As Cairo speech nears, concerns for Obama
Dear Mr. President: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing ahead of your scheduled speech in Cairo on June 4 to bring to your attention important matters that are crucial to the long-term success of your stated goal of engaging the people–and not just the regimes–of the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Documentary captures a fixer’s harsh reality
In New York, the Tribeca Film Festival showed a strong documentary, The Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, on Sunday. After the screening, I moderated a panel that featured director Ian Olds and Naqeeb Sherzad, a close friend of Ajmal, shown at left. The panel also included U.S. journalists Christian Parenti, who helped produce the…
Getting Away With Murder 2009
CPJ’s Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, March 23, 2009 — The already murderous conditions for the press in Sri Lanka and Pakistan deteriorated further in the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists…
CPJ seeks aggressive probe into Jawed Ahmad killing
New York, March 11, 2009–After the deadly attack on freelance journalist Jawed Ahmad in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists called today for an aggressive investigation into the murder in order to put an end to a pattern of impunity that marked past journalist murders.
CPJ urges Karzai to free Afghan journalist unjustly jailed
Dear President Karzai: We are deeply concerned about the fate of journalism student Parwez Kambakhsh after his lawyer was informed that the Supreme Court apparently upheld his 20-year prison sentence. We ask that you determine the status of Kambakhsh’s case (which has yet to be made public), to pardon him if the sentence is in fact in effect, and to ensure his safe release.
Attacks on the Press in 2008: Afghanistan
The security situation deteriorated as reporters came under increasing threats, both political and criminal in nature. At least three foreign correspondents and two local reporters were kidnapped across the country, not only in the provincial areas that became exceedingly dangerous after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, but in the area surrounding the capital, Kabul, that…
Video: Slain and in combat, dozens die in 2008
CPJ’s Joel Simon, Robert Mahoney, and Nina Ognianova pay tribute to journalists who died in 2008. The toll was highest in Iraq, but conflicts in South Asia and the Caucasus were deadly as well. Impunity in journalist murders in Russia, Philippines, and Mexico were top issues.
British journalist abducted in Afghanistan
March 28, 2008 Sean Langan, freelance ABDUCTED A Taliban-linked group kidnapped freelance British television journalist Sean Langan and his translator near the town of Torkham on the border with Pakistan. He was working in Afghanistan on a documentary series for publicly owned U.K. broadcaster Channel 4, according to U.K. news reports.
For sixth straight year, Iraq deadliest nation for press
New York, December 18, 2008—For the sixth consecutive year, Iraq was the deadliest country in the world for the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its end-of-year analysis. The 11 deaths recorded in Iraq in 2008, while a sharp drop from prior years, remained among the highest annual tolls in CPJ history.