Mohammed Haroon

New York, October 20, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release today of a reporter who was held captive in Baghdad, while it expressed concern over the murder of another journalist in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday.

Rory Carroll, Baghdad correspondent for London's Guardian newspaper, was released unharmed after a day in captivity, the publication said. The Guardian said it believed a group of armed men seized Carroll as he left a house in Sadr City, a stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Carroll had been conducting an interview about Saddam Hussein's regime, the Guardian said.

OCTOBER 19, 2005
Posted October 21, 2005

Mohammed Haroon, Al-Kadiya
KILLED—UNCONFIRMED

Unidentified gunmen killed Haroon, a controversial journalist, as he was driving in Baghdad. Haroon, 47, publisher of the weekly newspaper Al-Kadiya (The Cause) who also served as secretary-general of the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate,, was shot four times, according to CPJ sources.

Working as a journalist in Pakistan has long been a tricky business, and the threats only intensified after September 11, when the military government repudiated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and then Islamist militant groups at home in order to align itself with the United States in a global "war on terror."

New York, July 11, 2001 — CPJ is dismayed that local authorities in Abbottabad have not dropped blasphemy charges brought against journalists from the Urdu-language daily Mohasib, even though officials at both the provincial and federal levels have issued statements noting that these charges are groundless.

On May 29, Mohasib published an article entitled "The Beard and Islam," which contested the view of certain Muslim clerics that a beardless man cannot be a good Muslim, and criticized the exploitation of religious faith for personal gain.

New York, July 18 -- A judge in the northern city of Abbottabad today ordered the release on bail of four journalists from the Urdu-language daily Mohasib who had been imprisoned under Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws.

The journalists, who had been jailed for about six weeks, were released after vigorous protests by local and international press freedom groups, including CPJ.

The blasphemy charges have not been dropped, however. As of today, it was not clear whether a trial date had been set.