New York, April 18, 2003—Russian journalist Dmitry Shvets, head of the independent television station TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting in the northern Russian city of Murmansk, was shot dead today outside of the station’s offices. The motive is unclear. Police have launched an investigation, but no details were available. CPJ will continue to monitor the case.
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest the recent harassment and physical attacks on independent journalists in Morocco. Ali Lmrabet, director of two independent Casablanca-based weeklies, the French-language Demain and its Arabic sister publication Douman, has been subjected to an organized campaign of legal harassment by government authorities.
New York, April 16, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges Nigeria’s newly elected lawmakers to pass the Freedom of Information Bill, which has stalled in the Lower House of Parliament for more than three years. The bill, first proposed in December 1999 and modeled after the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, is endorsed by…
New York, April 15, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourns the death of Argentine camerawoman Veronica Cabrera. She is the first female journalist to die while covering the war in Iraq. Her death brings the total number of journalists killed in this conflict to 13. Cabrera, who was traveling with fellow America TV correspondent…
New York, April 14, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has recently learned about an attack on Dzveli Kalaki, a popular independent radio station in Kutaisi, a city in eastern Georgia. On the evening of March 28, four ax-wielding men charged to the roof of the building where Dzveli Kalaki’s office is located and knocked…
New York, April 14, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourns the death of Mario Podestá, a veteran free-lance Argentine war correspondent on assignment for the Argentine television station America TV, who was killed today in a car accident on the highway between Amman, Jordan, and Baghdad. Eduardo Cura, the station’s news director, told CPJ…
New York, April 14, 2003—In response to a March 6 letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists to U.S. secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs said: “We share your desire to have news reported from the battlefield that is unfettered, timely and accurate, and we have made…
Anti-Terrorist Convention Source: Interfax news agency For purposes of supplying society with authentic information, the mass media have the right and duty of contributing to the open discussion of the problem of terrorism, informing society on the progress of counter-terrorist operations, carrying out investigations, and providing people with information on real problems and conflicts.
New York, April 11, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the “Anti-Terrorist Convention,” which was signed on Tuesday, April 8, by directors of several leading national broadcast media outlets, who agreed to accept voluntary restrictions on their coverage of terrorism and anti-terrorist government operations. The media executives who signed the agreement (click…