Underground Zimbabwe: Interview with Robyn Kriel
Filmmaker Robyn Kriel, 25, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, spoke to PBS’ Wide Angle last week about the risks she took reporting from Zimbabwe in the lead-up to the country’s 2008 presidential election. Last April, CPJ closely followed the case of Kriel’s mother, Margaret Kriel, who was imprisoned for four days on accusations of “practicing journalism without accreditation.” You…
Remarks from Cuban journalist Alejandro Gonzalez Raga
Exiled Cuban journalist Alejandro Gonzalez Raga spoke to reporters in Madrid on Monday as part of CPJ’s launch of our book, Attacks on the Press. He talked about the brutality of life in a Cuban prison, the torture he and other journalists who were jailed for their writing endured. Here are his remarks, in Spanish:
Tunisia’s Radio Kalima shuttered; staffers harassed
Ever since Radio Kalima staffers launched their new station on January 26, Tunisian plainclothes police have done everything they can to suppress the newly launched satellite radio station: besieging the offices for several days, threatening a managing editor with a knife, and finally breaking into the building and confiscating the equipment.
Mexican journalists face ever-increasing danger
There is an often-repeated phrase among journalists: No story is worth dying for, we say. But journalists are dying in every region of the world. In Iraq, in Somalia, in Russia, in Bolivia, in the Philippines, journalists died last year while reporting the news in their countries.
Reporters crowd Zeta during Tijuana ‘Attacks’ launch
The border city of Tijuana, where drug-related violence left almost a thousand people dead in 2008, has had a strong military presence since the government of President Felipe Calderón deployed the Mexican army to fight powerful drug cartels. It can be felt in the streets. While we were driving to the Zeta offices, where we…
Exiled Cuban journalist speaks at Spain ‘Attacks’ launch
The utility company had just cut off the electricity supply to his house. Darkness and shadows were back in Alejandro Gonzalez Raga’s life. His rented apartment in Madrid–shared with his wife, siblings, and in-laws–was as devoid of light as the Cuban cells in which he was jailed for five years after Castro´s “Ofensiva 2” operation…
Exiled Cuban journalist speaks at Spain ‘Attacks’ launch
The utility company had just cut off the electricity supply to his house. Darkness and shadows were back in Alejandro Gonzalez Raga’s life. His rented apartment in Madrid–shared with his wife, siblings, and in-laws–was as devoid of light as the Cuban cells in which he was jailed for five years after Castro´s “Ofensiva 2” operation…
Launching ‘Attacks on the Press’ in Cairo
CPJ’s launch yesterday in Cairo of our 2008 edition of Attacks on the Press received widespread coverage in the Egyptian, regional, and international media. But not from the state media, which made little mention of Egypt’s ongoing repression of the country’s press, or of the astonishing number of lawsuits the government has pending against journalists,…
Defending fake journalists
On Saturday night, the Writers Guild of America honored CPJ with the Evelyn F. Burkey award, which recognizes contributions that have “brought honor and dignity to writers everywhere.” CPJ Chairman Paul Steiger and I accepted the award. As Paul noted in his remarks, CPJ couldn’t do its work without “the encouragement of writers and journalists…