New York, January 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has imposed restrictions on the content of private broadcasters. A memo issued by DRC Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi on January 18 states that “religious and thematic” broadcasters should refrain from airing all news and…
New York, January 21, 2005—The Supreme Court of the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia upheld on Wednesday, January 19, the conviction of Yuri Bagrov on criminal charges of using forged documents to obtain Russian citizenship. The court also fined him 15,000 rubles (US$530). “We are very concerned that the harassment and prosecution of Bagrov…
JANUARY 20, 2005 Posted February 7, 2005 Eastern PilotCENSORED State Security Service (SSS) agents raided newsstands and harassed vendors selling copies of the local tabloid Eastern Pilot in the southeastern city of Enugu. The SSS also detained and questioned Clement Egbuche, the Enugu chairman of the Newspapers Vendors’ Association of Nigeria, and searched his office,…
JANUARY 19, 2005 Posted: March 1, 2005 Julio Jara Ladrón de Guevara, El Comercio LEGAL ACTION Jara, editor and publisher of the daily El Comercio, based in the southern city of Cusco, was convicted of criminal defamation charges brought by a former government official. He received a one-year suspended sentence.
JANUARY 18, 2005 Posted: February 2, 2005 Canal Kin TV Canal Congo TV Radio Liberté Kinshasa CENSORED Officials cut the transmissions of two private television stations and a radio station owned by Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba—Canal Kin TV (CKTV), Canal Congo TV (CCTV), and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (RALIK).
JANUARY 18, 2005 Posted: February 2, 2005 All Media CENSORED A memo issued by DRC Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi states that “religious and thematic” broadcasters should refrain from airing all news and political programs and orders the suspension of all live phone-in programs.
JANUARY 18, 2005 Posted: February 2, 2005 Al-Sharq Al-Hayat Al-Maghribiya CENSORED Ali Lmrabet, freelance HARASSED According to press reports and local journalists, intelligence agents notified the editors of the Oujda-based weeklies Al-Sharq and Al-Hayat Al-Maghribiya that they were to cease publication of their weeklies immediately for three months on order of the ministry.
New York, January 18, 2005—A reporter with the independent Congolese daily La Référence Plus was sentenced in absentia to four months in jail for criminal defamation on January 5, according to local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and sources at the newspaper. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the ruling and called on…
New York, January 18, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the indictment of Nguyen Thi Lan Anh, a staff reporter for the Vietnamese daily Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, on a charge of “appropriating state secrets.” The January 5 announcement of legal actions against Lan Anh followed her series of investigative articles about manipulations of the…
JANUARY 14, 2005 Posted: February 16, 2005 Radio France Internationale CENSORED Officials cut radio France Internationale’s (RFI) FM broadcasts in the country. According to RFI and French media reports, Djiboutian authorities silenced the broadcaster because of its report on an ongoing French legal inquiry into the 1995 death in Djibouti of Bernard Borrel, a French…