Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

On 28 June 1995, Beirut’s Publications Court sentenced Hassan Sabra, the publisher of “Al-Shira’” magazine and Ghazi al-Maqhur, the weekly’s managing editor, to one month in prison each. The two were convicted of publishing “material that was damaging to the person and dignity of the head of state and that contained statements slandering him and […]

On 8 June Vladimir Gessen and Enrique Rondon, editors of the daily “El Diario de Caracas”, were interrogated for two hours by members of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DIM), about a news report quoting former 1992 coup leader Hugo Chavez. In the news report, Chavez denounced the existence of an alleged conspiracy to take […]

**For recent background on arrests, see IFEX alerts dated 15 June and 28 March 1995; for additional background, see 1994 and 1995 IFEX alerts** Three staff members of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) went on trial in Jakarta, Indonesia on 16 June 1995 for publishing an unlicensed magazine and publicly expressing “hostility, hatred, and […]

On the morning of 12 June 1995, journalist Guillermo Cherasny, a producer with Radio Libertad who also contributes to the weekly “El Informador Publico”, was shot twice in the back by unknown assailants on his way to work at the radio station. It is not known whether the attack on Cherasny, who is renowned for […]

**See also IFEX CH press release dated 5 June 1995** The CPJ is deeply concerned about the impact on Colombia’s press freedom by an anti-corruption law passed by the Senate on 30 May 1995. The Anti-corruption statute is worrisome because one of its articles, No. 34, would prevent journalists from reporting on investigations and legal […]

Early on the morning of 13 April 1995, 20 members of Force 17, the personal guard unit of Yasser Arafat, raided the Gaza home of Taher Shriteh, publisher of the independent weekly “Filastin” and a stringer for Reuters and CBS News. They did not find Shriteh and proceeded to beat his brothers Fakher, Amer, and […]

On 13 April 1995, officers with General Intelligence raided the Gaza offices of “Al-Watan”, a pro-Hamas weekly newspaper, and detained three journalists with the paper. The officers severely beat deputy editor Ghazi Hamad in the course of the arrest, local sources told the CPJ. Hamad, editor-in-chief Sayed Abu Musameh, and reporter Nafez al-Ji’b were held […]

**Updates IFEX CH alerts dated 17 and 14 March 1995** After exhausting all efforts to find the missing journalists Maxime Chabaline and Felix Tritov through their political channels, the staff of St. Petersburg newspaper “Nevskoe Vremya” organized a third search group, which left for Chechnya on 9 April. The group planned to exhume several graves […]