Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the physical and psychological abuse that veteran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky has reported suffering at the hands of Russian forces during his detention at Chrernokozovo, a Russian detention camp near Grozny. We are also concerned that despite his release on February 29, after several weeks of captivity, Babitsky still faces criminal charges for allegedly traveling on a forged passport.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges you to order an investigation into the apparently illegal takeover of the independent television station Telekanal 25 in the Ajarian capital, Batumi. Late on the evening of February 19, former Batumi mayor and current Georgian parliamentarian Aslan Smirba forced three of Telekanal 25’s four owners to sign over 75 percent of the station’s shares to Mikhail Gagoshidze, whom CPJ’s sources describe as an unknown third party chosen by Smirba to be the station’s nominal owner.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the prolonged imprisonment of Krishna Sen, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Janadesh. Though police claim that Sen was freed on February 9 and arrested on an unrelated charge on February 13, CPJ has learned that Sen was never truly released. He has been in police custody for more than ten months, according to CPJ’s sources.
New York, February 29, 2000—CPJ is investigating reports that a Russian photographer kidnapped by Chechen rebels has been murdered. ITAR-TASS news agency photographer Vladimir Yatsina, 51, had been missing since July 19, 1999, following his arrival in the Ingushetian border town of Nazran. According to reports, he was then kidnapped and taken to Chechnya. At…
Read an interview with Radio Free Europe official Paul A. Goble on the Babitsky case New York, February 29, 2000—War correspondent Andrei Babitsky was freed early today in Moscow, having been flown there from Dagestan without the knowledge of his wife or attorney. The Radio Free Europe correspondent had been missing since January 27, when…
Your Honor: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed by your decision to censor media coverage of the trial of former Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. In an order delivered on February 25 in response to a petition filed by the prosecution, you reportedly said that any statements made by the defendants must be recorded by the court, which “will decide at the appropriate stage as to whether the same or part of it should not be released to the public or media.”
New York, Feb. 28, 2000–Federal agents in Yuma, Arizona, have arrested two brothers charged in the 1997 murder of Mexican newspaper publisher Benjamín Flores González. According to The Arizona Daily Star, Ismael and Gabriel González Gutiérrez were arrested on drug trafficking charges on February 24, following their indictment in Phoenix on February 9. The murder…
Nueva York, 28 de febrero de 2000 – Agentes federales en Yuma, Arizona, arrestaron a dos hermanos acusados en el asesinato en 1997 de Benjamín Flores González, editor del periódico mexicano La Prensa. Según The Arizona Daily Star, Ismael y Gabriel González Gutiérrez fueron arrestados por acusaciones de narcotráfico el 24 de febrero, después de…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing yet again to protest the continued detention of journalist Andre Domingos Mussamo, who has been held for 86 days in Cuanza Norte province amid increasing concerns for his safety and his health.
Dear Mr. Wako: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the eighteen-month jail sentence handed down to Johann Wandetto, a reporter for the daily The People newspaper, based in Kitale, Rift Valley Province. Wandetto was charged in the magistrate’s court on February 15 with publishing an “alarmist report” in the March 6, 1999, edition of The People. The article, titled “Militia men rob eight crack unit officers: Shock as Moi’s men surrender meekly,” claimed that elite presidential guards had been ambushed by militiamen in the remote West Pokot area of the country. Witnesses from the presidential guard denied this.