Army finds no fault in Palestine Hotel shelling
New York, November 5, 2004—Nineteen months after a U.S. Army tank opened fire on a Baghdad hotel full of journalists, killing two and wounding three others, the Pentagon has released a redacted report concluding that coalition forces bore “no fault or negligence” in the shelling. In August 2003, the Pentagon had released summary findings about…
Attacks on the Press 2003: Iraq
The U.S.-led war in Iraq proved extremely dangerous for journalists. More than a dozen lost their lives reporting there in 2003, and many seasoned war correspondents have called the postwar environment the most risky assignment of their lives. With the demise of Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime, Iraqi media have flourished, but news organizations faced potentially…
36 JOURNALISTS KILLED FOR THEIR WORK IN 2003More than a third killed during conflict in Iraq
New York, January 2, 2004—A total of 36 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This is a sharp increase from 2002, when 19 journalists were killed. The war in Iraq was the primary reason for the increase, as 13 journalists,…
CPJ REQUESTS INFORMATION FROM U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT ABOUT JOURNALISTS KILLED IN IRAQ BY U.S. FORCES
New York, October 8, 2003—Exactly six months after the U.S. shelled the Palestine Hotel in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, and an air strike hit the Baghdad bureau of the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) filed three new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the incidents with the U.S. Defense…
CPJ TROUBLED BY RESULTS OF PALESTINE HOTEL INQUIRY
New York, August 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is troubled by a news release summarizing the results of a U.S. Central Command (Centcom) investigation into the April 8 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The release, which was published yesterday on Centcom’s Web site, failed to answer vital questions about the incident,…
Attacks on the Press 2001: Jordan
King Abdullah II, who promised political reform when he began his reign in February 1999, has repeatedly affirmed that “the sky is the limit” for press freedom in Jordan. The reality is very different. Harsh new legal restrictions, along with familiar hardships such as threats and detentions, led to a deterioration in press freedom conditions…