Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

(CPJ/IFEX) – According to CPJ, at 9a.m. on 31 March 1998, Dennis Smith, former on-air broadcaster with the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS), Gipu Felix George, former Director of SLBS, Olivia Mensah, former newscaster with SLBS, Maada Maka Swaray, former newscaster with SLBS and William Smith, a reporter with “We Yone”, an AFRC-financed newspaper, appeared […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is the full text of a press release issued by CPJ in connection with the release of their annual survey of press freedom conditions throughout the world: Washington, D.C., March 26: At least 129 journalists were in prison in 24 countries at the end of 1997, and 26 journalists were murdered […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – On 21 March 1998, six American peace activists, including Peter Lippman, a Seattle-based journalist, were jailed for two days by Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo. They were sentenced to 10-day jail terms for ailing to register with local police during their stay in the troubled province (a rarely-enforced law). They were freed two days […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – On 18 March 1998, Joe Ajaero, labor correspondent for the independent “Vanguard” newspaper and media and human rights attorney Femi Falana were freed from detention in Ilorin, Kwara State. They were released on an undisclosed bail after appearing in the Ilorin Magistrate Court. **Updates IFEX alert of 16 March 1998** Background Information At […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – According to CPJ, on 13 March 1998, Timur Kukuyev and Yuri Safronov, members of a film crew for the local M-5 television station and stringers for the Russian public television company ORT in Makhachkala, Dagestan, were beaten by a group of men dressed in paramilitary uniforms as they tried to film at the […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – On March 19 1998, at least two television cameramen working for Western agencies were beaten by plainclothes policemen while attempting to film mass demonstrations in Prishtina. Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian camera operator working for Reuters TV, was attacked from behind as he shot footage of a weeping Albanian woman who said she had […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is the full text of a letter by CPJ to Ernesto Samper, President of Colombia, on the first anniversary of the murder of journalist Gerardo Borrero: **Updates IFEX alerts of 3 and 6 March and 24 February 1998, 3, 14, and 21 November 1997, and others** On the first anniversary of […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – On the occasion of King Hussein’s meeting with President Clinton on 19 March 1998, CPJ expresses its deep concern about recent cases of government interference with independent journalism in Jordan, which violate international standards for a free press. CPJ is disturbed by the authorities’ arrest and criminal prosecution of several journalists in response […]