Legal Action

2038 results arranged by date

Saberi appears in a closed Revolutionary Court trial

New York, April 14, 2009–Iranian authorities must ensure that journalist Roxana Saberi, who has been charged with espionage, is treated fairly and justly, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Iranian-American freelancer, who was arrested in late January, appeared in court for the first time on Monday. 

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Iraqi military files lawsuit against newspaper, TV channel

New York, April 14, 2009–The Iraqi military should drop a criminal lawsuit it filed Monday against a newspaper and a TV channel for misattributing a quote to its spokesman, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. 

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Two imprisoned journalists released in Azerbaijan

New York, April 9, 2009–Following today’s release of independent journalists Sakit Zakhidov and Asif Marzili in Azerbaijan, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Azerbaijani authorities to free the remaining journalists serving jail terms on trumped-up criminal charges. 

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CPJ concerned about Bahrain Web crackdown

Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest the ‎recent deterioration of press freedom in Bahrain and your government’s ‎ongoing campaign against critical or ‎opposition Web sites and blogs. The crackdown against those sites has resulted ‎in dozens of them ‎being blocked inside the kingdom, according to local and international human rights and ‎press ‎freedom watchdogs. ‎

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Ivorian editors fined on charges of offending Gbagbo

On March 31, 2009, in the commercial city of Abidjan, Judge Aissata Koné convicted Op-Ed Editor Nanankoua Gnamenteh  and Managing Editor Eddy Péhé of  private weekly Le Repère  of charges of  “offending the head of state” over an article in early March that was critical of President Laurent Gbagbo, according to local media reports.

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Russian newspaper founder arrested, criminally charged

New York, April 1, 2009–Police in the western city of Kaliningrad should drop trumped-up bribery charges against Arseny Makhlov, the founder of the independent weekly Dvornik, and allow him to work without fear of harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. 

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Nazarbayev urged to curb politically motivated lawsuits

Dear President Nazarbayev: CPJ would like to draw your attention to your government’s selective and politically motivated use of civil libel lawsuits against critical journalists and their publications. In a trend that fosters self-censorship, intolerant public officials target critical news outlets with defamation lawsuits that result in crippling damages.

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A legal victory for press freedom in Bility case

Testifying at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague, Liberian journalist Hassan Bility described a harrowing 1997 reporting trip to Sierra Leone in which he documented Liberian government support for the brutal RUF rebels. His testimony was undoubtedly damaging to defendant Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president on trial for war crimes and…

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Colombian court issues arrest warrant for Daniel Coronell

New York, March 25, 2009–A court in Colombia has issued an arrest warrant for prominent journalist Daniel Coronell for contempt of court after he failed to correct for a second time a story linking a local businessman to drug trafficking, the Committee to Protect Journalists learned today. CPJ calls on the judge to withdraw the…

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Ivorian editor abruptly jailed in libel case

New York, March 20, 2009–Ivorian authorities on Thursday abruptly jailed a journalist who was scheduled to appear in court next week on libel charges related to a column critical of the government, according to local journalists and press reports. The imprisonment appeared to violate the 2004 Ivorian press law, which decriminalized press offenses and banned pretrial…

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