Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to request information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week. We are concerned that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities. During the early morning hours of March 26, 2003 (Baghdad time),…
New York, March 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sent a letter today to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld requesting information about the U.S. bombing of Iraqi state television facilities in Baghdad earlier this week. The group expressed concern that the Pentagon may have violated international humanitarian law in targeting these facilities…
New York, March 28, 2003—The Medeu district court in the southern Kazakh city of Almaty convicted two men this week of setting fire to an opposition newspaper’s offices last May. The court sentenced Meirbek Uristenbekov and Mukhitdin Abdualiyev to three years in prison and ordered them to pay a total of 952,000 tenge (US$6,270) in…
New York, March 28, 2003— The body of Iosif Costinas, a 62-year-old journalist for the independent daily Timisoara, was discovered last week by police in a forest in western Romania. Costinas disappeared in June 2002. Police spokesman Cornel Iures said the journalist’s remains were found near the village of Pischia, 16 miles northeast of the…
New York, March 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deplores the Togolese government’s decision to bar the entire foreign press corps from working in the country. On March 26, the Communications Ministry sent a press release to the local newsrooms of the BBC, Radio France Internationale, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse barring foreign journalists from…
New York, March 26, 2003–A senior Czech intelligence official alleged today that Iraqi agents planned to carry out an attack against the Prague-based headquarters of U.S. governmentfunded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Jiri Ruzek, director of the State Security Service (BIS), told the Czech Service of the BBC in an interview today that the purpose…
New York, March 26, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is currently investigating the U.S. and coalition forces’ bombing last night (U.S. time) of Iraqi state-run television facilities. According to The Associated Press (AP), last night’s attack knocked Iraq’s 24-hour satellite channel, which broadcasts outside the country, off the air for eight hours. Domestic television…
New York, March 26, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the safety of a group of at least three journalists in Baghdad who have reportedly been expelled from the country. Newsday reporter Matt McAllester and photographer Moises Saman were last heard from Monday evening. Molly Bingham, a freelance photographer, is also missing.…
New York, March 26, 2003—Sinisa Simic, the public prosecutor responsible for the stalled investigation into the April 1999 assassination of Dnevni Telegraf editor-in-chief Slavko Curuvija, has been temporarily suspended of his duties, according to local press reports. Serbia’s acting president Natasa Micic ordered the suspension on Friday, March 21, amid a government crackdown on judges…
New York, March 25, 2003— As part of a continuing crackdown on the independent press and political dissent in Cuba that begun on March 18, Cuban police detained prominent journalist and poet Raúl Rivero last Thursday, March 20, bringing the total number of journalists arrested to 20. As head of the Cuba Press news agency,…