Statements

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement today in response to Iranian and international press reports that at least four journalists have been released from Iranian prison on bail, including Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, journalist and spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom of the Press. Shamsolvaezin is also the recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 2000 for courage and independence in reporting the news.

New York, March 1, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement today in response to Azerbaijani press reports that the isolated detention of imprisoned editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, on a new trumped-up charge of drug possession, has been prolonged by two months.

Following reports today of a double-bombing in Karachi targeting Shiite worshipers in a bus riding to a religious festival and later at a hospital, we issued this statement...

We issued the following statement today in response to sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the server hosting the Web version of the independent Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta; the Web site has been disabled since January 26 according to newspaper staff who spoke with CPJ...

We issued the following statement today after a Philippine court sentenced Muhammad Maulana to life in prison for the murder of journalist Edgar Amoro. Amoro witnessed the killing of his fellow Pagadian City-based broadcaster, Edgar Damalerio, in May 2002. In December 2005, a police officer, Guillermo Wapile, was sentenced to life in prison for gunning down Damalerio...

We issued this statement today, after a special court in Burma handed down a 13-year sentence to journalist Ngwe Soe Lin, also known as Tun Kyaw, who reported for the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma Wednesday. He had been held since June 2009...

We issued this statement today after journalists in Sri Lanka told CPJ that access to several independent Web sites had been blocked as the country finished voting in presidential elections...

We issued the following statement today after learning that Israeli authorities have detained Jared Malsin, a U.S. citizen and editor-in-chief of the English-language section of the independent Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency, at the Tel Aviv airport. Malsin was due to be expelled without a hearing on Thursday morning. Protests by the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem have resulted in a reversal. Malsin will now appear before a judge for a deportation hearing on Thursday morning, according to his colleagues at Ma’an...

We issued the following statement after receiving reports today that a trial of three press freedom activists, who organized a protest on Wednesday against the jailing of journalists in Kazakhstan, has started in Almaty; the three are charged with violating a law on holding rallies...

We issued the following statement today in response to the killing of Mexican reporter Valentín Valdés Espinosa of the Saltillo-based daily Zócalo in the state of Coahuila. Espinosa was abducted by unidentified assailants Thursday and found dead early today, according to press reports...