New York, March 22, 2002—The Venezuelan state news agency has sparked widespread furor by accusing three local independent journalists of involvement in an alleged global drug trafficking conspiracy controlled by international banks and political leaders from developed countries. On March 13, the state information agency Venpres published an opinion piece on its Web site (http://www.venpres.gov.ve)…
New York, March 14, 2002—An independent Cuban journalist is recuperating at home after suffering a brutal assault by local police earlier this month, CPJ has learned. Two other journalists who protested the attack remain in detention. Around 11:30 a.m. on March 4, CubaPress correspondent Jesús Álvarez Castillo was covering a demonstration by the human rights…
Bogotá, March 11, 2002— Seven journalists who have covered high-profile criminal investigations for major Colombian media organizations were threatened with death and given three days to leave the country. A message typed on a card used to request a Catholic prayer for the dead accused the journalists of being “gossipy sons-of-bitches who with their lies…
Bogotá, March 7, 2002—Leftist guerrillas forced a radio station to shut down after accusing it of serving government interests. Onda Zero, based in the southern Colombian town of Acevedo, Huila Department, stopped broadcasting on the evening of February 28, when some 10 fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) threatened to blow up…
New York, February 28, 2002—Police and state security agents yesterday attacked Reuters journalists Alfredo Tedeschi and Andrew Cawthorne with batons while they covered an incident in front of the Mexican embassy in Havana. A group of Cuban citizens used a bus to crash into the gates of the embassy in hopes of seeking asylum, according…
New York, February 20, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed at subpoenas recently served to several Mexican and American journalists. All of them were ordered to hand over material related to 1999 news articles about the Hank family of Mexico, which has been linked to drug trafficking activities. On February 22, a U.S.…
New York, January 31, 2002—In a letter sent today to U.S. defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, CPJ requested information about the circumstances behind the U.S. bombing of the Kabul office of the Al-Jazeera satellite television channel in mid-November. During the early morning hours of November 13, 2001, U.S. aircraft dropped two 500-pound bombs on the…
New York, January 4, 2002—After a record-breaking detention of more than five months, free-lance writer Vanessa Leggett this morning walked out of the Texas jail where she was held for refusing to turn over research materials about a high-profile murder case to federal prosecutors. Leggett, 33, is currently writing a book about the 1997 murder…