Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Israeli military actions that sharply restrict the ability of the press to cover the current conflict in Lebanon and that endanger the lives of civilians, including members of the press. We are particularly concerned about the safety of an estimated 250 journalists in Tyre, who are hunkered down in hotels and unable to move because of Israel’s threats to target all vehicles on the roads.
New York, July 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today over allegations by several television crews that Israeli warplanes had attacked them, effectively shutting down live television coverage from southeast Lebanon. Crews from four Arab television stations told CPJ that Israeli aircraft fired missiles within 80 yards (75 meters) of them on July…
New York, July 24, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the killing of a freelance photographer and a media technician during separate Israeli missile attacks in Lebanon. Layal Najib, 23, a freelance photographer for the Lebanese magazine Al-Jaras and Agence France-Presse, became the first journalist to be killed since Israel began attacks on…
New York, July 13, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Israel to explain its attacks on Al-Manar TV, the satellite news channel affiliated with the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. Al-Manar managing director, Ali-Al-Haji, told CPJ that Israeli aircraft fired two missiles today at the station’s headquarters in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret…
New York, June 1, 2006—A year after Lebanese journalist Samir Qassir was murdered in a Beirut car bombing those responsible remain at large. The Committee to Protect Journalists reiterates its call to Lebanese authorities and the international community to work urgently to bring to justice those behind Qassir’s murder, and the murder and maiming of…
New York, March 2, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by criminal charges filed against the daily Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal, its editor-in-chief, and a staff reporter for defaming President Emile Lahoud. The charges were brought by Beirut prosecutor Joseph Me’mari on Tuesday, four days after Al-Mustaqbal published an interview with former Lebanese ambassador to…
New York, February 14, 2006–Highlighting the global nature of its press freedom advocacy work, the Committee to Protect Journalists today released its annual press freedom survey Attacks on the Press in four cities: Bangkok, Cairo, London and Washington, D.C.
By Ann CooperOn May 2, when the Committee to Protect Journalists identified the Philippines as the world’s most murderous country for journalists, the reaction was swift. “Exaggerated,” huffed presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye, who was practiced at dismissing the mounting evidence. He had called an earlier CPJ analysis of the dangers to Philippine journalists “grossly misplaced…