CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

November 2009 Archives

Blog | Azerbaijan, CPJ, China, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia

Seen and heard at CPJ benefit: 'The pen is not broken'

By Lauren Wolfe/CPJ Deputy Editor

Small in stature but strong in her words, Naziha Réjiba tells a reporter of all the things the Tunisian government does to try to frighten her. But Réjiba said that she will not be scared, that she will never allow such tactics to have power over her. Editor of Kalima, an online news Web site blocked in her own country, Réjiba was honored Tuesday at CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awards at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria for displaying just that sort of courage. Four other leading journalists were recognized as well.

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Blog | Philippines

Philippine massacre among worst for journalists

The toll in the brutal, election-related killings in Maguindanao province, Philippines, was still being determined tonight. Several journalists were believed to be among the dead, making the massacre one of the deadliest single events for the press in memory. Here are some other deadly episodes as recorded by CPJ:

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Blog | Pakistan, USA

Doubling down on playing the spy card

By Bob Dietz/Asia Program Coordinator

Another foreign journalist was “outed" in Pakistan on Friday. A front-page story in the November 20 edition of the daily newspaper The Nation ran the picture of an unidentified journalist at the scene of a bomb blast in Peshawar, identifying him as a CIA spy. He was actually Daniel Berehulak, who works for the international photography agency Getty Images. Hugh Pinney, Getty’s senior director of photography, wrote to the paper’s editor, Shireen Mazari on Saturday, setting the record straight. A PDF of the full letter is here, but here’s what is most likely the most salient part: “He is not an employee of the CIA and has never pursued any agenda other than, as a photographer, to capture important moments and events on camera for historic record.”

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Blog | Iran

Maziar Bahari, Iran, and the impact of world pressure

By Joel Simon/Executive Director

Maziar Bahari’s chilling account of his 118 days in an Iranian prison is the cover story of Newsweek this week. Bahari, a renowned journalist and documentary filmmaker, was arrested soon after the disputed June 12 elections. While in prison, he was subjected to psychological and physical abuse. His captors wanted to convince him that he was alone, that the world had forgotten about him. When Bahari, left, discerned that there was in an international campaign to win his release his spirits were bolstered.

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Blog | Democratic Republic of the Congo

Didace Namujimbo, the brother I lost in Bukavu

By Déo Namujimbo

Didace Namujimbo, right, with colleague Serge Maheshe at Radio Okapi offices in 2006. Both were later murdered. (Déo Namujimbo)

I shall never forgive myself for having initiated and encouraged my younger brother, Didace Namujimbo, to take up journalism. Working for 21 years in Bukavu, a city nestled on the picturesque shores of Lake Kivu, led me to cover every aspect of the brutal conflict and humanitarian catastrophe in this part of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but a year ago nothing prepared me to deal with the news that my brother had been killed.

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Blog | Cuba, USA

Obama responses stun Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez

By Carlos Lauría/Americas Senior Program Coordinator

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez was astounded this week by President Barack Obama's decision to respond a written questionnaire Sánchez submitted to the White House. Still recovering from bruises left by a recent vicious attack by state security agents, she told CPJ from her home in Havana: "This is the best way to get better."

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Blog | Zambia

Zambian editor acquitted in hospital 'obscenity' case

By Mohamed Keita/Africa Research Associate

Chansa Kabwela speaks to reporters. (Thomas Nsama)

As the news editor of Zambia’s largest circulation newspaper and a mother to two young children, Chansa Kabwela already has her hands full. For the last four months, however, this 29-year-old journalist was mired in a court case with a peculiarity that made international headlines and sparked a debate on press freedom in this landlocked nation in southern Africa. The case was finally resolved on Monday.

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Blog | Pakistan, USA

International press decries attack on Rosenberg

By Bob Dietz/Asia Program Coordinator

Twenty-one international news editors have signed on to a letter to the Pakistan government today. It was addressed to Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira and was drafted by Islamabad’s foreign correspondent community. They were concerned about an article that appeared in Pakistan’s The Nation daily on November 5 accusing Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Rosenberg of working for the CIA, Israeli intelligence, and the U.S. military contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe).

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Blog | Iran, USA

A letter to the American hikers being held in Iran

By Joel Simon/Executive Director

The families of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd, the three hikers detained in Iran, said today they are concerned about their children’s emotional well-being after nearly four months in prison. They asked supporters to send letters, which they will seek to deliver to them in Evin Prison in Tehran, where the three are being held.

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Blog | CPJ

Paul Steiger's challenge: Double your donation to CPJ

By Joel Simon/Executive Director

We want to thank all of you who responded to the challenge set out by our chairman, Paul Steiger, calling on individuals who care about independent media to support CPJ. His e-mail has already generated an unprecedented response, but we still have a ways to go before reaching our goal. Paul has offered a $25,000 matching gift that will effectively double new or increased contributions, up to $500.

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Blog | Malawi

The Malawian who harnessed the airwaves

By Mohamed Hassim Keita and Caitlin Clarke/CPJ Africa Staff

Villagers gather at Kondesi's radio station. (Zodiak Broadcasting)

After The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the autobiography of ingenious 22-year-old William Kamkwamba’s homemade electric windmill in Malawi, comes “the boy who harnessed the airwaves” by building a radio station with rudimentary materials. The tale of 21-year-old Malawian Gabriel Kondesi also showcases the inventiveness spawned by life in this impoverished, landlocked nation in southeastern Africa. Unlike the story of Kamkwamba, though, Kondesi’s tale is still unfolding.

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Blog | Saudi Arabia, UK, USA

Free Speech Protection Act could slow 'libel tourism'

By Robert Mahoney/Deputy Director

Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”

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Blog | China

Shakeup at China’s leading investigative magazine

By Bob Dietz/Asia Program Coordinator

You wouldn’t have heard it from her, but Hu Shuli resigned from her post as editor of Caijing magazine on Monday. The battle over political coverage and finances at Caijing (cai is “finance” and jing is “economics”) had been reported for about three months, but the missing component in the coverage was Hu herself—she has never made a public statement about what was going on at what was most likely China’s most provocative yet mainstream magazine (it’s a biweekly.) Wang Shuo, Caijing’s managing editor, posted his resignation on his Twitter page. Wang said almost all the other top editors who hadn’t already left are leaving too.

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Blog | Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone's criminal libel law sparks barber boycott

By Umaru Fofana

My looks have completely changed in recent months. Long hair now colonizes my chin and my head. Never in my adult life have I waited longer than a week without a shave or a haircut, let alone for four months. One ends up doing the strangest things for press freedom in Sierra Leone.

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Blog | Pakistan, USA

Playing the spy card against WSJ in Pakistan

By Joel Simon/Executive Director

Last Thursday, Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper published a reckless and unsubstantiated story accusing Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent Matthew Rosenberg of being a spy. It’s an accusation that gravely endangers Rosenberg’s safety. Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded with a scathing letter to The Nation’s editor, Shireen Mazari, expressing his disgust at the publication of the story, which he called baseless and false. He demanded an immediate retraction.

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Blog | Russia

Op-ed: The Kremlin Can't Have It Both Ways

Jointly authored by CPJ's Kati Marton and Nina Ognianova, an op-ed piece is running on The New York Times' Web site today and will be published in the November 10 edition of The International Herald Tribune. The article is a follow-up to Marton and Ognianova's mission to Russia to launch our special report Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia. The op-ed argues that Russia must put an end impunity in the cases of murdered journalists as it positions itself as a legitimate democracy and requests equal treatment with what it calls other "great nations."

To read the full article, please click here.

Blog | Albania

Tirana attack prompts comments from editor, businessman

By Muzaffar Suleymanov/Europe and Central Asia Program Research Associate

Our news alert on Wednesday detailing a vicious attack on Albanian editor Mero Baze elicited e-mail comments from both victim and a businessman accused in the attack. Baze said he is recovering but is experiencing head pain. He also echoed reported witness statements that identified Rezart Taci, a principal in local oil companies, as being involved in the attack. Taci, who responded to us through one of his companies, denied involvement in the assault.

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Blog | Burma, Canada, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, UAE, USA

Toronto’s Citizen Lab uses forensics to fight online censors

By Robert Mahoney/Deputy Director

A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and companies that restrict what we see and hear on the Internet. They are also trying to help online journalists and bloggers slip the shackles of censorship and surveillance. Deibert is a co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a project of the Citizen Lab in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. ONI tracks the blocking and filtering of the Internet around the globe.

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