in prison today for violations of the Electronics Act, according to Burmese rights groups and international news reports. Sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, and two other defendants were also sentenced to at least 15…
New York, November 21, 2008–A decision to order the arrest of renowned Colombian journalist Alejandro Santos Rubino is an act of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A Bogotá judge ordered the arrest of Santos, the director of the national weekly newsmagazine Semana, for failing to follow the court’s instructions in a defamation…
New York, November 21, 2008–A court in China’s southwestern Sichuan province sentenced a writer critical of the government to three years in prison today on charges of inciting subversion of state power, his wife told the Committee to Protect Journalists.
CPJ’s Monica Campbell is interviewed today on NPR’s “People and Places” about the recent murder of crime reporter Armando Rodriguez and the worsening situation for Mexican journalists. She is joined by journalist Arturo Chacon.Visit NPR.org to listen to the report.