New York, September 29, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by death threats against a media company owner and a prominent columnist, both harsh critics of President Néstor Kirchner’s administration. CPJ today called on Argentine authorities to immediately denounce the threats and to launch a thorough investigation. Joaquín Morales Solá, columnist for the daily La Nación and host...
New York, September 28, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the government of Burundi for a campaign of harassment and intimidation which has forced Alexis Sinduhije, the head of Radio Publique Africaine (RPA) into hiding. Communications Minister Karenga Ramadhani likened RPA to Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, the radio station that incited genocide in neighboring Rwanda...
New York, September 27, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by Tunisian and Egyptian government decisions to ban recent issues of European newspapers addressing the controversy caused by remarks about Islam made by Pope Benedict XVI. “Banning newspapers is unacceptable, and it is no solution in furthering the cause of mutual understanding and respect,” CPJ Executive...
(PROBIDAD/IFEX) - Rural journalist Óscar Valdez, director of the television programme "La otra cara", broadcast by Telecab company and Radio Antena 5 radio station in the city of Catacamas, Olancho department, northeastern Honduras, has emerged unscathed by a defamation and slander action, after reaching an agreement with the plaintiffs, thus avoiding a public trial. EUREE, a company distributing...
PRAGUE, September 27, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Thirty-nine-year old Jamshid Karimov left his home in Jizzakh on September 12 to visit his mother at the hospital. That was the last time his relatives saw him. As his brother Alisher explained, Jamshid "never returned home." Two days later, Jamshid Karimov's friend and colleague, Ulugbek Khaidarov, was arrested in broad daylight in Jizzakh. Gone Missing...
A trial last week at the South Jakarta District Court passed largely unnoticed, although the court's decision indicated a seismic shift in the Indonesian judiciary. To understand this shift we need only to hear what the presiding judge said in delivering the court's decision in the trial of a journalist charged with religious blasphemy for reprinting the controversial cartoons of the Prophet...
New York, September 26, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by news that Uzbek journalist Dzhamshid Karimov, nephew of the president, has been forced into psychiatric hospitalization. CPJ is also gravely concerned by reports that raise disturbing questions about the treatment of jailed reporter Ulugbek Khaidarov. “We’re shocked at the brutal methods used against these two...
Amnesty International is dismayed at today’s news that yet another case has been opened against journalist Hrant Dink on charges of “denigrating Turkishness” under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. The organization considers that this prosecution is part of an emerging pattern of harassment against the journalist exercising his right to freedom of expression -- a right which Turkey, as a...
PRAGUE, September 26, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Relatives of jailed Uzbek journalist Ulugbek Khaidarov say they are concerned about his health. Nortoji Khaidarova told RFE/RL's Uzbek Service today that family members who visited her brother in prison thought his speech and behavior were strange. Khaidarova said Khaidarov's wife Munira was the last relative to see him, on September 23 "They hardly gave her...
MOSCOW: A media rights watchdog sharply criticized Russian authorities for prosecuting a journalist who wrote an article allegedly mocking President Vladimir Putin. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement released late Thursday that it was "deeply concerned" about the trial of Vladimir Rakhmankov, the editor of the online publication Kursiv in the city of Ivanovo...
