Afghanistan

New York, December 31, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalist extends condolences to the family and colleagues of Canadian journalist Michelle Lang, who died Wednesday while embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

Lang was working for the Calgary Herald and Canwest News Service when she was killed along with four Canadian soldiers while traveling in a Canadian military convoy. Their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb about two miles (three kilometers) south of the volatile city of Kandahar. Four other soldiers and a Canadian civilian were injured.

CPJ survey finds at least 68 journalists killed in 2009

New York, December 17, 2009—At least 68 journalists worldwide were killed for their work in 2009, the highest yearly tally ever documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the organization said in its year-end analysis. The record toll was driven in large part by the election-related slaughter of more than 30 media workers in the Philippine province of Maguindanao, the deadliest event for the press in CPJ history.

Three journalists, all on assignment for The Guardian, were kidnapped in December 2009 and released after six days, according to the paper. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi, ad two unnamed Afghan journalists had been planning to interview militants in Afghanistan’s mountainous Kunar province near the border with Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province when they were abducted. The Guardian said it did not know if the kidnappers were attached to any specific group.

November 2009

News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, November 12, 2009—A Norwegian freelance journalist and an Afghan colleague were released Thursday after nearly a week in captivity in eastern Afghanistan, according to international news reports.

In “Portraits of the Fallen,” a video introduction to CPJ’s database of killed journalists, María Salazar-Ferro examines the circumstances in which reporters, photographers, editors, and other journalists have died on duty. Because hundreds of journalists have been murdered in reprisal for their work, CPJ is leading a Global Campaign Against Impunity. (4:11) 

David Rohde’s gripping five-part series on his abduction in Afghanistan and Pakistan ends today with his dramatic escape from his abductors.  His series—and the reaction to it—bring into high relief the challenges that journalists face as they confront growing risk around the world.  Rohde, for example, felt the need, both in his article and in a Q and A with readers hosted on the New York Times Web site, to defend his decision to undertake a risky interview with a Taliban commander as the final piece of his research into a book on Afghanistan.

An improvised explosive device hit a Unites States Army vehicle in Logar Province in Afghanistan on August 28, 2009, killing one U.S. soldier and injuring CBS Radio news correspondent Cami McCormick, CBS reported on its Web site.