Alerts

New York, August 19, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the recent attack on Artur Platonov in Almaty, a city in southern Kazakhstan. Platonov is a well-known host of the weekly television program "Portrait of the Week" on the private station KTK.

Three assailants brutally assaulted Platonov as he was driving home on the evening of Friday, August 16, according to Kazakh and international reports. The journalist was hospitalized with a broken nose and contusions as a result of the incident.

New York, August 19, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Mexican journalist and author Isabel Arvide has been charged with criminal defamation.

Judge Armando Rodrígues Gaytán of the Second Penal Court in the district of Morales, Chihuahua, in north central Mexico, confirmed to CPJ that Arvide has been charged with criminal defamation. According to Mexico's Criminal Code, Arvide faces six months to two years in prison if convicted.

New York, August 15, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is pleased to announce that a Kenyan journalist who was serving a six-month sentence in a maximum-security prison just outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, was released yesterday by presidential decree.

Njehu Gatabaki, an opposition member of Parliament and the publisher and editor-in-chief of Finance magazine, was found guilty on August 9 of publishing an "alarming" article and sentenced to six months in jail. On August 12, he was transferred to Kamiti Maximum Prison, which is notorious for its violent criminals [See CPJ's letter, August 12]

Bogotá, August 14, 2002—Paramilitary fighters are threatening to kill members of the Colombian press in a northeastern region of Colombia where a journalist was recently shot and killed.

A July 29 e-mail message sent to Radio Meridiano-70 and to Caracol Televisión correspondent Rodrigo Ávila accuses press members and media owners in the Arauca Department of flouting justice and warns that they could be declared military targets. The Arauca Liberators Block of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) signed the letter.

August 14, 2002, New York—Authorities in Vietnam will soon bring Internet essayist Le Chi Quang, 32, to trial on national security charges, according to CPJ sources. Quang has been in prison since February 21, 2002, when he was arrested for writing articles that criticized Vietnam's border agreements with China.

Officials from the Prosecutor's Office informed Quang's mother that her son would be tried soon under Article 88 of the Criminal Code, which bans the distribution of information that opposes the government. The exact date of the trial is unknown.

New York, August 13, 2002—A journalist who was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for publishing an "alarming report" was transferred yesterday to a maximum-security prison outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

On August 9, 2002, Njehu Gatabaki, an opposition member of Parliament and the publisher and editor-in-chief of Finance magazine, was found guilty of publishing an "alarming" article and sentenced to six months in jail without the option of a fine, according to Kenyan sources and news reports. [See CPJ's August 12 letter]

New York, August 12, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that an Israeli reporter and his photographer came under Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gunfire yesterday in the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

On August 11, Gideon Levy, of the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, his photographer, Miki Kratsman, their driver, and a representative from an international human rights organization were traveling by taxi in Tulkarem. As they approached the IDF's District Coordination Office (DCO) at about 15 kph (10 mph), they came under fire from a soldier at a lookout post about 150 meters (165 yards) away. Three bullets hit the armor-plated taxi's windshield, but no one was injured.

Bogotá, August 9, 2002—The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) detained two newspaper journalists and their driver in Colombia on Tuesday, August 6, freeing them unharmed two days later, CPJ has learned.

Iván Noguera and Héctor Fabio Zamora, a correspondent and photographer, respectively, for El Tiempo, Colombia's largest daily, and their driver, Henry Gómez, were forced out of their vehicle by about 10 FARC fighters outside the town of Mistrató in western Colombia.

August 9, 2002, New York—A court in the Turkish breakaway region of northern Cyprus yesterday sentenced two editors from the opposition daily Afrika to six months in prison for criticizing a Turkish Cypriot leader, according to international press reports and CPJ sources.

On Thursday, August 8, Afrika editor-in-chief Sener Levent and editor Memduh Ener were sentenced to six months in prison for libeling Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash in a July 1999 article titled "Who is the number one traitor?"