New York, January 30, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the criminal defamation lawsuit filed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Tuesday against the editor-in-chief of the independent Kurdish weekly Hawlati for translating and publishing a report written by a U.S. scholar. Tariq Fatih, publisher of Hawlati, told CPJ the newspaper was served…
New York, January 29, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Mexican authorities to fully investigate the alleged involvement of Alfredo Araujo Avila, a top hit man for the Arellano Félix drug cartel, in the shooting of editor J. Jesús Blancornelas a decade ago. Araujo was arrested Saturday in Tijuana by the Mexican military, according to…
New York, January 29, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Monday’s six-month prison sentence given by the Bangui Magistrates’ Court to the editorial director of a private weekly in the Central African Republic. The editor of Les Collines de l’Oubangui, Faustin Bambou, was found guilty of inciting revolt, abuse, and defamation.
New York, January 29, 2008—Authorities in Nigeria’s southern Akwa Ibom State sent a journalist to prison on Monday on sedition charges, according to local journalists and news reports. The move was part of a crackdown launched by the state government in response to a story alleging corruption by the state governor. The newspaper’s distributor was…
New York, January 29, 2008–Police in the southern Russian Republic of Ingushetia detained, beat, and deported journalists and human rights activists who tried to cover an opposition rally in the regional capital on Saturday, according to CPJ sources and local news reports. Authorities mounted a massive crackdown against the roughly 200 protesters in Nazran. Riot…
JANUARY 28-30, 2008 Posted February 1, 2008 Uzeyir Jafarov, Baku Zaman THREATENED Jafarov, a reporter of the independent daily Baku Zaman and a former editor of the now-shuttered Azeri-language daily Gündalik Azarbaycan, said he received numerous death threats from anonymous callers. Jafarov said the calls began after he wrote critical stories about the army and…
Dear Prime Minister, As a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization of journalists committed to supporting our colleagues around the world, we are concerned about an ongoing pattern of arbitrary arrests and threats by government officials against Somali journalists. It is within your power to put an end to this harassment, which is contrary to international standards of press freedom. As you recently expressed, it is time to end these abuses.
New York, January 28, 2008—Mexican journalist Octavio Soto Torres, known for his harsh criticism of local authorities, was shot at by four masked gunmen on Wednesday night while driving in the city of Pánuco, Veracruz state. Soto and his son, 16, who was also in the car, were not shot, but Soto was injured as…
CPJ mourns the death of Somali reporter New York, January 28, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death of Somali National News Agency reporter Hassan Kafi Hared today. Hared died in a landmine explosion and subsequent gunfire in Siyad Village in the southwestern port town of Kismayo. A remote-controlled mine blew up a Medecins…
New York, March 11, 2008—Six people affiliated with the Sri Lankan news Web site OutreachSL have been detained by the Terrorist Investigation Division of the Sri Lankan police force in Colombo since last week, according to Agence France-Presse and local news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists urges the government of Sri Lanka to charge…