For bloggers, Cuba remains a dark corner
Another year has passed and we are now remembering the seventh anniversary of the Black Spring. After seven years, have there been any changes? Yes and no. Law 88, a provision calling for the protection of Cuba’s national independence, is still in force. Known as the gag law, it is used to silence Cuban citizens,…
Haiti’s only Creole newspaper is out of business
Haiti’s sole newspaper published exclusively in Creole has disappeared under the rubble of the January 12 earthquake. The Port-au-Prince offices of the monthly Bon Nouvel (Good News) were destroyed, as were the facilities of its La Phalange printing unit, which specialized in the production of Creole-language books and documents.
For Haitian media, a big story amid big demands
In the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake, Kerby Joseph stays on the job. He helps gather news for Amikal FM, a radio station that now broadcasts from a tent in the devastated Haitian town of Leogane, where most of the buildings have been damaged or destroyed. But the radio station lacks the money to…
Journalists fleeing Haiti in aftermath of quake
Thousands of Haitians, including many journalists, have fled the country since the January 12 earthquake. Ronald Leon, a veteran journalist who worked with Haiti’s National Television station, Radio Caraibes and Tropic FM, has now settled in Florida, leaving behind his family and his journalism training school, Ameritech, which was destroyed in the earthquake. Its last class had 15 students.
French weekly gives issue over to Haitian journalists
The French weekly Courrier International opened its columns on February 4 to Haitian print media journalists in a special edition being circulated worldwide. The paper’s managers did it to express solidarity with Haitian journalists following the earthquake, which completely paralyzed the publication of the country’s dailies. The two dailies in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin, were honored in the special edition. Haiti Liberté,…
Latin America takes steps against criminal defamation
In an encouraging development, three courts in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Chile have recently followed the growing regional consensus against criminal defamation by dismissing criminal penalties against journalists accused of libel and slander.The newsweekly magazine Semana reported that a piece written by Alfredo Molano, at left, in the op-ed pages of the Bogota-based daily El Espectador in February 2007 described how…
Radio Lumière in Haiti loses three journalists in quake
Radio Lumière has officially published the names of three of its journalists who died in the January 12 earthquake in Haiti: Jude Marcellus, Marlene Joseph, and Ginord Desplumes. They died under the rubble of collapsed buildings. It took a month for Radio Lumière officials to decide to publish the names of the three victims.
Only man accused in Brad Will murder goes free
For those following the case of Bradley Roland Will, left, a U.S. activist-journalist killed while reporting on a protest movement in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in 2006, a long wait ended on February 18. After 16 months in prison, Juan Manuel Martínez, a grassroots activist from an impoverished neighborhood in Oaxaca, left his cell…
CPJ launches yearly findings globally, and is heard
On February 16, CPJ held an ambitious international launch of our annual report Attacks on the Press. We coordinated events in six cities on four continents in order to expand the reach of our international headlines while also focusing on specific issues in each region. So how did we do?