Dear President Karzai, News reports have described your plan to present a $50 billion, long-term development strategy to international donors in Paris on Thursday. Those reports have also noted the concerns of international donors about allegations of widespread corruption in Afghanistan.
Washington, June 11, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Israeli authorities today to release the findings of an army investigation into the killing of a Reuters cameraman by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip two months ago. In a meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, the CPJ delegation also urged…
Bob Dietz Published in The Huffington Post June 10, 2008 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-dietz/covering-the-beijing-game_b_106378.html Despite China’s initial openness to reporters in the days and weeks following the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, anyone who thinks China is going to be warm and friendly towards the media during the August Olympics should do a reality check. In the last…
New York, June 10, 2008—The editor of an evening daily in southern Mexico was threatened in a note left outside the front door of the newspaper’s office building on Monday, two days after a severed human head was found near the same spot, according to news reports and a CPJ interview. Editorial Director Juan Padilla…
New York, June 10, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the detention of Dam Sith, editor-in-chief of the opposition-aligned, Khmer-language daily newspaper Moneakseka Khmer. Dam Sith was arrested on Sunday by plainclothes police at a car wash and interrogated for several hours at the national military police headquarters in the capital, Phnom Penh. A criminal…
Mexico City, June 9, 2008—President Felipe Calderón today pledged his commitment to federalize crimes against freedom of expression in a meeting with the Committee to Protect Journalists in Mexico City. Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora announced draft legislation that would amend Article 73 of Mexico’s political constitution and would make a federal offense any crime…
New York, June 9, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the six-year jail sentence handed down today against an outspoken Yemeni journalist accused of conspiring with anti-government rebels. A state security court in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, sentenced Abdel Karim al-Khaiwani, editor of an opposition news Web site, to six years in prison for being an…
New York, June 9, 2008—CPJ calls for a thorough investigation into the June 7 killing of Somali journalist Nasteh Dahir Farah. Dahir, vice chairman of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), was shot by two men while walking home from an Internet cafe at around 7 p.m. near his home in Kismayo, local journalists…
New York, June 9, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists joins with the family and colleagues of Afghan journalist Abdul Samad Rohani in mourning his death, and calls on the recently appointed governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal, to press investigators to find his killers. Rohani disappeared on Saturday near Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s capital. He was…
New York, June 9, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a militant group’s abduction of three journalists from Philippine network ABS-CBN in the southern Philippine province of Sulu on Sunday. ABS-CBN news head Maria Ressa provided CPJ with an official statement today confirming that journalist Ces Drilon, cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion, and assistant cameraman Angelo Valderama…