June 17, 1999 — Two British journalists and their ethnic Albanian interpreter were injured late on June 16 when unidentified gunmen fired at their rental car near the village of Stimjle in southern Kosovo, according to editors at Glasgow’s Daily Record. The three men, all working for the Daily Record, were heading from Prizren toward Macedonia to…
June 14, 1999 — Two German journalists on assignment in Kosovo were fatally shot by unidentified gunmen on June 13 just outside Dulje, some 25 miles south of the provincial capital Pristina. Veteran photographer Volker Kraemer, 56, died on the scene, while 35-year-old Gabriel Gruener, an experienced Balkans correspondent, expired en route to a hospital…
(On June 10-after this article had been completed-Andrew Finkel was summoned by an Instanbul Criminal Court to answer charges that he had insulted the Turkish military — a crime under article 159 of the Turkish penal code. The charges stem from a story published in February 1998 in the daily Sabah, in which Finkel reported on…
Ozgur Bakis, June 3, 1999 Full support for Ocalan The PKK supports its leader Ocalan’s proposal for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue, made during his ongoing trial at the island of Imrali. The PKK Executive Council announced that it was prepared to do everything necessary for the success of Ocalan’s efforts for a…
May 19,1999 His Excellency Bulent Ecevit Prime Minister Basbakanlik 06573 Ankara, Turkey Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by the criminal conviction of journalist Oral Calislar, a columnist for the daily Cumhurriyet. On May 18, Calislar was convicted of disseminating “separatist propaganda” under Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law and sentenced to…
May 13,, 1999 — CPJ Update: Journalists Caught in the Crossfire The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to safeguarding press freedom around the world, has documented further maltreatment of journalists by Yugoslav authorities, as well as new casualties of NATO’s bombing campaign. Ashes of Three Killed Journalists Returned to China
“When the bombs began falling in Yugoslavia on March 24, the seven Serb journalists who happened to be visiting our offices in New York during a tour of the United States all ran for the phones. They were worried about the families they had left behind, but they also feared for the survival of Serbia’s…
On May 3, in conjunction with World Press Freedom Day, CPJ announced its annual identification of the top 10 Enemies of the Press worldwide. Those who made the list this year, as in the past, earned the dubious distinction by exhibiting particular zeal for the ruthless suppression of journalists. Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria was…