Federal investigators take over probe
New York, April 18, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the loss of Mexican crime reporter Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla, who died Saturday from injuries she suffered in an April 5 shooting in front of her radio station in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. García Escamilla had been hospitalized in critical condition since she…
Journalist held on charges of “anti-constitutional activity”
New York, April 18, 2005—An Uzbek reporter for the state-run weekly newspaper Hurriyat (Liberty) has been criminally charged with “undermining the constitutional order” and faces up to 20 years in prison, according to local and international press reports. Sobirdjon Yakubov, 22, a Muslim, was detained in the capital, Tashkent, on April 11 on suspicions of…
TOGO
APRIL 15, 2005 Posted: May 3, 2005 All private radio, television journalists CENSORED The High Audiovisual and Communications Authority (known by its French acronym, HAAC) issued a directive saying private broadcasters may not “carry out any media coverage” of the presidential candidates ahead of the April 24 vote. The HAAC directive also states that “private…
IRAQ
APRIL 15, 2005 Updated September 29, 2005 Saman Abdullah Izzedine, Kirkuk TV KILLED—CONFIRMED Unidentified assailants gunned down Izzedine, a 33-year-old news anchor for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-backed Kirkuk TV as he was driving on the main highway from Kirkuk to Baghdad. Kurdish journalists in Kirkuk said that Izzedine’s car was fired on by…
Two Iraqi journalists killed in Baghdad bombings
New York, April 15, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the deaths of two Al-Hurriya television journalists who were killed in suicide bombings while on their way to an assignment in Baghdad yesterday morning. The station’s Baghdad director, Nawrooz Mohamed, told CPJ today that producer Fadhil Hazem Fadhil and cameraman Ali Ibrahim Issa were killed…
British journalists acquitted, deported
New York, April 15, 2005—Two British journalists detained in Zimbabwe during parliamentary elections left the country today after being acquitted of the criminal charge of reporting without accreditation from the government-controlled Media and Information Commission. Toby Harnden, chief foreign correspondent for the London-based Sunday Telegraph, and photographer Julian Simmonds boarded a plane today and safely…
PAKISTAN
APRIL 14, 2005 Posted: April 27, 2005 Kamran Mumtaz, Daily Mashriq ATTACKED, THREATENED Daily MashriqTHREATENED A group of five armed men stormed into the office of the Daily Mashriq in the southwestern city of Quetta around 2:30 p.m. and assaulted Mumtaz, the editor, because of the newspaper’s allegedly biased reporting about a local political party.
IRAQ
APRIL 14, 2005 Posted: April 18, 2005 Fadhil Hazem Fadhil, Al-Hurriya Ali Ibrahim Issa, Al-Hurriya KILLED—CONFIRMED The two Al-Hurriya television journalists were killed in twin suicide bombings while on their way to an assignment. The station’s Baghdad director, Nawrooz Mohamed, told CPJ that producer Fadhil and cameraman Issa were en route to an event honoring…