Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by a recent attack against Radio Métropole political reporter Jean-Numa Goudou, the latest in a series of attacks against Haitian journalists that remain unpunished. On February 14, a group of people went to Goudou’s house in Carrefour, a southwestern suburb of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince,…
New York, February 19, 2003—Vira Kytaihorodska, editor-in-chief of the twice-weekly newspaper Bukovynske Viche in the western city of Chernivtsi, said that a local government official has threatened to kill her for republishing an article on February 7 that accused Chernivtsi regional governor Teofil Bauer of corruption and violating customs regulations. The official, deputy head of…
New York, February 18, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned both that the U.S. government expelled an Iraqi journalist, and that Iraqi authorities responded by ordering a U.S. television correspondent to leave the country. On February 13, New Yorkbased Iraqi News Agency correspondent Mohammed Alawi received a letter from the U.S. Mission to…
New York, February 18, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is encouraged that two journalists sentenced to prison yesterday by Jordan’s State Security Court were released this evening. However, CPJ is gravely concerned that a third journalist remains in jail. On February 17, Nasser Qamash, Roman Haddad, and Mohannad Mubaidin, editor-in-chief, managing editor, and writer,…
New York, January 8, 2003—Journalist and human rights activist Shahriar Kabir, who had been detained for one month on suspicion of conducting “anti-state activities,” was released yesterday. However, another journalist, Saleem Samad, who was also accused of conducting “anti-state activities,” remains in custody despite a High Court order to release him on bail. Samad was…
New York, February 14, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the violent attacks against Bolivian journalists that occurred while they were covering two days of deadly street protests in the capital, La Paz. The violence erupted when a crowd of civilians, angry over an attempt by President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to introduce a…
New York, February 14, 2003—Cuban authorities detained Argentine journalism professor Fernando Ruiz Parra, who was researching a book about Cuba’s independent journalism movement, on February 11 and held him incommunicado. He was released on February 12 and was deported the following day. Ruiz Parra, who arrived in Cuba on February 3 on a tourist visa,…
New York, February 14, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today sent a letter of inquiry to Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra urging his government to ensure a thorough investigation into the murder of reporter Surapong Ritthi, who was killed on February 11 in southern Phuket Province. Several of the journalist’s colleagues in Phuket believe…
New York, February 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent separate letters today to Peru’s minister of justice, Fausto Alvarado Dodero, requesting information about the status of journalist Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, who was sentenced in 1994 to 20 years in prison on charges of collaborating with terrorists.…
New York, February 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed that the Saudi Arabian government refused to allow the Qatar-based Arabic language satellite station Al-Jazeera to cover the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the hajj. According to a source at the station, the nine-member crew slated to cover the pilgrimage had…