Mexico no different than Iraq, reporters tell Wilson Center
On Monday, before a large audience of government officials, representatives of NGOs, reporters, and students, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas, Carlos Lauría, said that the level of crime violence, and corruption facing the press in Mexico, where more than 30 journalists have been murdered or have gone missing since Felipe Calderón took office…
Program to protect reporters raises doubts in Mexico
The Mexican government is currently putting together a program, it says, that will help reduce one of the most brutal problems for journalists: their lack of protection from death threats from drug cartels, government officials, and ordinary criminals. Senior officials at the Ministry of Interior told CPJ that they expect to offer at-risk journalists a…
Mexican reporter killed in Matamoros crossfire
New York, November 8, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for a thorough investigation into the shooting death of crime reporter Carlos Alberto Guajardo Romero, who was killed on Friday during crossfire between the Mexican army and gunmen in the border city of Matamoros, local news reports said. The shooting was among a series…
Kenyan journalist’s murder case postponed again
Kenyan journalist Francis Nyaruri went missing on January 16, 2009 after writing a series of articles for The Weekly Citizen about corruption and malpractice by local police and civil servants. Thirteen days later, his bound and decapitated body was found near his hometown of Nyamira, northwest of the capital city of Nairobi. Twenty-two months after…
Radio reporter shot dead in Brazil; suspect arrested
New York, October 20, 2010–Brazilian police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of killing radio reporter Francisco Gomes de Medeiros in the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte, local press reports said. Gomes was shot to death Monday in front of his house. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the arrest and…
The high price of writing about the Japanese mafia
“In life, we only encounter the injustices we were meant to correct.” -Igari Toshiro, ex-prosecutor, leading lawyer in the anti-organized crime movement in Japan (1949-2010) Igari Toshiro was my lawyer, my mentor, and my friend. In the sixteen years I’ve been covering organized crime in Japan, I’ve never met anyone more courageous or inspiring–or anyone…
Circle of suspects widens in Politkovskaya case
New York, October 6, 2010–Detectives with the federal Investigative Committee, the Russian agency responsible for investigating serious crimes, say they are probing a widening circle of suspects in the 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Russia pledges to pursue journalist murder probes
Moscow, September 30, 2010–Top Russian investigators have pledged to pursue 19 cases of murdered journalists presented to them by a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, reopening several closed cases and pursuing new leads in a number of other probes.