New York, July 16–CPJ strongly condemns the six-year prison sentence issued to imprisoned Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji today and reiterates calls for the release of all jailed journalists in Iran. Ganji was a popular investigative journalist whose reporting on the murders of Iranian intellectuals and dissidents in 1998 implicated several top government officials. Today he…
Washington, D.C., July 13, 2001 — A CPJ delegation met with Eritrean ambassador to the U.S. Gima Asmeron to express its deep concern about 15 journalists alleged to have been jailed or forcibly conscripted for military service. CPJ first raised the issue in a June 7 letter to Eritrean Justice Minister Foazia Hashim. In her…
New York, July 13, 2001 — Authorities in Angola detained journalist and human-rights activist Rafael Marques this afternoon for approximately one hour, according to Angolan sources. Marques was covering the government’s forced relocation of residents from the Boavista district of Luanda to a camp in Viana (approximately 40 km outside Luanda). He, along with other…
New York, July 13, 2001 — CPJ is disturbed by the recent Moroccan government harassment of Alain Chabod, deputy chief editor of France 3 Public Television, and Ali Lmrabet, director of the Moroccan weekly Demain Magazine, as well as by the temporary freeze on the printing of Demain. Moroccan secret service (DST) agents began following…
New York, June 29, 2001—A free-lance cameraman working with the Associated Press Television News (APTN) in the West Bank city of Hebron came under heavy machine gun fire while riding in his car on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists has learned. At around dusk on June 26, Hazem Bader, a veteran Hebron-based cameraman who…
New York, June 29, 2001 — Enraged supporters of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic attacked several journalists at a rally in central Belgrade on Thursday evening, June 28, local and international press reported. The demonstrators attacked the journalists because they were angry at local media coverage of Milosevic’s extradition to the international war crimes tribunal…
New York, June 28, 2001 — CPJ is gravely concerned about the recent arrest of Tunisian human rights activist and journalist Sihem Bensendrine, apparently for criticizing the regime of President Zine Al-Abdine Ben Ali during a London television appearance. Bensendrine is the spokeswoman for the non-governmental National Council for Liberties in Tunisia (CNLT) and the…
New York, June 27, 2001 — CPJ is gravely concerned about the apparent abduction of two Belgian documentary filmmakers in the Indonesian province of Papua. Philippe Simon and Johan van Den Eynde were reported missing on June 7, when they left for the jungle east of Nabire, a coastal city about 500 kilometers (310 miles)…
New York, June 27, 2001 — A CPJ delegation led by board member Peter Arnett met today with Russian ambassador Yuri Ushakov in Washington, DC, to express its deep concern about the forthcoming trial of military journalist Grigory Pasko in Vladivostok. Russian military authorities have been pursuing Pasko for nearly four years on charges of…
New York, June 26, 2001 — The Chengdu Intermediate Court in Sichuan Province announced today that the trial of Internet publisher Huang Qi had been postponed indefinitely. Huang was scheduled to face trial tomorrow on charges of subversion. No reason was given for the postponement, according to a U.S.-based source who had spoken with Huang’s…