Government shutters Senegalese-owned radio station
New York, October 24, 2005—Police shut down the Gambian branch of Senegalese private radio station Sud FM on Saturday, according to international news reports and local sources. In an interview on Sunday with the BBC, acting Gambian Information Minister Neneh Mcdoll-Gaye accused Sud FM of “inciting trouble” between Gambia and Senegal, but gave no further…
Journalists’ hotel attacked in Baghdad
New York, October 24, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s deadly car bomb attacks on Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, which is widely used by foreigners, including journalists and news organizations reporting from Iraq. In a coordinated attack, three large car bombs detonated outside the hotel at dusk, killing as many as 20 people, injuring a…
Police raid on leading radio station called outrageous’
New York, October 24, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the brazen late-night raid on Kantipur FM’s Kathmandu headquarters on Friday when dozens of armed police officers forcibly entered the radio station, seized control of the studio, and confiscated modems, recorders, and equipment used by the station to transmit programming to the country’s eastern districts.…
Private broadcasters forced off-air after reporting on deadly plane crash
New York, October 24, 2005—Nigerian authorities ordered the country’s leading independent broadcast network off the air today, in part because the network’s reports on Saturday’s deadly Bellview Airlines crash included details that had not been officially released. Daar Communications group’s African Independent Television (AIT) and its radio network, RayPower FM, complied with the order but…
Journalist Ching Cheong imprisoned without lawyer for six months
New York, October 21, 2005 — The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores the continuing imprisonment of veteran Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong, who will mark six months in detention on Saturday. Ching, a China correspondent for the Singapore daily The Straits Times, has been held in Beijing without charge or access to a lawyer. “It…
Journalist found dead in apartment
New York, October 20, 2005—Vasily Grodnikov, a freelancer who wrote for the Minsk opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya, was found dead with a head wound in his apartment outside Minsk on Monday, local and international news agencies reported. CPJ is seeking to determine whether Grodnikov, 66, was murdered in retaliation for his journalistic work. Authorities have…
Guardian reporter freed in Baghdad; Iraqi journalist killed
New York, October 20, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release today of a reporter who was held captive in Baghdad, while it expressed concern over the murder of another journalist in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday. Rory Carroll, Baghdad correspondent for London’s Guardian newspaper, was released unharmed after a day in captivity, the…
IRAQ
OCTOBER 19, 2005 Posted October 21, 2005 Mohammed Haroon, Al-Kadiya KILLED—UNCONFIRMED Unidentified gunmen killed Haroon, a controversial journalist, as he was driving in Baghdad. Haroon, 47, publisher of the weekly newspaper Al-Kadiya (The Cause) who also served as secretary-general of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate,, was shot four times, according to CPJ sources.
IRAQ
OCTOBER 19, 2005 Posted October 21, 2005 Rory Carroll, Guardian ABDUCTED Carroll, Baghdad correspondent for London’s Guardian newspaper, was released unharmed after a day in captivity, the publication said. The Guardian said a group of armed men seized Carroll as he left a house in Sadr City, a stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Carroll…
Kurdish editor sentenced to one year in jail
New York, October 19, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the one-year prison sentence given to Kurdish journalist and human rights activist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand by an Iranian court. The court declared Kabudvand, managing editor of the bilingual Kurdish and Farsi Payam Mardom Kordestan, guilty of “inciting the population to rebel against the central state,”…