Your Excellency: As the honorary co-chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and a journalist who was kidnapped and detained for nearly seven years, I wish to express my profound concern about the ongoing imprisonment of our colleague Zouhair Yahyaoui, a 35-year-old Tunisian Internet journalist who was unjustly jailed last summer. Yahyaoui is one…
New York, February 10, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) honorary co-chairman Terry Anderson sent a letter today to Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali calling for the release of Tunisian Internet journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui, jailed since June 2002, and renewing calls for the release of Hamadi Jebali, the editor of Al-Fajr, the weekly newspaper…
New York, January 31, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by Israel’s closure of two local television stations and a radio station in the West Bank town of Hebron during an incursion into the West Bank. On January 30, about 25 Israeli troops entered the building housing the private Al-Nawras TV and Al-Marah…
New York, January 24, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the 10-day suspension of Iran’s top selling daily, Hamshahri, by Tehran’s Press Court on January 22. The judiciary suspended the reformist leaning Hamshahri after the paper failed to print a letter of reply submitted for publication by Ali Reza Mahjoub, head of Iran’s Trade…
New York, January 24, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the assault earlier this week on two Palestinian photographers by Israeli border police in the West Bank city of Nablus. On Monday, January 21, The Associated Press’ Nasser Ishtayeh and Jaafar Ishtayeh, with Agence France-Presse (AFP), were preparing to photograph an Israeli…
New York, January 23, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the continued detention of three Jordanian journalists, who have been held without charge since January 16. Editor-in-chief Nasser Qamash, managing editor Roman Haddad, and writer Mohannad Mubaidin, all with the weekly magazine Al-Hilal, have been detained for the last week after an article written…
Your Excellency: We the undersigned join the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in protesting the detention of our colleague Ibrahim Hemaidi, the Damascus bureau chief for the London-based daily Al-Hayat. Syrian authorities arrested Hemaidi on December 23, 2002, because of an article he wrote for Al-Hayat about alleged preparations by the Syrian government for an…
New York, January 6, 2003—The Gaza correspondent for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, who was apprehended early this morning by Palestinian security forces, was released this evening. According to sources at Al-Jazeera, Saifeddin Shahin was detained this morning at his Gaza office several hours after Al-Jazeera’s Sunday night news bulletin from Doha, Qatar, aired. During…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to strongly protest the ongoing detention of Ibrahim Hemaidi, the veteran Damascus bureau chief for the London-based daily Al-Hayat. According to media reports and sources at Al-Hayat, Syrian police detained Hemaidi on December 23 in connection with a December 20 article he wrote. The article discussed the Syrian government’s alleged preparations for a possible influx of Iraqi refugees in the event of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq. The Syrian government has denied the allegation, and Al-Hayat published a statement from the Syrian government to this effect on December 24.
New York, December 23, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourns the death of French television reporter Patrick Bourrat, who was killed in an accident while covering U.S. military exercises in northern Kuwait. Bourrat, a veteran 50-year-old reporter with France’s TF1, died yesterday of injuries sustained on December 21, 2002 when he was struck by…