Burma: Two journalists arrested and summarily tried for filming
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the arrest and summary trial of two journalists accused of filming the countryside from a public bus outside Burma’s controversial new capital. Ko Thar Cho, a photojournalist, and Ko Kyaw Thwin, a columnist at the Burmese-language magazine Dhamah Yate, were arrested on March 27 while…
China: Reporter detained after alleging local corruption
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing detention of Hunan-based newspaper reporter Yang Xiaoqing who wrote about corruption in the sale of a state-owned company. Yang’s wife, Gong Jie, told CPJ that he was under threat for months before his arrest in January, and had gone into hiding…
Philipines: CPJ calls for probe of killing of journalist
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an immediate and full investigation into the shooting death today of part-time newspaper editor and columnist Orlando Tapios Mendoza. Philippine media reports and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) said Mendoza was shot several times by unidentified men as he was returning…
Thailand: Police ban edition of political journal after articles on king
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a ban on an edition of Thai-language political quarterly Fah Diew Kan. On March 30, national police chief Gen. Kowit Wattana sent a notice to the journal’s editor Thanapol Eawsakul informing him of a decision to ban further distribution of the publication’s October-December 2005 edition.…
Journalist released after year in jail for anti-constitutional activity
New York, April 4, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release by an Uzbek court of journalist Sobirdjon Yakubov who spent one year in jail on subversion charges. A court in the capital Tashkent freed Yakubov, a reporter for the state-run weekly newspaper Hurriyat (Liberty), on Monday for lack of evidence against him, the…
CPJ urges Haiti’s Préval to make Dominique case a priority
New York, April 3, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists remembers Jean-Léopold Dominique, owner and director of Radio Haïti-Inter and one of the country’s most renowned journalists, who was gunned down six years ago today in a still-unpunished assassination. CPJ called on Haiti’s president-elect, René Préval, to make the murder investigation a priority of his administration…
Journalist arrested in case stemming from Chechnya coverage
New York, April 3, 2006—Moscow police have arrested journalist Boris Stomakhin after he failed to appear for a June 2004 trial on criminal charges of inciting inter-ethnic hatred in news reports about the war in Chechnya. Stomakhin edits the independent Moscow monthly newspaper Radikalnaya Politika (Radical Politics) and contributes to the pro-independence Chechnya news Web…
U.S. journalist returns home after interrogations in Dagestan
New York, April 3, 2006—Freelance journalist Kelly McEvers left Russia today after authorities in the southern republic of Dagestan interrogated her in four prolonged sessions, confiscated her possessions, and restricted her movements last week. McEvers flew from Dagestan to Moscow on Sunday evening and departed the Russian capital on a flight to Washington, D.C., this…
Journalists still held, raising alarm
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention since early Tuesday of two senior journalists for the private newspaper The Independent, whose offices were also sealed off by security forces. Editor Musa Saidykhan and General Manager Madi Ceesay, who is also secretary-general of the Gambia Press Union, have now been in custody for more than three days without being informed of the reasons, according to CPJ sources. Gambian law normally requires that they be brought before a court within a three-day period, a local lawyer confirmed.