abducted

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his coterie of former intelligence officials pressed ahead in 2003 with his vision of a “dictatorship of the law” in Russia to create a “managed democracy.” Putin’s goal of an obedient and patriotic press meant that the Kremlin continued using various branches of the politicized state bureaucracy to rein in…

In March 2003, President Yoweri Museveni proposed extending presidential term limits, allowing him to run for a third five-year term in office. Museveni, who came to power in a 1986 coup, retained power in the country’s first presidential election in 1996 and was re-elected in 2001. His proposal for a third term drew criticism from…

There were 138 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2003 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is the same as last year. An analysis of the reasons behind this is contained in the introduction on page 10. At the beginning of 2004, CPJ sent letters of inquiry to…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization committed to defending press freedom worldwide, is extremely concerned about escalating government persecution of Turkmen journalists working for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

New York, February 4, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the recent violent attack against Colombian journalist and human rights activist Inés Peña, who was assaulted and tortured in the city of Barrancabermeja, Santander Department, last week. On January 28 at around 3 p.m., two armed men abducted the journalist while she was…

New York, November 12, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating the motives behind a bomb attack on five journalists in Feni in southeastern Bangladesh on November 10. Police suspect that the assailants targeted one of the journalists, Bakhtiar Islam Munna, the local Feni correspondent for the daily Ittefaq and for the wire service…

New York, September 24, 2003—Investigators from the Moscow Prosecutor General’s Office searched the office of the Moscow-based independent news Web site Grani.ru on Friday, September 19. Investigators said they wanted an original copy of an anonymous e-mail that Grani.ru had received on August 18 containing a video recording of two prosecutors working for the pro-Russian…

New York, September 23, 2003—Abdoulie Sey, editor-in-chief of the private, biweekly Independent, was released from detention yesterday evening in Gambia, said sources in the capital, Banjul. On September 19, three men in an unmarked car abducted Sey in front of the newspaper’s offices in Banjul. Sey was subsequently held incommunicado at the headquarters of the…

New York, September 19, 2003—Sitaram Baral, the assistant editor of the weekly Janaastha, was released from detention by Nepalese security forces on Wednesday, September 17, according to local journalists. Four days earlier, however, local sources told CPJ that security forces arrested another journalist, Premnath Joshi, editor of the monthly English-language magazine Shangrila Voice. Baral was…

New York, September 15, 2003— The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent wave of attacks on journalists by government security forces and by Maoist rebel forces in Nepal. Since rebels broke a cease-fire agreement on August 27, reports of journalists being kidnapped, arrested, threatened, and even murdered have risen dramatically. According to local…