CPJ urges Mexico’s Fox to move on special prosecutor for free expression crimes
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disappointed that a special prosecutor has not been appointed to investigate crimes against free expression despite your pledge to seek the position in response to a wave of murderous violence against the media in northern Mexico.
Prosecutor threatens legal action against two editors
New York, January 12, 2006—The top prosecutor in the Kyrgyzstani capital, Bishkek, said today he had issued formal warnings to two newspaper editors and may take legal action against them for allegedly slandering President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, according to press reports. “Recently some media have published articles distributing unreliable information, some of it slanderous with regard…
Polish journalist to be jailed in rare criminal libel prosecution
New York, January 12, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the imminent jailing of Andrzej Marek, editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Wiesci Polickie in the northwestern town of Police. Convicted of libeling a local official in articles published in 2001, Marek is due to begin serving a three-month sentence on Monday, according to…
Radio station censored
December 28, 2005 Radio Kasumai CENSORED Police entered the studios of Radio Kasumai, a community radio station in the northern town of Saõ Domingos, and ordered employees to stop broadcasting. The police also threatened several journalists. According to local journalists, the threats stemmed from a recent program in which callers complained on-air that police were…
Journalists harassed
DECEMBER 15, 2005—JANUARY 5, 6, 2006 Yarl Thinakkurl Joy Jeyakumar, Veerakesari Namathu Eelanaadu HARASSED The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance said Tamil journalists were targeted several times for official harassment. The claims came at a time of rising tensions between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil separatist groups.
CPJ protests 30-year jail term for Kurdish writer on defamation conviction
New York, January 11, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the authorities in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region to overturn the conviction and 30-year prison sentence handed down to Kurdish writer Kamal Karim for defamation. Karim, whose name is also given as Kamal Sayid Qadir, was convicted by a state security court in the…