Television journalists threatened
New York, June 16, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about a series of threats being made against Afghan journalists at the popular private television station Tolo TV in the capital, Kabul. Sayed Sulaiman Ashna, a senior journalist with Tolo TV and Radio Arman and the host of the evening news program “Tawdi Kharabari”…
Russian prosecutors identify alleged mastermind in Klebnikov murder
New York, June 16, 2005—The Russian Prosecutor-General’s office said today that a Chechen separatist leader ordered the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of Forbes Russia, according to local and international press reports. Vasily Lushchenko, spokesman for the prosecutor-general’s office, identified the suspected mastermind as Khozh Akhmed Nukhayev, the subject of Klebnikov’s 2003 Russian-language…
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
JUNE 15, 2005 Posted: June 21, 2005 Bassma al-Jandaly, Gulf News HARASSED Immigration officers detained al-Jandaly at Dubai’s international airport as she prepared to board a flight for Athens, Greece, with other journalists on Wednesday, the journalist told CPJ. Al-Jandaly said she was taken to the airport’s Criminal Investigation Department, where police said her name…
CPJ urges ‘thorough, credible’ probe into Libyan journalist’s death
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent organization of journalists dedicated to defending press freedom around the world, is writing to express its shock and grave concern about the apparent murder of Libyan journalist Dayf al-Ghazal al-Shuhaibi, a former journalist for the government-owned daily Azahf al-Akhdar and contributor to the London-based Web sites Libya Alyoum and Libya Jeel.
Court sentences journalist to five years in prison colony
New York, June 15, 2005—An arbitration court in the central Russian city of Smolensk convicted independent journalist Nikolai Goshko on charges of criminal defamation and sentenced him to five years in a prison colony for defaming three Smolensk officials in a July 2000 broadcast on the independent station, Radio Vesna.
Correspondent released after serving hooliganism’ sentence
New York, June 15, 2005—Police in the southern Uzbek city of Karshi yesterday released Tulkin Karayev, a correspondent for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), after he served a 10-day detention on charges of hooliganism, IWPR Central Asia Editor Filip Noubel told CPJ. Police arrested Karayev on June 4 after an unidentified…
Stand up for journalists’ rights, Hong Kong
Despite protests by the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association and others, the city’s leaders have deferred to mainland law in the detention of veteran journalist and permanent Hong Kong resident Ching Cheong. This is a mistake. The freedom of the press, guaranteed by the Basic Law, is meaningless unless the local government defends the right of journalists to report news from the mainland.
BURUNDI
JUNE 14, 2005 Updated: June 24, 2005 Etienne Ndikuriyo, Zoom Net and Bonesha FM LEGAL ACTION, IMPRISONED Radio and online journalist Ndikuriyo was arrested by the national intelligence agency in connection with a story that questioned the health of President Domitien Ndayizeye, according to The Associated Press and sources interviewed by the Committee to Protect…