DA spring 04 - Committee to Protect Journalists · But this is only one side of WSIS. Many participants are deeply dis-turbed by the decision to allow T unisia to host the next conference

Committee to Protect JournalistsExecutive Director: Ann CooperDeputy Director: Joel Simon

Dangerous AssignmentsEditorial Director: Bill SweeneySenior Editor: Leigh NewmanDesigner: Virginia AnstettPrinter: Photo Arts Limited

Committee to Protect Journalists Board of Directors

Honorary Co-Chairmen:Walter CronkiteTerry Anderson

Chairman: David LaventholVice Chairman: Paul E. Steiger

Andrew Alexander, Franz Allina,Christiane Amanpour, Dean Baquet,Tom Brokaw, Josh Friedman, AnneGarrels, James C. Goodale, CherylGould, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Gwen Ifill, Steven L. Isenberg, JaneKramer, Anthony Lewis, DavidMarash, Kati Marton, Michael Massing,Geraldine Fabrikant Metz, VictorNavasky, Andres Oppenheimer, Burl Osborne, Charles L. Overby,Clarence Page, Norman Pearlstine,Erwin Potts, Dan Rather, GeneRoberts, Sandra Mims Rowe, JohnSeigenthaler, and Paul C. Tash

Published by the Committee to Protect Journalists, 330 SeventhAvenue, 11th Floor, New York, N.Y.10001; (212) 465-1004; [email protected].

Find CPJ online at www.cpj.org.

Dangerous Assignments 1

C O N T E N T S

On the cover: Guy-André Kieffer(above) was photographed on Easter1992. The names of the 19 other journalists who have gone missingwhile working are superimposed onthe photograph, along with the namesof their associated media outlets, andthe countries where they disappeared.

Photo: Kieffer Family Archives Art: Virginia Anstett

Dangerous Assignments Spring |Summer 2005

AS IT HAPPENEDThe top press freedom stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

IN FOCUS By Leigh NewmanA reporter becomes part of a Gaza Strip story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

COMMENTARY By Mick SternKeep governments away from the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

FIRST PERSON By Brian LathamA Zimbabwean journalist is forced to flee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

F E A T U R E S

C O V E R S T O R YDisappeared By Julia CrawfordGuy-André Kieffer vanished in Ivory Coast in April 2004, leaving questions and conflict on two continents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

PLUS: The stories of 19 other journalists still missing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Surviving Cuba’s Prisons By Sauro González RodríguezAfter more 20 months in prison, editor Jorge Olivera Castillo describes the brutality behind bars and his hopes for a new life . . . . . . . 11

Under Stress By Elisabeth WitchelA new study finds that many journalists suffer from post-assignment trauma. News agencies finally step up. . . . . . . . . . . 15

Eight Grave Threats to Press Freedom By Amanda Watson-BolesCPJ describes the biggest threats to press freedom worldwide, from blatant violence to subtle censorship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Rebels and Reporters By Alex LupisAs the Kremlin fights a two-front war in Chechnya—one against the rebels, the other against reporters—Russians are the losers. . . . . . . . 22

PLUS: Cold War Tactics By Sophia KishkovskyRussian security agents reach into the old KGB playbook. . . . . . . 23

ON THE WEB By Kristin JonesOnline reporters crack the silence in Nepal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

DISPATCHES By Rhonda RoumaniSyrian journalists push boundaries, tentatively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

CORRESPONDENTS By Sophie BeachAre journalists’ rights on the rise in China?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

UPDATE By Dean BernardoJustice awaits in Philippine journalist’s murder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

CPJ REMEMBERS By Pap SaineDeyda Hydara held fast to his principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

KICKER By Mick Stern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2 Spring | Summer 2005

A S I T H A P P E N E D

December

9 A U.S. judge sentences reporter JimTaricani (below) to six months ofhome confinement for refusing toreveal the source of a leaked FBI tape.For the first time in three years, theUnited States joins CPJ’s list of nationsthat imprison journalists.

21 French reporters Christian Chesnotand Georges Malbrunot are releasedafter being held for four months bykidnappers in Iraq. Armed groupsabduct at least 22 journalists in 2004.

26 Dozens of Serambi Indonesia staffmembers die in a devastating tsunamithat strikes south Asia. The daily, oneof the few news sources in Indonesia’swar-ravaged Aceh province, resumespublishing days later.

January

3 CPJ reports that 56 journalists werekilled in connection with their work in2004—the deadliest year in a decade.Murder remains the top cause of work-related deaths.

February

1 Nepal’s King Gyanendra declares astate of emergency, curtails civil rights,and institutes broad press restrictions.A CPJ delegation later travels to Kath-mandu to document abuses and seekreforms.

3 Four countries with long records ofpress repression—China, Cuba, Eritrea,

and Burma—account for more thanthree-quarters of the 122 journalistsjailed around the world in 2004, CPJsays in a new report.

March

1 New Ukrainian President ViktorYushchenko says investigators havedetained suspects in the 2000 murderof Internet reporter Georgy Gongadze—the first significant development inthe long-stalled probe.

4 Italian security agent Nicola Calipariis killed and journalist Giuliana Sgrena(below) is wounded when U.S. forcesfire on their car near the Baghdad air-port. Kidnappers had released Sgrenajust minutes earlier.

22 CPJ urges Bangladeshi Prime Min-ister Khaleda Zia to put an end to awave of violence against journalists.An alarming number of assaults andthreats are reported.

April

4 Mexican reporter Dolores GuadalupeGarcía Escamilla is shot in front of herradio station in the border town ofNuevo Laredo. She later dies. That week,Gulf Coast newspaper owner Raúl GibbGuerrero is ambushed and killed.

12 CPJ representatives conclude fact-finding missions in the Gambia andNepal by calling for broad govern-mental reforms and press protections.

May

3 With at least 18 journalists slain infive years, the Philippines is the mostmurderous nation in the world forjournalists, CPJ says in a report issuedfor World Press Freedom Day. Iraq,Colombia, Bangladesh, and Russia alsomake CPJ’s list of murderous places. n

A look at recent red-letter cases from the CPJ files…

As They Said

“Before God, before the people,before my conscience I’m clean.”

—Former Ukrainian PresidentLeonid Kuchma to reporters, inresponse to allegations that hewas involved in the 2000 murderof journalist Georgy Gongadze.

“You don’t know whom to turnto for help because officialsand cops are somehow tied toorganized crime. You don’t hirebodyguards because they’reexpensive, and even if youhave them, if somebody wantsyou dead, they will find a wayto kill you.”

—Roberto Gálvez Martínez, newsdirector at a Nuevo Laredo radiostation, to the Dallas Morning News.The slaying of one of his reporterswas among several recent attackson Mexican journalists.

“We were turned to stone whenofficials told us. The behavior ofthe American soldiers, in sucha serious incident, must beexplained. Someone must takeresponsibility.”

—Italian Prime Minister SilvioBerlusconi on national televisionafter U.S. troops wounded jour-nalist Giuliana Sgrena and killedsecurity agent Nicola Calipari.

AP/

Vic

tori

aA

roch

o

Reu

ters

While covering the aftermathof a gun battle, Itzik Sabanbecame part of the story.

Saban, a reporter for the Tel Avivdaily Yedioth Ahronoth, was sum-moned to a press briefing at an armycamp near the isolated Israeli settle-ment of Morag. The Israeli commanderin the region, Gen. Shmuel Zacai, wasto announce that four hours earlierthat September 2004 morning, underthe cover of dense fog, three Palestin-ian gunmen had infiltrated the campand killed three Israeli soldiers. Two ofthe Palestinians had been killed; onehad escaped.

When Saban and other journalistsarrived for the briefing, the third Pales-tinian leapt out from behind a green-


I N F O C U S

house and opened fire, according tointernational news reports. Reporterswere forced to take cover. As the shoot-ing escalated, Saban was shot in theleg. The fighting, transmitted live onIsraeli Army Radio, lasted for a halfhour before the gunman was killed.

The Palestinian groups IslamicJihad, the Popular Resistance Commit-tees, and the Ahmed Abu Rish Brigadesclaimed responsibility for the raid, TheNew York Times reported. Saban hasrecovered and is back on the job inGaza, Yedioth Ahronoth editors said.Since the second Infatida began in2000, dozens of journalists have beenwounded in the West Bank and Gaza,and seven have been killed. n

—Leigh Newman

Reu

ters

/Nir

Elia

s

Southern Gaza Strip

Reu

ters

/Nir

Elia

s


C O M M E N T A R Y

Obeying no power but the pres-sure to keep expanding, theInternet has grown like kudzu

in the absence of international regula-tion. Now the World Summit for theInformation Society, or WSIS, is mov-ing to establish international policy forthe great digital revolution. Yet anyplan to manage the Internet is at bestunnecessary and at worst detrimentalto a medium that gives ordinary peo-ple a public forum to speak their minds.A summit backed by some of theworld’s worst press freedom abusers—including China, Russia, and Tunisia—is itself cause for grave concern.

The International Telecommunica-tions Union, an agency of the UnitedNations similar in structure to theWorld Health Organization, launchedWSIS. The first major WSIS conference,in Geneva in 2003, drew more than11,000 participants, including repre-sentatives from 175 countries, 50 U.N.entities, 481 nongovernmental organ-izations, 98 businesses, and 631media outlets. In the run-up to thenext major gathering—in Tunis,November 16 through 18, 2005—awhole galaxy of preparatory confer-ences, regional and thematic meet-ings, working groups, and caucuseshave been held or are scheduled. Sub-jects under discussion include infra-structure, technical standards, thedigital divide between rich and poor

Mick Stern is Web master and systemsadministrator for the Committee to Pro-tect Journalists.

countries, environment, health, gen-der, Internet governance, spam, cyber-fraud—and freedom of expression.

Some results thus far have beenencouraging. The participants pro-duced a set of principles that reaf-firms Article 19 of the Universal Dec-laration of Human Rights, which states“that everyone has the right to free-dom of opinion and expression.”

The WSIS statement went on tosay, “We reaffirm our commitment tothe principles of freedom of the pressand freedom of information, as wellas those of the independence, plural-ism and diversity of media.”

But this is only one side of WSIS.Many participants are deeply dis-turbed by the decision to allow Tunisiato host the next conference. Tunisia’srecord on media freedom is dismal.The government blocks dozens ofpolitical Web sites, and jailed onlinewriter Zouhair Yahyahoui for a yearand a half for the crime of publishinghis opinions about the regime. Even ascensorship continues unabated, Presi-dent Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali flaunts hisinvitation to host the summit as evi-dence that the international communitycondones his strong-arm methods.

Other potential hazards loom. TheWorking Group on Internet Gover-nance has a particularly problematictask. The problems begin with thevery definition of “governance.” Doesit mean control, management, or over-sight? Right now, the battle is focusedon technical standards, some of whichthe U.S. nonprofit Internet Corpora-tion for Assigning Names and Num-bers, or ICANN, sets. Some WSIS par-ticipants want to internationalizeICANN, more out of opposition to theUnited States than from any substan-tive grievances, as ICANN has con-fined itself to technical administrationand has steered clear of politics. TheChinese in particular have been firmvoices for internationalizing ICANN.

Participants also have other ideas.Chinese delegates have stated thatgovernments, not private entities,should be in charge of governance

Would-beWeb Masters

By Mick Stern

because, they argue, governments aremore representative. It is hard to saywhom the Chinese government repre-sents, other than itself. China nowpossesses the world’s most sophisti-cated system of Internet censorship,including the ability to scan e-mails intransit for “subversive” content. It issafe to assume that the Chinese con-cept of governance has nothing to dowith the free exchange of ideas.

The Chinese are not alone in theirattitudes. At a WSIS meeting titled “Free-dom of Expression in Cyberspace,” heldin Paris in February, Yuri Ulianovsky ofITAR-TASS, the Russian news agencythat bends to the will of the Kremlin,told participants that “a regulatorymechanism must exist” to ensure thatInternet users get “credible informationfrom trustworthy sources.” Given Russ-ian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoingcampaign to stifle the independentmedia, such appeals to credibility andtrustworthiness should be neitherbelieved nor trusted.

At the same meeting in Paris,Ronald Koven of the World Press Free-dom Committee argued that the Inter-net needs no regulation, noting thatthe question of governance has beenconsidered before and abandoned.“Revisiting it would open the doors tocountless dangers,” he said.

The Internet, though an unrulyfrontier, has democratized communi-cation and broken down the tradition-al barrier between news provider andnews consumer. Certainly, problemsexist, such as spam, fraud, and virus-es. But for all their technological nov-elty, these phenomena are basicallyjust criminal nuisances; they do notoverlap with journalism at any pointand should not be used as an excuseto censor and control the Internet.

The Internet is still in its infancy,and the summit could influence itsdevelopment in unforeseeable ways.If we let WSIS slip by unnoticed, wecould wake up one morning to findthe Web run by a set of masters moreinterested in filtering content thanspreading it. n


F I R S T P E R S O N

The Zimbabwean media has beenunder siege for years, due to the iron-fisted rule of President Robert Mugabe.In February, three journalists workingfor international news outlets fledafter security officials occupied theiroffices and told them they would likelybe imprisoned. Most observers believedthat the move was designed to silencecritical coverage before the March 31parliamentary elections. Brian Latham,a Bloomberg News correspondent, tellsthe story from his exile in London:

On Valentine’s Day this year, adecades-old hub of Zimbab-wean journalism was suddenly

closed. The notorious Law and OrderSection of the Zimbabwean policeraided the little Harare office—knownas the Old Gentleman’s News Cooper-ative—that was shared by BloombergNews, The Associated Press, and theTimes of London.

I was at my desk when I wasordered to stop writing and told to callmy colleagues Angus Shaw, a free-lancer for the AP, and Jan Raath, a con-tributor to the Times. It was a momentwe all knew could happen—but wethought it never would. Things hadchanged subtly in the weeks before theraid. The country’s controversial infor-mation minister, Jonathan Moyo, whohad carried out Mugabe’s repressivemedia policies for years, had fallen

from grace. Moyo’s departure, coupledwith a slight relaxation of the heavilystate-controlled press, had given hopethat reporting from Zimbabwe mightbecome easier.

But the raid on our office put anend to positive speculation. Policeoccupied the office all day. We werekept from working and making phonecalls while they conducted illegalsearches. Accused of being spies, ofworking illegally as journalists, of com-mitting “economic crimes,” and of pub-lishing material detrimental to thestate, we faced potentially long prisonsentences. Meanwhile, we werewarned, as was our fearlesslawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, thatthis time “it was for real.” Thepolice wanted to make anexample of us before the par-liamentary elections.

The charges seemed tochange, then change again, atthe whim of the police officers,who refused to give theirnames. They told us that theyknew where we lived, that theyknew the registration numbersof our vehicles. Heavily sarcas-tic and uncaring of criticism, the seniorofficer told Mtetwa, “If you want, wecan get a search warrant; it makes nodifference. We will search this placeand you will not be present.”

They did search, illegally remov-ing hard drives from an AP computer.Finding news photographs of Mugabe,they accused us of “mocking the pres-ident.” After an entire day with thepolice, during which they even fol-lowed us to the bathroom, theypainstakingly took down our homeaddresses and cell phone numbers—the very addresses they had earlierrecited to us. “We will either come toyou at your homes or summon you toHarare Central Police Station,” the sen-ior officer told us.

When Mtetwa asked them whatinformation they had against us, theysaid, “We do it the other way around.First we find the suspect, then we getthe information.” As they left, Raath

FleeingHome

A journalist is forced

into exile as Mugabe

tightens grip.

By Brian Latham

asked for their names. “Call me CaptainRice,” said the senior officer in aderisory reference to U.S. Secretaryof State Condoleeza Rice, who hadrecently been vilified in Zimbabwe’sstate-controlled press.

During the day, we received infor-mation that it would not be safe toremain in Zimbabwe, let alone go toour homes. Sources within the policeand the ruling ZANU-PF party tipped usoff that we faced lengthy incarceration.All three of us fled, using differentroads and border checkpoints, andavoiding the heavily policed Harare

International Airport. By motorbike, Irode first to collect my passport, whichI’d left at a friend’s house for safekeep-ing, away from the prying eyes of Zim-babwe’s spy agency, the Central Intelli-gence Organization.

We fled with nothing, leaving ourhomes and families, our possessionsand responsibilities for the limbo of ano man’s land. I left behind my fourchildren, two still in school, my homein the city, and a small cottage in thecountry. I left the security of my jobwith Bloomberg News. I left myfriends, my cat, my two dogs, and myclothes. Even my toothbrush andshaving gear were lost in the hurry toavoid a fetid, lice-ridden prison cell.Though foreign correspondents, weare all Zimbabwean citizens. But nowwe are citizens unable to live andwork in our own country. Instead, westill report on Zimbabwe, but fromour country’s burgeoning diaspora. n

Brian Latham, exiled from his home in Zimbabwe,lives and works in London.

Sara

hSh

erri

ngto

n


Before vanishing from the parking lot of an Abidjansupermarket on April 16, 2004, Guy-André Kieffer wroteabout the volatile mix of cocoa profits, guns, and poli-

tics in Ivory Coast. A freelance journalist of French and Cana-dian descent—and one of the few foreign reporters left in theconflict-ridden West African nation—Kieffer had a hand inbusiness himself as a consultant and adviser. Just two yearsinto his stay in the former French colony, he had collected awide network of political and business connections.

And, by his own account, Kieffer had gathered someenemies. In the days before he disappeared and his normallybusy cell phone suddenly went dead, the 54-year-old Kieffer

told friends and family he had been getting threats and wasconcerned about his safety.

The only named suspect in his disappearance is anIvoirian businessman related by marriage to the country’sfirst family. Michel Legré, in custody since May 2004,claimed in questioning before a French judge that a num-ber of people close to President Laurent Gbagbo wereinvolved, several news organizations reported and anIvoirian official confirmed for CPJ. Yet no other suspectshave been arrested and some witnesses have been hard tofind. Legré’s reported testimony has ignited speculationthat Kieffer’s disappearance was a state-sponsored crime,although investigators are also said to be considering a per-sonal money matter or grudge as a possible motive.

With its many unanswered questions, the case hasstirred political intrigue and charges of government

Julia Crawford is CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. AlexisArieff, Africa program research associate, contributed tothis story.

Disappeared

Guy-André Kieffer broke stories on cocoa, guns, and alleged corruption.

C O V E R S T O R Y

Politics, money, and the press stir the mysterious case

of Guy-André Kieffer.

By Julia Crawford

Kie

ffer

fam

ilyar

chiv

e


obstruction on two continents. The investigation hasappeared to sputter at times as relations worsened betweenFrance and its former colony—leaving Kieffer’s family andfriends to fight for the truth.

“This case has always been politicized. The fate of Guy-André Kieffer is a nuisance to Franco-Ivoirian relations,” hiswife, Osange, said from Paris where she lives with the cou-ple’s 18-year-old daughter. Although most people believe heis dead, she has not abandoned hope.

“As long as they have not produced his body, I will notsay that my husband is dead,” Osange Kieffer said. He isone of 20 journalists whose disappearances over morethan two decades may have been linked to their work, CPJresearch shows.

Cooperation between France and Ivory Coast on the Kieffercase has been complicated by the two countries’ long his-

tory, as well as their recently strained relations. Ivory Coastwas a French colony for more than 60 years, and ties betweenit and France remained strong even after its independence in1960. But tensions have risen since the Ivoirian civil warbegan in 2002. Ivoirian government supporters have accusedFrance of supporting the rebels, and the two countries brieflyengaged in hostile actions last year.

Nevertheless, the nations are still bound by a numberof agreements—including one that pledges them to coop-erate on certain judicial investigations such as the Kieffercase. In interviews with CPJ, Kieffer’s family and friendsexpressed confidence in the efforts of the French investi-gating judge, Patrick Ramaël, but accused both the Ivoirianand French governments of obstructing the investigationsfor political reasons.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mat-tei denied such allegations. “There is absolutely no desireto hamper [Ramaël’s] movements in any way,” he told CPJ.Ale Yéo, chief of staff for the Ivoirian justice minister, saidthe two countries were cooperating well on the judicialinquiry. “Each time that Judge Ramaël asked for authoriza-tion to come to Abidjan it was granted. And he has beenable to carry out investigations without any problems fromthe Justice Ministry,” Yéo said. “But some of the people hewanted to question refused to answer the summons. Andsome have disappeared.”

Aline Richard, Kieffer’s friend and colleague for 15years at the French business newspaper La Tribune, saidshe believes he was targeted for his investigations into sen-sitive business issues. Kieffer was considered a specialist in

the profitable cocoa and coffee sectors, and worked brieflyas a consultant for a company that advised the Ivoirian gov-ernment on reforming the cocoa trade.

Kieffer had undertaken several investigative stories,notably one that explored the alleged use of cocoa profitsfor arms purchases, according to the Paris-based businessnewsletter La Lettre du Continent, to which Kieffer was a

Kieffer’s family and friends accuse

both the Ivoirian and French

governments of obstructing the

investigation for political reasons.

At least 19 other journalistshave gone missing since CPJbegan compiling case filesmore than two decades ago.Detailed reports are available at www.cpj.org. Here are theirbrief stories:

Kazem Akhavan,

IRNA, July 4, 1982,

Lebanon

Akhavan, a photog-

rapher for Iran’s

official news agency,

was seized at a

checkpoint near

Byblos. Initial theo-

ries centered on

Phalangist militiamen,

but a 1998 story in

the Israeli newspaper

Ha’aretz raised

speculation that

Israel could have

been holding the

journalist.

Mohamed

Hassaine, Alger

Républicain,

March 1, 1994,

Algeria

Hassaine, a reporter,

was seized by

unknown assailants.

Four years later,

CPJ conducted

interviews in the

capital, Algiers, but

The Missing

discovered no

evidence of his

whereabouts.

Maksim Shabalin

and Feliks Titov,

Nevskoye Vremya,

Maksim Shabalin

Cen

ter

for

Journ

alis

min

Extr

eme

Situ

atio

ns

Feliks Titov

Cen

ter

for

Journ

alis

min

Extr

eme

Situ

atio

ns

freelance contributor. His last storyconcerned a payment to Guinea-Bissau from a frozen bank accountbelonging to that country’s lateformer dictator Ansumane Mane.Kieffer’s story charged that someIvoirian officials took commissionsfrom the account, according to LaLettre du Continent.

While not ruling out the possi-bility that such stories led to Kief-fer’s disappearance, Stephen Smith,Africa editor of the French daily LeMonde, is more circumspect. Smithtold CPJ that Kieffer was “walkinga borderline” between journalismand business, and that he some-times used his reporting to influ-ence business deals. In a May 5,2004 article, Le Monde said thatKieffer “informed some people,advised others and, under transpar-ent pseudonyms, went hammer and tongs for senior person-alities, without worrying unduly about the possible dangers.”

France opened a judicial inquiry into Kieffer’s disappear-ance in May 2004, after his wife filed a complaint in a Paris

court. Ramaël went to Abidjan that month to begin his probeand questioned Legré, the brother-in-law of Ivory Coast’s firstlady, Simone Gbagbo, and a regular source for Kieffer.

Legré was due to meet Kieffer for lunch the day he dis-appeared and is the last person known to have seen him.

Legré told Le Monde in May 2004 that Kieffer did not turnup for their lunch appointment but had called to say thathe was at the nearby Prima supermarket, where Legré methim in the parking lot. “He was nervous, tense,” Legré toldLe Monde. “He told me only that he was due to meet a whiteguy who had owed him money for a long time, and that heplanned to go to Ghana for the weekend.” Legré told LeMonde that he left without asking further questions.

During 10 hours of questioning before the French judge,Legré identified a number of senior defense, security, and


June 16, 1995,

Russia

Ivanov, a correspon-

dent for the paper,

fighting between

Russian and

Chechen forces.

Petrova, a senior

executive of Lita-M,

was also reported

missing after

failing to contact

her studio.

Emmanuel

Munyemanzi,

Rwandan National

Television,

May 2, 1998,

Rwanda

February 27, 1995,

Russia

Shabalin, assistant

political editor of

the St. Petersburg

daily, and Titov, a

photographer, were

reported missing

in Chechnya after

leaving Nazran for

their fifth trip to

the republic.

Sergei Ivanov,

Nevskoye Vremya,

Anti-French protests in Abidjan in fall 2004 strained relations between IvoryCoast and France, making cooperation in the Kieffer case more difficult.

was last seen leaving

Grozny. U.S. Embassy

officials made

repeated trips to the

region to no avail.

Manasse Mugabo,

United Nations

Assistance

Mission in Rwanda

Radio,

August 19, 1995,

Rwanda

Mugabo, director

of the UNAMIR radio

service, left Kigali

for Uganda and

has not been heard

from since.

Vitaly Shevchenko,

Andrei Bazvluk,

and Yelena Petrova,

Lita-M,

August 11, 1996,

Russia

Shevchenko and

Bazvluk, Ukrainian

television journalists,

were last seen in

Grozny during heavy

AP/

Schal

kva

nZuyd

am

Cen

ter

for

Journ

alis

min

Extr

eme

Situ

atio

ns

Sergei Ivanov

went to Chechnya to

look for colleagues

Shabalin and Titov.

He vanished

after entering a

mountainous region,

said Alla Manilova,

the editor-in-chief.

Andrew Shumack,

freelancer,

July 28, 1995,

Russia

Shumack, an Ameri-

can working for the

St. Petersburg Press,

finance officials as being involved in the disappearance,Yéo said. Of those named, each has publicly denied involve-ment, and none has officially been declared a suspect.Investigators have questioned most of the officials, Yéosaid, although they have been unable to find two soldiersnamed by Legré. Ramaël declined comment when contactedby CPJ, citing judicial confidentiality rules.

Shortly after the French investigation started, Ivoirianauthorities launched their own inquiry. They arrested Legréand charged him as an accessory in the kidnapping, confine-ment, and—though no body has been produced—murder ofKieffer. The French judge has also charged Legré with com-plicity in Kieffer’s kidnap and confinement.

One of Legré’s lawyers, Alain Assamoi, told CPJ thatRamaël had pressured his client into linking governmentofficials to the disappearance, and that Legré had laterretracted the assertions. He said his client had pleaded notguilty to all charges.

Véhi Étienne, a presidential adviser, said allegations link-ing senior officials to Kieffer’s disappearance were “part ofpropaganda campaigns seeking to soil the image of the pres-ident” and were promoted by “media close to the oppositionand to the armed rebellion.” He added, “There are severalpossible trails outside of the investigation pursued by theFrench judge,” including ones implicating “foreign citizenswho have nothing to do with the president.”

Citing the two countries’ judicial cooperation agreement,Ramaël has requested that Legré be transferred to Francefor two months of questioning. But at the end of February,Ramaël returned from a fourth visit to Abidjan without thesuspect. Legré remained in prison in Abidjan when Danger-ous Assignments went to press.

Richard said she believes France is unwilling to pres-sure the Ivoirian authorities for fear of further damagingrelations with President Gbagbo, whom it sees as a necessarypartner in the fragile peace process.

Such concerns prompted Richard to set up the Truth forGuy-André Kieffer Association. Composed mainly of jour-nalists, the group has launched a petition on its Web site call-ing on the French and Ivoirian governments to “employ everypossible effort to find the truth.” The association collectsinformation about the case, lobbies the governments, andencourages media coverage.

Osange Kieffer, who has met with Ramaël, accused theFrench authorities of trying to stall the judge’s investigationand block Legré’s transfer. An official from the French ForeignMinistry said that any delays were due to normal proce-dures and that the transfer request was being processed.

“I know the judges and I believe they are interested infinding the truth,” Le Monde editor Smith said. “But I thinkit embarrasses the two governments and there is extremetension between the two governments.”

The strain was at its worst last November when Ivoiriangovernment air attacks on rebel positions killed nineFrench peacekeepers. The French retaliated by destroyingmost of the small Ivoirian air force. This action led to vio-lent anti-French demonstrations in Abidjan that werefueled by state-owned media. Thousands of expatriatesfled the country.

Despite a peace agreement brokered by France in early2003, Ivory Coast remains divided between a rebel-heldnorth and a government-controlled south. Most foreignreporters have left the country for security reasons, espe-cially after the October 2003 murder of Radio France Inter-


Munyemanzi, head

of production

services, disappeared

in Kigali. Two

months earlier, the

director of the

Rwanda Information

Office had accused

him of sabotage

because of a

technical problem

during the taping

of a political

debate.

Djuro Slavuj,

Radio Pristina,

August 21, 1998,

Serbia and

Montenegro

Slavuj, a reporter at

the state-run Radio

Pristina, and his

driver disappeared

on assignment in

Kosovo. Having

left Orahovac, they

were en route to

Malisevo.

Belmonde Magloire

Missinhoun,

Le Point Congo,

October 3, 1998,

Democratic

Republic of

Congo

Missinhoun, owner

of the independent

financial newspaper,

has not been seen

since his arrest

after a traffic

accident with a

military vehicle in

Kinshasa. Missinhoun

had ties to the

government of

Mobutu Sese Seko,

which had fallen

a year earlier.

Oleksandr Panych,

Donetskiye Novosti,

November 2002,

Ukraine

Panych, a journalist

and manager for

the daily newspaper,

disappeared from

the southeastern city

of Donetsk. He wrote

about drugs and

business issues.

Fred Nerac,

ITV News,

March 22, 2003,

Iraq

Donet

skiy

eN

ovo

sti

Oleksandr Panych Fred Nerac

Fam

ilyA

rchiv

es

Reda Helal,

Al-Ahram,

August 11, 2003,

Egypt

Helal, an editor with

Egypt’s semiofficial

daily, was last

seen entering his

home in Cairo. Helal

was considered

controversial by

some because of his

support for the U.S.-

led war in Iraq.


nationale correspondent Jean Hélène by an Ivoirian policeofficer. Hélène’s murder was widely blamed on anti-Frenchsentiments that were whipped up by local media and pro-government forces.

Richard complains that Kieffer’s case has received lessattention from the French government and media than

those of journalists Florence Aubenas, Christian Chesnot,and Georges Malbrunot, who were abducted in Iraq. Aube-nas, who works for the independent daily Libération, wastaken in Baghdad with her Iraqi translator on January 5.Chesnot of Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Malbrunotof independent daily Le Figaro were released in Decemberafter being held captive for four months by an Iraqi insur-gent group.

“I think it’s absolutely normal that people mobilize forAubenas, Chesnot and Malbrunot,” Richard told CPJ. “What isnot normal is that they don’t do the same for Kieffer. … If youare a freelance and you go missing, it’s more difficult.”

The vast majority of the 20 journalists on CPJ’s missinglist disappeared in conflict zones such as Chechnya, Koso-vo, and Iraq; others vanished in remote areas where thereis little media attention. Nearly all went missing in placeswhere the rule of law is weak, the judiciary ineffective, andthe government indifferent to solving such cases.

Left behind are the journalists’ families who, in mostcases, have few credible details to help them understandwhat may have happened. They have little to cling to butthe fight itself—the struggle to keep their cases on govern-ment agendas and in the headlines.

“It’s very, very important,” Osange Kieffer said, “becauseit means the cloak of silence cannot fall.” n

Nerac, a cameraman

for the British news

organization,

disappeared when

his car came under

fire en route to

Basra. A security

firm hired by the

news agency said

that Nerac and

translator Hussein

Othman might

have been pulled

from their car by

Iraqi forces.

Acquitté Kisembo,

Agence France-

Presse, June 26,

2003, Democratic

Republic of Congo

Kisembo, a fixer

and reporter, was

reported missing

in Bunia. Local

journalists say

militiamen loyal to

the rebel Union of

Congolese Patriots

may have seized

Kisembo.

Ali Astamirov,

Agence France-

Presse,

July 4, 2003,

Russia

Astamirov, a corre-

spondent, was seized

by gunmen when he

stopped for gas in

Nazran, in the repub-

lic of Ingushetia.

Astamirov reported

on sensitive issues

such as the war in

Chechnya and had

endured months of

harassment by police

and security forces.

Isam al-Shumari,

Sudost Media,

August 15, 2004,

Iraq

Al-Shumari, a cam-

eraman for the small

production company,

is believed to have

disappeared in Fallu-

jah. Relatives said he

was traveling with

cameraman Mah-

moud Abbas, who

was killed in heavy

fighting. n

The Truth for Guy-André Kieffer Association displays posters in Paris bookstores saying: “We have not forgotten. We demandthe truth.”

Truth

for

Guy-

André

Kie

ffer

Ass

oci

atio

n

AFP

Ali Astamirov


Unbowed, Jorge Olivera

Castillo emerges from jail

to speak out.

By Sauro González

Rodríguez

Surviving Cuba’s Prisons

Jorge Olivera Castillo and his wife, Nancy Alfaya, reunite in their Havana home afterthe editor’s December 2004 release.

Sauro González Rodríguez is research associate for CPJ’s Americas program.

A CPJ Interview

For the crime of reporting the news, Jorge Olivera Castillo spent most of twoyears in the hellish conditions of Cuba’s prisons. The director of a smallindependent news agency, the Havana Press, Olivera Castillo was one of 29

journalists arrested in a massive government crackdown on dissidents and theindependent media in March 2003. He was convicted in a one-day, closed-doorproceeding under a law prohibiting acts “aimed at subverting the internal orderof the nation and destroying its political, economic, and social system.”

Olivera Castillo was sentenced to 18 years in prison, parts of which he spentin State Security Department confinement at Villa Marista, the Guantánamoprovincial prison, the Guantánamo provincial hospital, and a prison infirmary inwestern Matanzas province. Freed last December 6, he was among a half dozen,imprisoned journalists released on medical parole in 2004. After his release, the43-year-old editor discussed with CPJ his early career in the state media, his pro-fessional evolution, his imprisonment, and his plans for the future. Here aretranslated excerpts of his interview with CPJ’s Sauro González Rodríguez:

Reu

ters

/Cla

udia

Dau

t


SGR: Tell us about your work for the official media.

JOC: From 1983 to 1993, I worked at the Cuban Institute forRadio and Television as an editor. During the decade Iworked at this state-owned entity, I spent two years in thenational television news system where news programs,news reports are made. I had a close experience with all thecensorship, the self-censorship, and all the news manipula-tion that takes place in the official media.

SGR: Describe this climate of self-censorship.

JOC: Propaganda is very tightly controlled by a CentralCommittee agency called the Revolutionary OrientationDepartment, where information and indoctrination policiesare designed. All media are subordinated to the strategiesdevised by this agency. People fear crossing a line—theydon’t know where it is or what the limits are—and that’swhere self-censorship comes in. They censor themselvesfor fear of retaliation.

SGR: When and why did you decide to join the independentpress?

JOC: One thing that had a profound effect were the eventsduring perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union. Thatopened my eyes, made me ask myself some questionsand search for answers. I began maturing as time wentby, and then I was faced with how to break the barrier offear, of terror, which is something natural in Cuba, partof our culture.

SGR: Can you describe for us how independent journalismis done in Cuba?

JOC: We face shortages of materials, a lack of informationsources. Everything conspires against you; everything is soadverse, particularly the way to send your reports abroad.There’s no computer network cheap enough for us to sendour reports; phone communications are terrible.

Nevertheless, we have been able to articulate a nation-wide movement of independent journalists. We even pub-lished a magazine that was shut down with our imprison-ment, De Cuba magazine, which was developed by the jour-nalists’ association Sociedad de Periodistas Manuel MárquezSterling. The persecution, harassment, economic adversi-ties, lack of proper technology—a number of factors con-spired against our doing a quality job.

SGR: Would you describe your arrest?

JOC: I was at my wife’s aunt’s house napping when plain-clothes agents showed up with a search warrant. My wifewoke me up, a bit scared, and they all came in and carriedout an exhaustive search. They took many pictures of every-thing they confiscated, which wasn’t much: two old, worn-out typewriters and many news stories; books on politics,economics, even world literature; and a small 8mm cam-corder. When we went downstairs to go to my house, thestreet was blocked. There were several police cars andmotorbikes; it was a huge police operation. People were ter-rified, and many were watching from their balconies.

The search at my house was very similar. While theywere searching, one of them turned on a radio and tuned inthe “Mesa Redonda” talk show—which was talking about us,about the crackdown taking place at the same time at manyhomes in Cuba, and they were using epithets to denigrateand slander us. Around 10, 10:30 p.m., I arrived in VillaMarista, where they carried out a thorough body search andgave me prisoner’s clothes.

SGR: Were you expecting the arrest?

JOC: I wasn’t expecting it, honestly. I thought it would bewhat had happened many times before. When the politicalpolice didn’t want me to cover an event, they would simplyknock on my door and tell me I couldn’t leave. I thought itwas routine harassment. I never thought it would be thebeginning of a terrible period in the history of Cuba.

SGR: Tell us about your experiences in prison.

JOC: To feel that you’re imprisoned, are surrounded bywalls and bars everywhere, without reason, it’s a doubleshock that you suffer. I spent 36 days in a cell with com-mon criminals in Villa Marista. The four of us could notstand at the same time, that’s how small the cell was. Therewas no ventilation and we had a fluorescent lamp on 24hours a day. The bathroom was a hole; the smell wasunbearable.

Then the trial came. The trial was a sham, a grotesquesham. I only saw my lawyer 10 to 15 minutes before mycourt hearing was to start. I felt I had been convicted inadvance. Thank God I had the strength of character andcould face such a difficult situation. I did not keep silent. Idefended myself against all the allegations prosecutorsmade, full of visceral hatred—I can’t forget that. I refutedall of them.

Then there was the distance. I was sent over 900 kilo-meters (560 miles) from my place of residence, which wasan additional punishment for my wife and my children. Iwas first at the Combinado Provincial de Guantánamo, andwe were placed with common prisoners for 17 days. Thenwe were placed in solitary confinement. We had an hour aday to get some sun. I began having pain in my bones, dueto the cell’s humidity and the lack of sunlight. I was sick all

I thought it was routine harassment.

I never thought it would be the

beginning of a terrible period in

Cuban history.


of one year. The food arrived rotten sometimes, and thewater was muddy and brown. I contracted parasites twice. Iwould tell the doctor, “Look, the food is poorly preparedand sometimes rotten. The water is contaminated; weshould not drink it.” And she would say, “That’s not myproblem. My problem is if you get sick.”

And there were lots of insects: mosquitoes, scorpions,flies, ants, lizards. It was a terrible situation. All amid theindifference, the indolence by the medical services and theprison officers. I was later placed in a cell with commonprisoners—pedophiles and murderers. Something terriblyharsh and brutal goes on in Cuban prisons.

Hunger, alienation, the guards’ willingness to beat upprisoners who in many cases do not deserve it—the prison-ers become so alienated that they turn to self-mutilation. Isaw two people make a hot paste by melting plastic shop-ping bags, and then put their hands inside this substance.They lost their hands, which were amputated, and werereleased on medical parole. Other people stab themselves;swallow wires, small spoons; take fluids that are harmful totheir digestive system. To sum it up, it’s a world of horror.

After being jailed for a year, I was transferred to theGuantánamo Provincial Hospital. This happened a yearafter I had been requesting adequate medical attention.During the time I spent at the hospital, conditionsimproved. I would receive the hospital’s food, and there

was a snack. I was like any other patient, except that Iremained jailed at a ward for prisoners, living with com-mon prisoners, which was not easy. But at least there wasmore ventilation.

SGR: How was your relationship with other prisoners?

JOC: You have to apply a lot of psychology. You may getstabbed, because they traffic in pills and prisoners gethigh, particularly in Guantánamo. There’s also trafficking inknives. They make them at the prison and sell them for cig-arettes. Fights also break out, and you may be wounded—that’s very common. It’s a very difficult coexistence. I didn’thave any problems with common prisoners, but it’s apotential problem, particularly for political prisoners andprisoners of conscience in Cuba.

SGR: What medical problems did you suffer?

JOC: I suffer from a colon disorder, and I need to avoidstress. The pain in my lower abdomen is terrible, and I mayhave bouts of diarrhea. All of this upsets my nerves, and itbecomes a vicious cycle because then I have another crisis.I also suffered from high blood pressure, apparentlybecause of stress and the harsh conditions. Like I said, Ibarely caught any sunlight during all the time I was jailed.When I was at the hospital, I would ask my guards, “Please,handcuff me and take me outdoors.” But they would reply,

Jorge Olivera Castillo, right, and Miguel Galban edit the independent magazine De Cuba, which ran articles on race and reform.

AP

/Jose

Goit

ia


“No, no, because of security concerns.” So I would talk tothe doctor and I would tell the guards they should give meat least an hour outdoors, and sometimes the guards wouldgive me an hour, or half an hour, or nothing.

SGR: Were you aware of the international protests over theimprisonments?

JOC: You don’t know how important it is for a political pris-oner, for a prisoner of conscience to feel and see throughyour family and through phone calls what people weredoing. We were desperate. I would ask my relatives whatCPJ was doing, what Reporters Without Borders was doing,what the Inter American Press Association was doing, whatAmnesty International was doing, what many other people,including politicians and people of good will, were doing.

That was very important from a spiritual point of view,to strengthen ourselves in those conditions and endurethem. And this should not let up; it’s crucial for those jour-nalists who are still in jail in conditions similar to those Ihave described. Their minds may be affected and so theirbodies may be.

SGR: How did your family cope during your imprisonment?

JOC: If you suffer in jail, your family suffers much more.Here, I have only my wife and my two children. My wife hadto solve every problem and take care of the family—andshe never stopped caring about me and denouncing all theinjustices against me. Because of the distance to the prison,sometimes my family struggled to buy the transportationfare. They also struggled to provide for themselves, andbring things to me despite such a long trip. But my familystuck together.

SGR: What is your view on the government crackdown andeverything that has happened since?

JOC: I don’t think the crackdown was very successful. Theinternational reaction has been very strong, massive, andsustained. I think the government underestimated that, andit has caused the government to lose a very large amountof prestige. The independent press has moved forward, andso have the trade unions, political parties, and humanrights activists. So, I believe that in political terms the gov-ernment hasn’t won anything.

However, the language of confrontation persists andthis is very dangerous. We can’t rule out that the govern-

ment won’t take drastic measures, although smaller inscale. They could imprison three, four persons every fewmonths, and it wouldn’t draw international attention.

SGR: Do you feel inhibited from working as a journalistagain?

JOC: I have a refugee visa and I’m not a healthy person. I’mthinking about my family. I have been 12 years, includingthose two in prison, trying to create a space and I think wehave been successful in establishing an independent press,a cornerstone of a future democracy. It’s been 12 years Ihave invested in this, and now I have to think about myfamily, my children.

SGR: What are your plans for the future?

JOC: I think one day I’ll be able to leave Cuba. I don’t knowhow I’m going to do in the United States; I don’t know whetherI will settle there permanently. I would like to keep writing,working as a television editor, but I know it won’t be easy.First I want to protect my family, my children, and above all,I want to cope better with my illness. One thing I do know forsure: I’ll never renounce my principles. I will always supporta plural, inclusive society wherever I am. Nobody should bediscriminated against because of his or her ideology. And allideological lines should have their own media, their own wayof expressing ideas and sharing them with other people. I willalways defend these ideas. I took them up one day, haven’trenounced them, and never will—let alone now. n

One thing I know for sure: I’ll never

renounce my principles. I will always

support a plural, inclusive society

wherever I am.

Nancy Alfaya comforts Gisela Delgado, wife of dissident HectorPalacios, in front of the Havana courthouse in April 2003, asthey learn that their husbands have been sentenced to prison.

AP

/Jose

Goit

ia

Crackdown on the Independent PressMore than 100 prominent Latin American journalistsand writers have joined CPJ in calling for the release ofthe many Cuban journalists still imprisoned. Forupdates on CPJ’s campaign to free these journalists,visit “Crackdown on the Independent Press in Cuba” atwww.cpj.org.

Daily News photographer David Handschuh wasshooting through the haze and horror of the Sep-tember 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center

when the south tower collapsed, blowing him down theblock and burying him in debris. While his badly broken legrequired months of recuperation, he is “still dealing withwhat I paid witness to that day.”

On assignment in south India after the December 2004tsunami, Reuters photographer Arko Datta was stopped shortby the sight of a young boy clinging to his dead mother.Experienced as he was in covering disasters, that awfulmemory lingers.

Working for months in Iraq, New York Times reporter JeffGettleman felt the grinding toll of seeing bodies blownapart in the suicide bombings and violent attacks thatbecame part of everyday life. “You have access there,” Gettle-man said, “to things you shouldn’t see.”

News organizations and journalism groups are begin-ning to widely acknowledge that many photographers,reporters, and cameramen do not come away from suchtrauma-filled assignments emotionally unscathed. Newresearch, including a study released in April, found three in10 journalists suffer post-traumatic stress after working on

dangerous assignments. Depression, anxiety, alcoholism,and relationship problems have also been reported.

Media organizations have long made counseling avail-able to staffers, but analysts say newsrooms have been slowin adopting the extensive trauma support and training longused by other “first-response” organizations such as med-ical care and disaster relief agencies.

Now, several large news companies say they havebegun more sophisticated and proactive programs to sup-port staffers exposed to trauma. Many of these efforts have

been accelerated in the past four years, after the 9/11attacks, the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, and thewars in Afghanistan and Iraq drove home the vulnerabili-ties of journalists. The most ambitious programs gobeyond standard offers of counseling to include pre- andpost-assignment briefings for staffers, trauma awarenesstraining for news managers, time off for journalists return-ing from the field, and in-the-field counseling.


News organizations step up help for

journalists who encounter trauma.

By Elisabeth Witchel

Under Stress

Reu

ters

/Ark

oD

atta

Elisabeth Witchel is CPJ’s journalist assistance programcoordinator.

Journalists in Iraq experienced three

life-threatening events in the first

weeks of coverage.

After the December 2004 tsunami, Arko Datta photographedmany heartbreaking moments, such as this Indian couplemourning the death of their 8-year-old son.

But more can be done. These efforts have yet to spreadthrough the entire news industry or to many parts of theworld. Freelancers are often left on their own. And in adeadline-driven field, where personal detachment is con-sidered a virtue, there is still little space in newsroom culturefor journalists dealing with trauma.

Hard-drinking, swaggering, divorced war correspon-dents may be a common stereotype, but proof of their

existence was largely anecdotal until 2002 when the Amer-ican Journal of Psychiatry published a study led by AnthonyFeinstein of the University of Toronto. The study of 140combat journalists—titled “A Hazardous Profession: War,Journalists, and Psychopathology”—concluded that nearly30 percent of the participants showed serious signs ofpost-traumatic stress. They were not likely to get treat-ment, either.

Feinstein released a follow-up study in April thatfocused on journalists covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq.Collecting data in July 2003 from embedded and unilateraljournalists, he concluded that a third were psychologicallydistressed. Using a mean, Feinstein said that participantsexperienced three life-threatening events in the first weeksof war coverage.

“Feinstein’s [2002] study was very important to thisissue. There was really nothing before that,” said SantiagoLyon, director of photography at The Associated Press.Lyon, a veteran war photographer who covered conflicts inEl Salvador, the Balkans, the first Gulf War, Afghanistan, andSomalia, has grappled with post-traumatic stress himselfand has seen it among his staffers. “In recent years, mediaorganizations have gotten much better at helping journal-ists cope with stress and trauma.”

In February, prompted by a request from a veteran warcorrespondent, The New York Times began a program tohelp journalists in the field cope more effectively. Itincludes trauma briefings for editors and news managers; ahotline for journalists’ families; and pre-assignment andexit briefings for all staffers working in high-risk areas.

The British Broadcasting Company, using recommenda-tions from the British Ministry of Defense, has put itsemphasis on management. A program launched in fall 2004aims to train all BBC managers, team leaders, and editors

responsible for at-risk staff to recognize when a journalistis having difficulties and offer peer support, said DiptiPatel, occupational health physician for the BBC.

Five years ago, after the killing of Reuters correspon-dent Kurt Schork in Sierra Leone had deeply affected hiscolleagues, the news agency stepped up efforts to teachmanagers how to recognize and cope with trauma, accord-ing to Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger. “The mainproblem for us,” he said, “has been getting past the ideathat journalists are tough and macho and to get them torecognize that it is OK to talk about their problems.”Schlesinger said Reuters’ staffers talk more frequently nowwith professional counselors and their colleagues.

Other organizations that have strengthened supportefforts include National Public Radio, which offers counsel-ing and time off to all journalists returning from dangerzones, and the AP, which began offering staffers interna-tional access to counselors.

Addressing job-related trauma is imperative at a timewhen professional demands and dangers are higher

than ever, Handschuh said. “There’s a cumulative effect towhat we witness—and add to that the 24-hour news cycle.”

“Covering the tsunami was like going through an emo-tional roller-coaster,” said Datta, whose photographs ofdevastated south India appeared in Time, Newsweek, andThe Economist. Datta said the experience did not differmuch from other disasters, all of which “are difficult tocover logistically and emotionally,” but noted that he cameacross several scenes that stopped him in his tracks. “Hav-ing lost my mother recently, watching a particular instanceof people trying to pull away a boy clinging on to his deadmother, was too painful for me.”

Iraq—where 41 journalists have been killed and 30abducted as of April—poses basic survival risks. “Every dayin Iraq, I was nostalgic for Afghanistan,” said Gettleman, ofThe New York Times, who covered the U.S.-led attack onAfghanistan in 2001 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq.“Even though Afghanistan had dangers, journalists were nottargets.” Gettleman was abducted in Iraq and held by gun-men for a day in April 2004. “The stress that puts you andeveryone working around you under is enormous,” he said.

AP’s Lyon said the 24-hour news cycle—and the technol-ogy that has made it possible to relay news and imagesinstantly—has exposed journalists to greater risk for longer,unbroken periods. Journalists in prior conflicts had to filefrom offices or other serene settings; digital photographyand satellite communication now both allow and encouragethem to file from the scene. Factor in the continuous newscycle, and journalists are never truly off deadline.

Attitudes about trauma are slowly changing, said RogerSimpson, executive director of the Dart Center for

Journalism & Trauma at the University of Washington. “A


The 24-hour news cycle—and the

technology that has made it

possible to relay news and images

instantly—has exposed journalists

to greater risks.

decade ago,” he said, “we sometimes met hostile responsesfrom corporate personnel people. That almost never hap-pens today.”

But counseling alone is not enough, Simpson said. “Man-agement often fails to create a climate of support andrespect for counseling among their journalists,” he said.And while a handful of “leaders in the industry” are pro-moting better trauma management, Simpson said, thosepractices have yet to spread throughout the news business.

Simpson said everyone in a news operation shouldreceive training about safety and trauma, and editorsshould ensure that they are in touch with every journalistin a dangerous situation, as well as their families. Aftermedia workers complete assignments, a formal program tocontinue discussion should be made available. Dart alsocautions against sending journalists back into dangerousassignments too soon.

Freelance journalists remain at particular risk. “Theydon’t have much support and they risk a lot in war and con-flict situations,” Simpson said. “There is a huge need forthis underserved group.”

Freelance journalists typically find it harder to secureaffordable counseling than do staff journalists. Some free-lancers can obtain counseling through their own healthinsurance plans, if the plans are broad enough to coversuch issues. But only a handful of media organizations helpfreelancers cover the costs of such insurance.


Across the world, local journalists in conflict zones faceextraordinary stress and personal danger. CPJ has trackedseveral cases in which these local journalists received helpfor emotional scars only after relocating to safer places. SriLankan journalist Dharma Lingham, whose life was threat-ened after he exposed human rights abuses by the Libera-tion Tigers of Tamil Eelam, said he noticed symptoms ofpsychological distress only after he left the country.

Not only do journalists suppress trauma to survive, inmany of the world’s troubled places, help is simply notavailable. “As far as I know there is no concept of counsel-ing for post-traumatic stress,” said Owais Aslam Ali, secre-tary general of the Pakistan Press Foundation. “Close familystructure in our society may help a bit, but it is not a sub-stitute for professional counseling.”

In the United States, however, work-related trauma,once mentioned in hushed tones, is being addressed moreregularly in public. At its annual conference this year, Mili-tary Reporters and Editors (MRE), a U.S.-based association,will feature a panel on the subject for the first time.

The Nieman Foundation has also chosen trauma as thetheme of its two-day conference this October. “There is agreat responsibility to learn from the research out there,”said Stefanie Friedhoff, a freelance journalist and organiz-er of the conference co-sponsored by the Dart Center. “Ifalmost a third [of journalists] come back with trauma, wehave to do something about it.” n

When the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, Daily News photographer David Handschuh was badly injured. Thememories of that day have stayed with him.

Todd

Mai

sel/

Daily

New

s


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

A Turkish journalist raises his handcuffed hands during a March protest against the country’snew, vaguely worded penal code.

ReuterscameramanBassamMasoud iswoundedduringclashesbetweenPalestinianand Israelitroops inthe GazaStrip townof Rafa.

AP/

Mura

dSe

zer

Ajournalist’s murder makes headlines for good reason. Killings, especiallythose that go unpunished, pose a terrible threat to a free press. Otherthreats are more subtle—legal manipulation, indifference to safety, indi-

rect censorship—but they are debilitating in their own way. Based on the Com-mittee to Protect Journalists’ work worldwide, here is our assessment of the eightgrave threats to press freedom today.

Killers Go FreeIn the last decade, more than 250 journalists have been murdered for theirwork—often to prevent them from reporting on corruption or human rightsabuses, or to punish them after they have done so. In more than 85 percent ofthese cases, CPJ found, the killers went unpunished. At least 60 victims werethreatened beforehand.

Compiled by Amanda Watson-Boles


Eight Grave Threats to Press Freedom

5 6 7 8Amanda Watson-Boles, CPJ’s former senior editor, is a copy editor at Slate magazine.

Guards staff the gate of Cuba’s Combinado Del Este where journalists are jailed for antistate activities.

AP/

Jose

Goit

ia

Reu

ters

/Khal

ilH

amra

This deadly cycle is reinforced every time another jour-nalist is attacked with no response from authorities. Theculture of impunity is most visible—and most shocking—inthe Philippines, where at least 48 journalists have beenkilled for their work since 1986. No one has been convict-ed in any of the cases.

The situation can be changed. After a campaign organ-ized by the media and citizens, Mozambique brought tojustice the killers of reporter Carlos Cardoso, who was mur-dered in 2000. And in the Ukraine, sustained public scrutinyof the unsolved 2000 killing of Internet journalist GeorgyGongadze helped bring about progress in the long-stalledmurder probe.

Conflict Made Riskier In conflict zones, journalists can be deliberately targeted orkilled in crossfire. Deliberately targeting civilians, includ-ing members of the press, is a war crime, and any failure toproperly investigate and prosecute offenders only encour-ages more violence.

In many cases, journalists are put at risk in combatzones because of the apparent use of reckless or indiscrim-inate force by soldiers. In Iraq, U.S. forces’ fire has killed atleast nine journalists, including CPJ International Press Free-dom Award recipient Mazen Dana. A soldier said he mistookthe camera on Dana’s shoulder for a rocket-propelledgrenade launcher.


While war zones will always be dangerous, all militariesshould take steps to reduce the danger for journalists. Tothe extent possible, commanders should ensure that soldiersin the field are aware when and where journalists are work-ing. Military rules of engagement should take into accountjournalists’ presence. When a death does occur, militariesmust conduct timely and credible investigations and takeaction in cases of misconduct.

‘Antistate’ Laws Used to SilenceBy the end of 2004, laws banning “antistate” activity landed74 journalists behind bars worldwide. Allegations of antis-tate activity were made in 14 additional cases in which formalcharges were not made public, CPJ found. These laws addressactivities such as subversion, sedition, divulging state secrets,and acting against the interests of the state—but time aftertime in these cases, the laws were used to silence journal-ists critical of their governments.

While countries have the right to prosecute citizens fortreason, espionage, or revealing state secrets, many antis-tate statutes are ill-defined—or not defined at all.Bangladesh and Russia prohibit “antistate activities” and“antistate propaganda” respectively, but offer no defini-tions—empowering authorities to prosecute journalistswho criticize the government or officials.

The world’s leading jailers of journalists, Cuba andChina, use this tactic most frequently. Thirty-three Chinesejournalists were imprisoned at the end of 2004 on various“antistate” charges. In Cuba, 23 journalists were placedbehind bars on similarly vague charges.

Information ministries across the world, such as the Yemeni onepictured above, are often used to impede the flow of news.

Photojournalist MazenDana was killed in Iraqwhen his camera wasmistaken for a rocket-propelled grenadelauncher.

Reu

ters

/Ala

din

Abdel

Nab

y

Reu

ters

/Nay

efH

ashla

moun

Defamation as a CrimeGovernments wield criminal libel statutes throughout theworld—from Indonesia, where some of the nation’s top edi-tors have been targeted with criminal charges, to Panama,where almost half the press corps has been in criminalcourt. At least nine journalists were imprisoned on criminaldefamation charges by the end of 2004, CPJ found, but thethreat is more insidious than any statistic can demonstrate.Journalists claim the mere threat of a criminal conviction isenough to cause widespread self-censorship.

Seeking the repeal of these repressive laws is funda-mental to a free press. In Latin America, a long-term advo-cacy campaign led to two seminal rulings in 2004 by theInter-American Court of Human Rights that should make itharder to criminally prosecute journalists. The rulings bolsterinternational law, which increasingly supports civil penaltiesas adequate redress.

Censorship’s Subtle HandCensorship, while still overt in a few countries, has devel-oped more subtle and insidious forms. Uzbekistan liftedofficial prior censorship in 2001 but shifted the burden of“responsibility” to newspaper editors, many of whom hiredformer government censors to cleanse their copy of offend-ing news.

In Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan and Algeria,editors often receive phone calls from security services“advising” journalists what to print and what to avoid. InUzbekistan, the state daily Pravda Vostoka (Truth of theEast) fired journalist Sergei Yezhkov in January 2004 afterhe wrote several articles about corruption and social prob-lems and participated in an international conference onpress freedom.

Information ministries often serve as the government’slinchpin of repression, carefully prescribing the media’swork and meting out harsh punishments when journalistscross the line. The Saudi Arabian Information Ministry hasbanned columnists critical of the government from writing.Liberia’s ministry carefully censored all coverage of therecent civil war there. In Belarus, the Information Ministryshuttered independent newspapers whose coverage exposedgovernment malfeasance.


A Profession Divided Journalistic factions can intensify threats of repression. InBangladesh, where scores of journalists have been violentlytargeted in recent years, the media is sharply divided betweenthe country’s two main political parties. Divided media some-times fail to hold the respective parties accountable forattacks—fostering a climate in which violence can continue.

Persistent ethnic tensions in Afghanistan have left journal-ists unable to unite behind a single professional union. Effortsto form a coalition broke down in 2003, leaving the three jour-nalists’ unions battling each other instead of enemies of thefree press.

And in Argentina, the national press freedom group Peri-odistas, which had united journalists and supported pressfreedom for almost a decade, dissolved amid internal differ-ences in 2004. Local observers say reporters in the country'sinterior, which had been supported by these prominent jour-nalists, will suffer from the group’s disbanding.

Licenses, Rules Used to Repress Repressive regimes use bureaucratic statutes to deny criticalmedia outlets the right to publish or broadcast. In Zimbabwe, thecountry’s Media and Information Commission uses regulatoryrequirements to limit the operations of independent newspaperssuch as the Weekly Times. In late February, after only eightweeks of publication, the Weekly Times was shut down on atechnicality—a bid by the commission to clamp down on theopposition press before the scheduled March elections.

In countries with a modicum of press freedom, officialsalso create bureaucratic excuses to keep critical outlets shut-tered. For the third year in a row, Armenian authorities denieda broadcasting license to the independent TV channel A1+, aconsistent critic of the president.

Public Information Kept SecretPeople need access to the basic details of public life to makethoughtful decisions about their governments. But in the post-9/11 world, ready access to information is becoming more dif-ficult. Even the United States has reclassified entire swaths ofinformation once considered public and has made other recordsarduous and time-consuming to obtain.

One hopeful sign came in 2003, when Mexico passed a lawallowing citizens to both request information about publicofficials’ salaries, government contracts, internal reports, andthe use of public money, and punish those officials who refuseto comply. The law is not perfect—some information can beheld for up to 12 years—but it is a positive step that hasallowed vital stories to come to light. n

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Along with its bloody, six-year-old conflict withChechen separatists, the Kremlin has waged a bru-tally effective information war using repressive

policies, restrictive rules, subtle censorship, and outrightattacks on journalists, a year-long analysis by the Com-mittee to Protect Journalists has found. This ongoing gov-ernmental campaign, CPJ research shows, has includeddozens of serious cases of harassment, threats, abduction,obstruction, and assaults against journalists since the sec-ond Chechen war began in August 1999.

The campaign has suppressed independent reportingand obscured the conflict’s steadily rising death toll, whichis now well into the tens of thousands. The sort of criticalnews coverage that weakened the Russian public’s supportfor the first Chechen war a decade ago—including reportsof civilian casualties and human rights violations by Russ-ian forces—has been virtually erased from national televi-sion and significantly curtailed in other domestic and inter-national media during the current conflict.

“Ask the average person on the street what they knowabout Chechnya and they will say there are bandits there, awater park is being built, and Ksenia Sobchak comes to visitin a miniskirt,” said Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, describ-ing pervasively superficial reporting that mixes war coveragewith feel-good doses of a club-hopping socialite.

President Vladimir Putin, the former Federal SecurityService (FSB) chief who took office in 1999, has been a

beneficiary of this two-front war. The Kremlin has burnished

22 Fall | Winter 2004

his image as a strong leader while demonizing the Chechenrebels as terrorists. “Chechnya is the president’s personalproject,” said Aleksei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the inde-pendent radio station Ekho Moskvy. “He chose the model ofdealing with it—the ‘Chechenization’ of the conflict, pitting‘good’ Chechens against ‘bad’ Chechens.”

From the onset of the second war, the Media Ministryprohibited the major Russian television networks from air-ing interviews or footage of the militant leaders and blockedmost newspaper coverage of the rebel leadership. The banwas the first sign that the Kremlin would not tolerate a rep-etition of the Russian media’s role in influencing publicopinion in its battle with separatists. During the first cam-paign in 1994-96, independent broadcast media such asNTV showed graphic images of the enormous human losses,while reporters risked their lives to present the Chechenside of the story.

But in 1999, few Russian journalists successfully resis-ted the Media Ministry’s interview rules or the Russian mili-tary’s severe travel restrictions. Only approved journalistsare permitted into the war zone—and only accompanied bya military escort.

“During the first war, journalists basically just got theiraccreditation and had complete freedom of movementthroughout Chechnya,” said Lyoma Turpalov, editor-in-chiefof Groznensky Rabochy, which is based in the neighboringrepublic of Ingushetia. “Now you can only go with a militaryescort, access to interviewing civilians is totally restricted …and journalists are very vulnerable, so they are forced tocensor themselves.”

Musa Muradov, a Chechen journalist working for theindependent Moscow daily Kommersant, said many jour-nalists are torn between their desire to report objectivelyon the conflict and their desire to avoid state persecution.

Rebels and ReportersFor the Kremlin,

the Chechen war has

two flanks.

By Alex Lupis

With reporting by

Sophia Kishkovsky

Alex Lupis is senior program coordinator for the Europe &Central Asia Program at the Committee to Protect Journalists.He conducted two missions to Russia in 2004.

A Russian helicopter flies above the Chechen village of Benoi. Russian policies have severely restricted press coverage of the conflict, leaving the public uninformed.

AP

Photo

/Musa

Sadula

yev

“The picture of developments in Chechnya is poorbecause it is difficult to talk to representatives of the otherside … and if you do it, it’s hard to present their point ofview because you will be seen as helping terrorists,”Muradov said. “So most Russians are limited to reading andwatching news that is coming from official sources.”

State media often exploit Russians’ historical animositytoward Chechens. “Russians think of ‘bandits,’ ‘terrorists,’and ‘separatists’ when they think of Chechens—and thegovernment tries to solidify this image on RTR and NTV,”Turpalov said, referring to the state-controlled national tele-vision channels. “They always emphasize when a crime sus-pect is Chechen.”

This antipathy, coupled with widespread war fatigueamong Russians, has left little public thirst for inquisitivereporting. “The public is simply tired of this war,” said YuriBagrov, a journalist based in North Ossetia who has report-ed for The Associated Press and Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty (RFE/RL). Only when violence spills into anotherrepublic, he said, is pubic apathy shaken.

Press officers at the Kremlin and the FSB did not respondto written questions submitted by CPJ seeking comment

on their media policies. Publicly, the Kremlin justifies travelrestrictions by pointing to the reporters who were kidnappedby criminal groups during Chechnya’s period of de factoindependence from 1996 to 1999. Yet Russian forces havethemselves targeted journalists during this second war.

Andrei Babitsky, a Russian covering Chechnya forRFE/RL, found himself in the Kremlin’s crosshairs after dis-obeying travel restrictions. Babitsky disappeared in mid-January 2000 while on assignment in the Chechen capital,Grozny. After two weeks of Kremlin denials—and growinginternational pressure—officials in Moscow admitted thatRussian forces were holding the reporter in a nearby deten-tion camp. Several more weeks of confusion and contra-dictory reports followed, during which Russian soldiershanded Babitsky over to a group of Chechen rebels, thenplanted false identity papers on him and arrested him.When Babitsky was finally released at the end of February2000, the Kremlin called him a traitor for reporting on mil-itary operations.

In a more mysterious case in July 2003, unidentifiedgunmen seized Agence France-Presse correspondent AliAstamirov just outside Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia.Before he disappeared, Astamirov had endured months ofpolice and FSB harassment. No ransom was ever requested,and local journalists and human rights activists told CPJthey suspected that security forces loyal to the Kremlinwere responsible. The government has dismissed suchspeculation, but has reported no progress in solving thedisappearance.

“During the second war, bureaucrats and the security serv-ices became much more interested in journalists like Babitsky


Cold War Tactics

Drugging and Detention: Beslan cases

reminiscent of Soviet practices.

By Sophia Kishkovsky

With reporting by Alex Lupis

M O S C O W

Georgian television reporter Nana Lezhava spentthree brutal days covering the horrors of theBeslan school siege, interviewing grief-stricken

families and trying to find some truth amid the dizzyingarray of official deception. Yet her own ordeal was justabout to begin.

On September 4, the Federal Security Service (FSB),the successor agency to the KGB, detained Lezhava andcameraman Levan Tetvadze on a specious border viola-

tion for five days. Lezhavawas interrogated, tried,subjected to an involun-tary gynecological exam,and slipped a dose of apsychotropic drug.

“They asked me if Itaste cognac in the cof-fee,” she said in a recentinterview, matter-of-factlyrecounting details thatseemed drawn from aCold War-era spy novel.“They said they gave someto me because I was socold. I don’t rememberanything after that. When

I came to, it was 24 hours later and I was in an FSBdetention cell.”

The government’s use of spetsoperatsii—covert, KGB-style special operations—to silence independent jour-nalists has become a disturbing development in today’sRussia, especially when it comes to the conflict inChechnya. Nowhere was the practice more evident than

Sophia Kishkovsky has lived and worked in Russiasince 1991. She has written for The New York Times, TheWall Street Journal Europe, and other publications on poli-tics, culture, religion, and freedom of the press in post-Soviet Russia.

Nana Lezhava returns toGeorgia after five days ofdetention in Russia, duringwhich she was interrogatedand drugged.

Rust

avi

2


in the North Ossetian town of Beslan; more than a dozenjournalists reported being obstructed or detained whiletrying to cover the deadly hostage crisis there.

Among journalists, poisonings and bogus detentionsbring to mind Soviet-era cases such as the notorious1978 murder of exiled Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov,who was felled in London by a hit man firing a poisonpellet from an umbrella. Investigators said the KGBhelped Bulgarian agents carry out the assassination.Eight years later, Soviet agents planted secret docu-ments on Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow correspondent forU.S. News & World Report, and then detained him for twoweeks while they bargained for the release of a Sovietagent being held in New York.

The FSB and the Kremlin did not respond to writtenquestions submitted by the Committee to Protect Jour-nalists about Lezhava or other Beslan cases.

Reporting for Rustavi-2, Lezhava and Tetvadze crossedthe border on September 1 without difficulty and

soon went on the air with a live feed, saying that the num-ber of hostages was around 1,400—a figure far higher andmore accurate than the official estimate of 354.

By September 4, after the crisis had exploded in vio-lence that left hundreds dead, Lezhava and other jour-nalists were interviewing hysterical relatives who weredesperate to cut through the bureaucratic chaos andlearn whether their missing children were dead or alive.An observer who identified himself as an employee ofthe Russian Foreign Ministry, which accredits journalistsfor work in Russia and keeps track of their coverage, sin-gled out Lezhava.

“He told me, ‘You are a very active lady,’” sherecalled, an observation that still surprises her. “I can’timagine a journalist who is not active. What kind ofjournalist are you if you are not active and interested inwhat is happening?”

The ministry representative summoned the FSB.Lezhava and Tetvadze were detained—first in Beslanand then in Vladikavkaz—and their camera, phones, cas-settes, microphone, and other equipment were seized.They were accused of illegally crossing the border. WhileGeorgians and Russians need visas to visit each other,Lezhava and Tetvadze are registered in Kazbegi, a Geor-gian border district whose residents carry passportinserts known as vkladyshi that give them the right tospend 10 days in Russia without a visa.

But in the custody of the FSB, Lezhava said, “Theinserts simply disappeared. They took them and stolethem.” So the two were tried on the border violation andLezhava’s medical exam was administered, she said, onthe pretense that it was required before entering an FSBprison. Lezhava remembers little after being drugged,which apparently happened when seemingly solicitoussecurity agents served her coffee and sandwiches.

By September 8, amid a growing international out-cry, an FSB general came from Moscow. Apologies weremade, a television camera brought in, and the two wereinstructed to say that they hadn’t been tortured or hurt.Lezhava and Tetvadze were allowed to pay a fine andtaken to the border where Georgian officials met them.

Lezhava was examined by doctors upon her return toTbilisi. Gela Lezhava, chairman of the supervisory boardof the Narcology Research Institute, said traces of a drug

AP/

Ivan

Sekr

etar

ev

Mourners weepover the coffinsof hostageskilled in theBeslan schoolsiege.


from the benzodiazepine group were found in her sys-tem, the Kavkasia-Press news agency reported. Georgia’sHealth and Social Security Minister Lado Chipashvili alsosaid traces of a psychotropic substance were present.

Lezhava was hospitalized for five days and sufferedfrom frequent headaches. When she recounted theevents in a telephone interview six months later, she wasworking again and had just returned from an assign-ment in the Pankissi Gorge enclave between Chechnyaand Georgia, where she reported on Chechen refugees’reactions to the killing of rebel leader Aslan Maskhadovby Russian security forces.

CPJ and others have documented additional cases ofobstruction and retaliation involving Beslan. Amr

Abdul Hamid, Moscow bureau chief of the Dubai-basedsatellite television channel Al-Arabiya, was detainedwhile returning from Beslan; Raf Shakirov, editor-in-chief of the leading daily Izvestia, was forced out afterhis paper’s critical coverage of the siege. But the cases oftwo prominent war correspondents, Andrei Babitsky andAnna Politkovskaya, have drawn particular attention.

Babitsky, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty jour-nalist famous for his coverage of Chechnya, was pulledoff a September 2 flight that was to have taken him fromthe Vnukovo Airport to Mineralniye Vody. He thenplanned to travel on to Beslan.

But Babitsky was told traces of explosives werefound on his checked luggage. By the time the luggagewas reinspected and cleared, the flight had left and twoyoung strangers had come upon the scene. The mendemanded Babitsky buy them beer and followed himwhen he refused. When voices were raised, the airportpolice descended and detained Babitsky on a charge of“hooliganism.”

While all three were in custody, Babitsky recalled inan interview, the men acknowledged that they workedfor the airport’s parking-lot security and had beeninstructed by a security chief to provoke a fight. Babitsky,who eventually paid a fine of about $34, never made itto Beslan. He describes the whole episode as “very Sovietin character.”

The case of Anna Politkovskaya is more mysterious.The Novaya Gazeta newspaper reporter, whose searingstories about Chechnya have won her internationalacclaim, was also on her way to Beslan on September 2.After drinking tea on a flight to Rostov-on-Don,Politkovskaya became violently ill and lost conscious-ness. She, too, never made it to the school siege, althoughthe cause of her illness has not been determined.

Politkovskaya has declined to talk about her case, butNovaya Gazeta Editor Dmitry Muratov said he is convincedshe was poisoned to prevent her from getting to Beslan. “Allthese cases,” Muratov said ruefully, “are very strange.” n

and Astamirov,” Bagrov said. “What happened to them was alesson to others that it’s not worth it to do your job.”

A Moscow-based Western correspondent, who said hetravels covertly to Chechnya to report on the war, calledsecurity conditions appalling for everyone. “It’s completelylawless. People are still disappearing at night at the handsof armed men,” said the journalist, who spoke on the con-dition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.

Local journalists living in and around Chechnya alsoface intense bureaucratic harassment and obstruction. “It’sa problem getting the most basic information from gov-ernment officials,” said Timur Aliyev, editor-in-chief ofChechenskoye Obshchestvo, which is based in Ingushetia forsecurity reasons. But access to information is just one prob-lem for the independent weekly; local officials angered byits reporting on abuses by Russian forces have waged anongoing campaign of bureaucratic pressure and censorshipagainst the newspaper.

Authorities in Ingushetia, complying with a requestfrom Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, shut ChechenskoyeObshchestvo for the month prior to Chechnya’s August 2004presidential elections. The government newspaper distrib-utor cancelled the newspaper’s contract, making for “a verycomplicated situation,” Aliyev said.

Journalists from other parts of Russia also face greatscrutiny. In January, the FSB launched a criminal investiga-tion of Pravo-Zashchita, an independent newspaper basedin the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod, after it pub-lished remarks by rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and hisenvoy, Akhmed Zakayev, that called for a peaceful resolu-tion to the conflict. Federal authorities issued an officialwarning to Kommersant for publishing an interview withMaskhadov in February. The next month, Russian forceskilled Maskhadov.

The tactics in Chechnya reflect the Kremlin’s overallmedia strategy, which employs nearly a dozen govern-

ment agencies at local, national, and international levels tostifle criticism. Television is a focal point.

“When Putin came to power he knew exactly what hewanted to do, and that was to control national television,”said Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Cen-ter. National television is far and away the dominant sourceof news for Russians. Lipman said that projecting an imageof strength and stability on TV screens nationwide is centralto Putin’s political strategy—to the point of becoming anend in itself.

A series of political appointments to the country’sinfluential state broadcasters, Channel One (ORT) and RTR,have ensured pro-Putin editorial policies. Independent sta-tions have been shuttered by the government or swal-lowed up by pro-government businesses. The state gasmonopoly Gazprom carried out a hostile takeover ofnational television channel NTV in 2001. A court order


These restrictive policies have led to widespread publicignorance about the crime, government corruption,

military incompetence, and human rights abuses thatplague government efforts in Chechnya. The September2004 hostage-taking in Beslan surprised many Russians,who had been told by the country’s three state-controllednational television channels that life in the republic wasreturning to normal.

“The media are an important political instrument for thegovernment …but trust in the media is falling and I don’tthink the Kremlin is paying attention to this at all,” said OlgaKarabanova, director of the Moscow-based Press Develop-ment Institute.

Shylov offered a similar view. “People no longer see tele-vision as a source of information,” he said. “People who readnewspapers and the Internet know that on television youget the official line.”

Putin’s tactics raise broader questions about his willing-ness to tackle sensitive issues such as government corrup-tion, human rights abuses, organized crime, AIDS, and thetrafficking of drugs, weapons, and humans. “The lack ofaccountability is a big problem,” Lipman said. “In the shortrun, Putin has politics, but not the country, under his control.”

For his part, Babitsky said that “these are not Soviettimes” and that the press still has some latitude for criticismof the government. But he added, “We don’t know how farPutin is ready to go, and the distance he’s gone is significant.”The damage now is not measured by “closed newspapers orclosed political parties,” Babitsky said, but by the number ofdead in Chechnya—the terrible cost of a story that goesuntold in Russia. n

closed TV-6 in 2002, and the Media Ministry pulled TVS offthe air in 2003.

“It’s because of television’s big role in ensuring (formerPresident) Boris Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996 that the Krem-lin is so concerned about what is on the television screens,”said Andrei Shylov, a reporter on NTV’s popular Sundaynews program “Namedni” until it was yanked off the air in2004 in response to Kremlin pressure. In quick successionthat year, the Kremlin purged national television of virtual-ly every substantive current affairs show and independent-minded news host.

The Kremlin has long tried to shape international newscoverage by denying visas and accreditation to foreign cor-respondents, but in recent months it has stepped up pres-sure on foreign governments as well. Russian diplomatshave pressed several Baltic and Central European countriesto shut down the pro-Chechen news Web site KavkazCenter;which the Kremlin calls a “terrorist” site even though bothWestern and Russian journalists rely on it as one of the fewsources of breaking news from the region.

In February, Russian diplomats unsuccessfully urgedBritish authorities to censor an interview with rebel leaderShamil Basayev on the independent television station Chan-nel 4. The next month, they criticized the Swedish govern-ment for allowing the independent news agency TT to pub-lish an interview with Basayev.

Radio journalist Andrei Babitsky speaks to the media afterbeing questioned by Russian investigators in 2000. Babitskywas detained by Russian forces and called a traitor whilereporting in Chechnya.

AP

/Max

imM

arm

ur

Chechnya by the Numbers

Since the second Chechen war began in 1999, CPJ hasdocumented dozens of cases of press abuse. Many moreabuses go unreported, often because journalists arefearful that publicity will draw unwanted governmentattention. Here is a numerical snapshot of the worstcases involving journalists, as documented by CPJ staff.

Deaths: 7Includes deaths in crossfire and two targeted killingsblamed on rebels

Censorship, legal actions: 20Direct government actions designed to suppress reporting

Harassment: 33Other government actions intended to hinder reporting

Abductions: 5Kidnappings by armed groups

Imprisonments: 8Detentions by Russian forces or government officials


At 10:25 a.m. on February 1,King Gyanendra of Nepal deliv-ered a stunning proclama-

tion—Nepal's multi-party governmenthad been dismissed and a state ofemergency declared. Simultaneously,telephone lines across the countrywere cut, mobile phone service dis-continued, and fax and Internet con-nections shut down. Backed by theRoyal Nepalese Army, the king seizedstate television and radio, placed thecountry’s political leaders under housearrest, and silenced the press with mil-itary occupations of major mediahouses and wide bans on reporting.

In the silence that followed, a sur-prising thing happened.

The king was unable to shut offNepal from the rest of the world.Rather, in the days after the coup,smuggled e-mails, clandestine Websites, and the unlikely emergence of ahandful of Nepalese bloggers threw thegovernment and independent journal-ists into a cat-and-mouse chase. Theking’s unintentional result: Whileattempting to plunge Nepal into a com-munications dark age, he spawned asmall legion of online journalists.

Shortly after the announcement,Tara Nath Dahal, president of the

Federation of Nepalese Journalists(FNJ) emerged from his home to find

the streets deserted. When he arrivedat the umbrella organization’s build-ing, “no journalists had come to theoffice for fear of arrest,” he said in aCPJ interview. Resolved to take astand against the king’s curtailment ofNepal’s hard-won press freedom,Dahal met with FNJ General SecretaryBishnu Nisthuri and decided to riskarrest by writing a statement thatwould condemn the king’s actions andboost the morale of his colleagues.

“The royal announcement madeyesterday, by ending the spirit andvalue of the constitution of Nepal, is acoup against democracy and peoples’rights,” the explosive first sentenceread. The following morning, Dahalmet with other central committeemembers of the FNJ and secretlyprinted out the statement.

Now came the hard part—distribu-tion. Without telephone, fax, e-mail, orInternet, the statement was deliveredto international nongovernmentalorganizations, diplomatic offices, mediahouses, and foreign journalists bybicycle and motorcycle couriers. With-in hours, it had been photocopiedcountless times. Soon, it was translatedinto English, and, via satellite connec-tions accessible to diplomats and for-eign journalists, an electronic versionappeared in in-boxes across the world.

Dahal went into hiding. Whensecurity forces surrounded his houseand harassed his family, Nisthuriwrote and distributed a statementcalling attention to the treatment ofthe FNJ president. On February 4, itwas Nisthuri who was arrested.

In those initial days, the coupseemed to generate little national

protest. Racked by a civil conflictbetween Maoist rebels and the gov-ernment, Nepal had been run down byviolence. Faith in political parties hadbeen compromised by corruption.Some Nepalese believed that theking’s drastic actions were in order;many feared that dissent would meanarrest. And in a poor country whereonly about 80,000 of 27 million citi-zens are regular Internet users, whereilliteracy is high and phone lines don’treach large swaths of the mountains, acommunications blackout isn’t a life-changing event for many people.

O N T H E W E B

Out of the Silence

When Nepal’s King Gyanendra switched off the news, reporters switched tactics.

By Kristin Jones

Kristin Jones is research associate forCPJ’s Asia program.

Bishnu Nisthuri, general secretary of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists,publicized government harassment ofhis colleague’s family—and was arrestedfor his efforts.

Feder

atio

nof

Nep

ales

eJo

urn

alis

ts

Dinesh Wagle, an arts reporter forNepal’s major daily Kantipur and apioneering Nepalese blogger, wasentirely absent from the blogosphereduring the first week of the coup. TheInternet remained down until Febru-ary 8, and he lacked access to expen-sive satellite connections. Regardless,his United We Blog! (UWB, www.blog.com.np), had rarely dealt with politics.The site was primarily an English-language diary with threads on music,parties, and the media.

But when Internet communicationresumed, Kantipur and all other mediaoutlets were still barred from anyreporting “that goes against the letterand the spirit of the royal proclama-tion.” So, while the king’s army disman-tled community radio and choked dis-sent in the country’s Nepali-languagepublications, the Web site posted itsnew motto: “United We Blog! wantsPeace and Democracy [to] be restoredin Nepal as soon as possible.”

Wagle’s colleagues began to seethe blog in a new light, he said. “Eventhose folks at Kantipur who didn’tread my blogs or simply ignored themare now following daily,” he wrote inan e-mail to CPJ. “Political reportersalso share info with me that they can’twrite in Kantipur.” The site providedextensive, street-level coverage ofpolitical protests and reports on thearrests of colleagues. Interest soared,both inside and outside of Nepal.

The king restored communicationswith a caveat: security forces couldmonitor and block media outlets asthey saw fit. Were online journalistsputting themselves at risk? Wagleadmitted that there were submissionshe would not post—for example, state-ments calling for an end to the monar-chy. Radio Free Nepal, another blogthat emerged after the coup, postedcomments anonymously in order toprotect contributors.

By April, these two blogs hadescaped direct government censorship,but other news Web sites such as theNepali Post, a Washington, D.C.-basedNepali-language online magazine, had


been targeted. Editor Girish Pokhrelsaid that the government blocked theWeb site in Nepal shortly after theresumption of Internet service.

Despite its resolve, the Nepalesegovernment may not have the

resources for sophisticated Internetsurveillance and blocking. Pokhrelfound that readers in Nepal soonaccessed the site through overseasproxy servers, which retrieve Web sitecontents on the user’s behalf. Whenthose proxy servers were blocked,readers found new ones.

Newslook, a U.S.-based English-lan-guage Web site that culls internationalheadlines, saw its readership in Nepalmultiply by five during the month ofFebruary. Editor Dharma Adhikari, aNepal-born journalism professor atGeorgia Southern University, told CPJthat the number of hits from Nepaldropped by only 10 percent when thegovernment blocked the site aroundFebruary 23. Somehow users were find-ing a way to get through.

For the most part, Nepaleseauthorities showed greater tolerancefor critical commentary in onlinenews sources than in print publica-tions, and allowed more freedom inEnglish-language media than in Nepali-language media. In a country wherethe Internet is prohibitively expensive

and most people do not speak Eng-lish, the government may not haveviewed most online journalism as athreat. Internet journalists, in general,were not in a position to report on thepolitical conflict that raged in thecountry’s rural areas. On the otherhand, the king’s post-coup directivesstruck at the heart of community radio,a primary source of information forthe many Nepalese who are illiterate.Independent newscasts were banned,and reports on the Maoist insurgencywere restricted.

As Nepalese began to report elec-tronically to the world, however, theworld responded. The internationaloutcry over the imprisonment ofNisthuri helped to win his release onFebruary 25. Though under pressurefrom the government, Dahal evadedarrest and teamed with other advocatesto launch the Web site Press FreedomNepal (www.pressfreedomnepal.org),which posts press freedom violationsand relevant news. The fight for theInternet is not over, but Newslook edi-tor Adhikari pointed out the greatesthope for budding online journalists.

“Censoring the ’Net is not that easy,”he observed. Even for an absolutemonarch. n

For updates on the press freedom crisisin Nepal, visit www.cpj.org.

The day after King Gyanendracut off communication betweenNepal and the rest of the world,Nepalese soldiers guard thestreets of Kathmandu.

AP

/Eliz

abet

hD

alzi

el

remained relatively silent on the issueof Lebanon. Journalists complainedthat the government was clampingdown on the flow of information. Syriannewscasts didn’t air Lebanese opposi-tion protests, and Syrian newspapersfailed to print a single article criticalof the country’s statements and poli-cies. Criticism of Syria’s presence inLebanon was confined to Gulf andLebanese newspapers.

“The Syrian media did not knowwhat to do with Hariri’s death,” said al-Baba, seated this day at a smoke-filledcoffee shop in Cham Palace, a popularhangout for Syrian intellectuals, jour-nalists and, of course, mukhabarat.“They did not show what was happen-


DAMASCUS, Syria

For more than four decades, thepowerful and ever-looming secu-rity apparatus known as

mukhabarat was a bright, unwaveringred line. Any Syrian journalist whodared criticize the secret police didso in the Lebanese or internationalpress—or not at all. So when journalistHakam al-Baba criticized mukhabaratlast fall for invasion of privacy andother offenses—in the government-rundaily Tishreen, no less—his story drewplenty of attention.

Some journalists cited the story asevidence that a small measure of freespeech had become acceptable in Syriain the last two years. “The concept ofthe forbidden is now debatable andthat is a huge step,” said Ziad Haidar,correspondent for As-Safir newspaperin Damascus.

The appointment of MehdiDakhlallah, former editor of the BaathParty newspaper Al-Baath, as informa-tion minister in September 2004 alsogave journalists hopes of real mediareform. Dakhlallah, the first ministerin 20 years to have worked as a jour-nalist, has written openly about theneed for democratic change.

Yet recent Syrian history also sug-gests that the promise of a freer press

often collides with the reality of thecountry’s authoritarian regime. Fiveyears ago, President Bashar al-Assadseemed to usher in freer expressionduring the “Damascus Spring”—only toclamp down a year later with restric-tive media laws and a series of arrests.

Now, as Syria struggles with itsloss of influence in Lebanon, the Syrianpress appears constrained by that his-tory of repression. So while some Syrianjournalists are challenging the prohi-bitions known as red lines, many arefearful about pushing too far.

After the assassination of formerLebanese Prime Minister Rafik

Hariri in mid-February, the Syrian press

D I S P A T C H E S

The Thin Red Line

Syrian journalists push boundaries, but uncertainty, fear remain.

By Rhonda Roumani

Rhonda Roumani is a freelance jour-nalist based in Damascus and a formerjournalist with the Beirut-based DailyStar.

Lebanese protesters in Beirut wave anti-Syrian banners during a March broadcast of a speech by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syrian journalists are challenginggovernment restrictions but still shy from covering sensitive events such as this.

AP

ing in Lebanon. When they reportedthat [Lebanese Prime Minister] OmarKarami’s government resigned, theymade no mention of the opposition.”

Intense international pressure hasheightened Syrian nationalism andmade journalists’ jobs more difficult.Instead of building on the momentumto critique government actions, themedia has reverted to a defensive style,according to analysts and journalists.

“Syria has felt itself under a lot ofpressure. So it felt like it needed toreturn to an old way of doing journal-ism,” said Salam Kawakibi, a media ana-lyst for the French Institute for the Mid-dle East and great-grandson of Abdul-Rahman Kawakibi, a Syrian intellectualwho promoted democratic change.

Salim Brahim, a reporter for TheAssociated Press, put the blame onthe “mentality of fear until now. …The mindset is not ready to take all ofthis openness, especially the mindsetof government employees and gov-ernment journalists.”

Ironically, al-Baba’s story was prompt-ed by an article in the Lebanese paper

Al Nahar that offered surprisingly posi-tive comments about Syrian securityforces. The author, Syrian journalist

Nabil Fayyad, recounted the month he’djust spent in prison, where he’d beenheld under suspicion of being afounder of a group called the LiberalDiscourse Club. In his article, Fayyadpraised the security forces for the“moral and civilized treatment” hereceived while jailed.

Al-Baba mocked the communiquéin his published retort, noting thatFayyad failed to mention that the secu-rity services had invaded his privacyby searching his house and workplacebefore taking him to his “five-star

security hotel.” Red-haired and gruff,al-Baba said Tishreen agreed to publishthe article only if he would remove asegment in which he likened Fayyad toa prisoner who learned to thank hisguards for his salvation.

“I agreed to publish in Tishreenbecause it is important to talk aboutthis subject in the Syrian media,which has not addressed the topic in42 years,” al-Baba said. He publishedthe article in its entirety in theLebanese newspaper An-Nahar—andsaid that Tishreen has since refused topublish any of his work.

Past promises of greater opennessin Syria have gone unfulfilled.

Despite al-Assad’s pledges of reform,“Damascus Spring” came to an abruptend in 2001, when 10 activists andmembers of Parliament were jailedand Decree 50 established Syria’s newprint law. Although this new lawallowed for the creation of privatepublications, many saw it as a stepbackward from its 1949 predecessor.

The 2001 law prohibits publica-tions from running any news that“hurts the national security and socialunity” and the “dignity of the state.” Forprinting “false information,” a journalist

can face a three-year prison term—upfrom the one-year term in the previ-ous law. Coverage of the army andthe ministry of defense is off-limits.The prime minister approves all newpublications and can suspend a publi-cation without reason. The informa-tion minister can ban any publicationthat “harms the national sovereigntyor disturbs the peace and contradictspublic morals.”

“You are always afraid that anyarticle you write might be some sortof violation,” said Ibrahim Hamidi,

who was imprisoned for six months in2003 after he published an article inAl-Hayat that described the Syriangovernment’s plan to accept Iraqirefugees during the onset of the U.S.invasion of Iraq. “When the red linesare not clear, it is dangerous.”

In the last two years, more than100 new private publications—mostof them social, cultural, and trade mag-azines—have been granted licenses.Only one is a political publication, Blackand White, owned by Bilal Tourekmani,son of Syria’s defense minister. Blackand White has tackled sensitive sub-jects such as Syria’s emergency law, butobservers say Tourekmani is able to doso only because of an unofficial immu-nity granted to people of his status.

Dakhlallah said a committee is nowin the process of reviewing and

amending Syria’s print law, but he isuncertain when its work will be com-pleted. And changing the law, he said,is just one step in promoting greateropenness.

“Compared to what used to bebroadcast in the Syrian media, wehave made some progress,” saidDakhlallah, noting that the Syrianmedia has published articles criticiz-ing the regime and included opposi-tion figures in some television newsprograms. “Am I satisfied with whathas been achieved until now? Theanswer is: No, I am not.”

Hamidi, like other Syrian journal-ists, said that continuing uncertaintyover what is allowed—and what is not—breeds self-censorship. At a recentdemonstration organized by opposi-tion figures to protest the emergencylaw, few Syrian journalists could befound in the crowd. Hamidi said herefused to cover the protest because ofhis fear that he would be accused of try-ing to harm the government.

“Yes, maybe now the ceiling ishigher, maybe the red lines are lessand the margin is wider,” Hamidi said.“But the regime succeeded in puttingthe red lines in our minds and thattakes a long time to change.” n


As Syria struggles with its loss of influence in

Lebanon, the Syrian press appears constrained by

a history of repression.


Sun Zhigang, a young graphicdesigner from Hubei Province,was arrested on the streets of

Guangzhou in March 2003 for not car-rying a required registration permit.Police brought him to a “custody andrepatriation” center, one of the hun-dreds of detention facilities run by localgovernments to control migrant popu-lations. Three days later, Sun was dead.

Reporters from Nanfang Dushi Bao(Southern Metropolis News), an aggres-sive daily run by groundbreaking edi-tor Cheng Yizhong, soon discoveredan official autopsy report that foundSun had been beaten to death in cus-tody. Though well aware that a storyon the autopsy would infuriate localofficials, Cheng gave the go-ahead topublish it anyway. The article touchedoff a national scandal that led toimportant government reforms. Buttrue to the nature of contemporaryChinese society—where emerging free-

market forces regularly collide withauthoritarian traditions—it also landedCheng and three colleagues in prison.

The ensuing court battle became aprominent example of an emergingmovement in China known as weiquanin which lawyers and legal scholars aremore assertively defending the consti-tutional rights of individuals, includ-ing journalists, in court. The defensein the Nanfang Dushi Bao case ulti-mately won the release of Cheng and

another defendant and secured short-er prison terms for others. But wei-quan’s gains are modest thus far—andthe government has shown only themost limited tolerance for its goals.

“The emergence and developmentof the weiquan movement reflects theawakening and ongoing maturation ofChinese civil society,” says ZhangWeiguo, a former journalist in China

who now runs the New Century NetWeb site, which has covered manyrecent weiquan cases. “Journalists andlawyers from all over the country tookon the Nanfang Dushi Bao case as anexample of weiquan and that had a biginfluence on the outcome.”

Immediately after Nanfang DushiBao broke the Sun story on April 25,

2003, newspapers and Web sitesthroughout China republished the

account, chat rooms and bulletinboards exploded with outrage, andlegal experts intensified calls for theabolition of the abuse-ridden “custodyand repatriation” centers. In June 2003,the central government announcedthat all of the more than 800 centerswould be closed. Six police officersand officials were jailed for their rolein Sun’s death.

The Rise of Rights?

In China, weiquan advocates find success is

tempered by harsh reality.

By Sophie Beach

C O R R E S P O N D E N T S

The arrests of the top managers at one of the

country’s most popular newspapers sent shock

waves through the journalism community.

Sophie Beach is editor of China DigitalTimes Web log and a former seniorresearch associate for CPJ’s Asia pro-gram. She led a CPJ mission to Guang-dong in 2004.

Cheng Yizhong, the editor of Nanfang Dushi Bao, was arrested in March 2004 after exposing the fatal beating of a man in detention.

Reu

ters

The positive outcome was a rareexample of the Chinese media andpublic opinion exerting powerfulinfluence over society. But local gov-ernments, which control all localmedia, including Nanfang Dushi Bao,wield considerable power in China.Within a year, Cheng and three othertop officials from the paper werebehind bars.

In late 2003, local authorities inGuangzhou, capital of Guangdong,China’s richest province, began inves-tigating the finances of the newspa-per. Journalists’ salaries in China arenotoriously low, and like many mediaorganizations in China today, thepaper had a practice of rewardinggood journalists with generousbonuses. In December 2003, generalmanager Yu Huafeng was arrested onsuspicion of corruption for transfer-ring 580,000 renminbi (US $70,000)from the advertising department tomembers of the editorial committee.

On March 19, 2004, Yu was con-victed of corruption and embezzlingpublic funds and sentenced to 12years in jail. Li Minying, an officialwith the Southern Daily Group, thepaper’s parent company, was sen-tenced to 11 years for allegedlyaccepting a bribe from Yu. The sameday, Cheng was arrested while on atrip to Sichuan Province. Policesearched his house and confiscated anumber of political books and maga-zines. Vice Editor Deng Haiyan wasalso arrested.

The arrests of the top manage-ment at one of the country’s mostpopular and profitable newspaperssent shock waves through the journal-ism community in China. A formereditor at another popular Guangzhou-based newspaper, who spoke on con-dition of anonymity due to his fears ofreprisal, called the arrests “the mostserious blow to the Chinese media inthe last decade.”

For many, Nanfang Dushi Bao rep-resented the new face of the media inChina. Launched by the Southern DailyGroup as a profit-generating tabloid

partner to their staid mainstay, NafangRibao (Southern Daily), the paper had acirculation of 1.4 million and $20 mil-lion in profits in 2003. Cheng waswidely respected in the journalism com-munity for his pioneering approach,which featured tabloid-style reports onsports and entertainment combinedwith muckraking investigations intolocal officialdom.

Moreover, the evidence of corrup-tion presented in the case was uncon-vincing to many observers. The activ-ities that had put Yu, Li, Deng, andCheng under suspicion were commonpractice in newsrooms around thecountry, including China Central Tele-

vision, the central government’s ownbroadcasting arm, several Chinesejournalists told CPJ. Many journalistsknew the arrests were likely local offi-cials’ retaliation for the paper’s cover-age of Sun’s case—along with itsreporting on the resurgence of SARSin the province and other sensitivepolitical topics.

In response, journalists launched anunprecedented campaign to win the

release of their colleagues. Theysigned petitions on the Internet, wroteletters to the management of theSouthern Daily Group, and protestedto local authorities.


Sun Zhigang’s family grieves as his killers are sentenced. Cheng Yizhong’s newspaperuncovered the truth about Sun’s death.

Reu

ters

Lawyer Xu Zhiyong, an advocatefor legal reforms who has taken on anumber of politically sensitive cases,agreed to defend the Nanfang DushiBao journalists. Xu had been among agroup of lawyers who successfullypetitioned the government for theabolition of the “custody and repatri-ation” centers following Sun’s death.

Xu became one of the strongestpublic advocates for the journalists,helping establish a Web site, the OpenConstitutional Initiative, which postedimportant documents about the casealong with articles by legal scholarscalling for their release. He held apublic conference in Beijing to dis-cuss the case and explain the defensearguments.

Like-minded lawyers pointed tothe case as an example of China’s fail-ure to reform into a country ruled bylaw. Specifically, they cited a consti-tutional amendment adopted by theNational People’s Congress in 2004that protects private property. Theyargued that since the money that Yuhad disbursed was taken from thepaper’s advertising revenue, it couldnot be counted as “public funds” eventhough Southern Daily Group, theparent company, was a state-ownedcorporation. In a document sent tolocal officials in Guangdong, severalwell-known legal scholars said thecharges against the journalists “don’tgo with the facts, don’t fit the law,and are not valid.”

While such outspokenness is oftendangerous in China, where the gov-ernment views any political dissentas a hostile act, these lawyers werepartially empowered by the growingweiquan—“defend rights”—movement.The concept of weiquan has helpeddefine a growing consciousness ofconstitutional rights among scholars,lawyers, dissidents, and others. Theirdemands for the rule of law, mostoften expressed in online forums,have largely escaped official censurebecause they often address issuesfalling within the government’s ownevolving policies—such as legal

reform, anticorruption efforts, andthe movement against “custody andrepatriation” centers.

“In human rights cases that are nottoo sensitive, public scrutiny fallswithin the gray areas of what is legal,”the Beijing-based writer Liu Xiaobo Liusaid in a recent essay. “The people’swisdom is good at using this ambigu-ity to create a space to advance theirown interests.”

Nevertheless, the lines demarcat-ing politically acceptable speech inChina are often blurry, and the gov-ernment has begun to rein in some ofthese public activities. On November25, 2004, People’s Daily, the officialmouthpiece of the Communist Party,published an attack on so-called pub-lic intellectuals, or scholars, includingjournalists and lawyers, who take on apublic role in civic life.

“All this talk about the intellectu-als speaking up for the downtroddenis ridiculous and smacks of the ‘hero’or ‘elite’ view of history,” wrote the

author, Ji Fangping. “The main charac-ters in history are not the intellectualsbut the broad masses of the people.”

And, as CPJ reported in March2005, Shanghai authorities suspendedthe law license of Guo Guoting, alawyer who has defended severalimprisoned journalists, dissidents,and Falun Gong supporters. The sus-pension notice cited articles Guo hadposted online that criticized the Com-munist Party, but Guo told CPJ hebelieved that the suspension was dueto his legal defense of cases involvingfree expression.

In the weiquan movement, eachmodest success is tempered by

harsh reality—and the Nanfang DushiBao case illustrates the point well. Fol-

lowing an appeal on June 7, 2004, thesentences of Li and Yu were reducedto six and eight years, respectively.The day of the appeal trial, authoritiesclosed the Open Constitutional Website, providing no reason.

Two months later, both Cheng andDeng were released from prison with-out charge. Cheng was expelled fromthe Communist Party and wasassigned an administrative post at theSouthern Daily Group.

Many in China credit the unprece-dented public support that the jour-nalists received for Cheng and Deng’srelease and the reduction in Li andYu’s sentences. Yet Yu and Li remainin prison, and their families are los-ing hope that their sentences mightbe overturned on appeal. Cheng isfree, but his journalism career iseffectively over.

Yu’s wife, Xiang Li, said thelawyers and legal scholars who peti-tioned local officials for her husband’srelease have received no reply from

authorities. “But, from another per-spective, couldn’t the release ofCheng Yizhong and Deng Haiyan beconsidered a direct response?” sheasked, seeming to take some consola-tion in that result.

Xiang vows to press on. She saysshe will continue to appeal Yu’s sen-tence “until the court declares YuHuafeng innocent, until they returnjustice to us, and to the law.” Yet she,the journalists, their lawyers, and oth-ers fighting for the right to free expres-sion in China clearly have a long andarduous road ahead. “In China, super-vision by the media can only proceedwithin the existing system,” Chengsaid in an interview published beforehis arrest. “Freedom means knowinghow big your cage is.” n


In the weiquan movement, each modest success

is tempered by harsh reality—and the Nanfang

Dushi Bao case illustrates the point well.

MANILA, Philippines

Three years after commentatorEdgar Damalerio was killed in adrive-by shooting on a crowded

street in Pagadian City, about 500 milessouth of here, at least one suspect, aformer police officer, is finally headedfor trial. But the families of Damalerioand the witnesses in the case are endur-ing a trial of their own—a deadly one.

Two witnesses to the May 2002slaying have already been killed, andat least five members of three familiesare now in a witness protection pro-gram. Still other family members arein hiding, their lives regularly threat-ened as the trial of ex-Pagadian Citycop Guillermo Wapile approaches.

The Damalerio murder, committedin sight of a police station, cast aharsh light on the culture of lawless-ness in Pagadian City, a trading port of150,000 on the island of Mindanao.Another journalist, radio commentatorOlimpio Jalapit, was killed in PagadianCity just two years before. Both slay-ings are among the nationwide toll of48 journalists who have been mur-dered over two decades. With no con-victions in any of these murders, theDamalerio case has become a test ofthe Philippine judicial system.

“If not for the support we’vereceived from all over, we would have

lost this case—or we would all be deadby now,” Damalerio’s wife, Gemma,said in a telephone interview arrangedby the Department of Justice. She andher youngest daughter are in the fed-eral protection program through theend of the trial. One witness, JuvyLovitaño, was killed three years ago.Another, schoolteacher Edgar Amoro,was shot down in February. A thirdwitness, Edgar Ongue, survived anattempt on his life last year, when anassailant’s gun malfunctioned. Theirfamilies have been threatened, too.

“The day my husband died, Ireceived a text message saying theyvowed to eliminate the rest of the mem-bers of my family,” Erlinda Amoro said.She said she had to quit her job, move,and scatter her family to evade thekillers. For now, she and one child are inthe protection program. So is Ongue.

The case has been tainted by alle-gations of police obstruction. This year,Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalesdirected prosecutors to investigate for-mer Pagadian City Police Chief AzuriHawani for alleged “obstruction of jus-tice and possible accessory to thecrime.” Although two eyewitnessesidentified Wapile, local police initiallynamed a different suspect. Witnessessaid police wiped the crime scene cleanand failed to take photographs. Withindays of the shooting, a federal investi-gator urged local police to arrestWapile—but more than two yearspassed before the suspect surrendered.

The case against Wapile dependsin part on the testimony of Amoro andOngue, who were riding in the jeepwith Damalerio when a gunman firedat them from a motorcycle. Amorosigned a sworn affidavit that can beentered as evidence. The third wit-ness, Lovitaño, did not give sworn tes-timony and his signed police state-ment will be of less help to prosecu-tors. Before he was killed, Lovitañotold the National Bureau of Investiga-tion that a local police officer hadapproached him looking to take out acontract on Damalerio’s life. Damale-rio was known for taking on policeand government corruption in hisradio and television broadcasts.

Defense lawyers did not respondto messages seeking comment for thisstory. Wapile and Hawani have pub-licly denied involvement. Concernedthat a fair trial was impossible in Paga-dian City, the Damalerio family andpress advocates urged that the casebe moved. Supreme Court Chief Jus-tice Hilarion Davide agreed to transferthe case to Cebu City, about 350 milessouth of Manila. Wapile faces a possi-ble death penalty if convicted. Thetrial is expected to begin soon, but nodate has been set.

“I’m hoping that the monitoring andsupport on this case continues until weget justice,” Gemma Damalerio said. Butappeals could extend for years, and thefamilies expect to lose federal protec-tion once the initial trial concludes.Gonzales said he assured the familiesof support, but he acknowledged “thegovernment doesn’t have all the moneyto guard and protect the witnesses foran extended time.”

Damalerio and Amoro said theirfamilies hope to enlist the help ofpress advocates and government offi-cials to resettle outside Pagadian Cityafter the trial. But that may not be farenough, they said, and leaving thePhilippines might be their best chancefor survival. n

Read “Elusive Justice,” CPJ’s 2002 reporton the case, at www.cpj.org.


U P D A T E

A Deadly Trial

As justice drags in a Philippine journalist’s murder,

three families fear for their safety.

By Dean M. Bernardo

Dean M. Bernardo is a freelance jour-nalist who contributes to the BBC, FoxNews and Global Radio News.


BANJUL, The Gambia

Deyda Hydara was a principledman, a mentor to youngreporters, and a fearless editor

who was willing to take a stand againstthe government. In the days before hismurder, Hydara led a campaign againstrepressive government-sponsored leg-islation that sets lengthy jail terms forlibel and allows editors’ homes to beseized.

We were friends for 35 years andpartners for nearly half that time in thepublication of The Point, a Banjul news-paper printed four times a week. Ourpaper was founded on December 16,1991. Exactly 13 years later, on thenight we celebrated The Point’s anniver-

sary, a gunman in a passing taxicabfired bullets into the head and chest ofmy friend as he drove home on a dark,rural street.

Hydara was 58. He leaves his wife,Maria, a daughter, and three sons.

Authorities arrested a local restau-rateur in February, an ardent govern-ment supporter who had quarreled bit-terly with Hydara over his criticalreporting. Yet local journalists havemany questions and have urged policeto investigate the “Green Boys,” a shad-owy pro-government group that hasmade numerous threats against jour-nalists who criticize authorities.

There is good reason to question,given the record of threats and attackson the Gambian press. Arsonists struckRadio 1 FM in Banjul in August 2000,leaving proprietor George Christensenwith burns. In October 2003, arsonistsset fire to the offices of The Indepen-dent, a private biweekly in Banjul,forcing staff to relocate temporarily.Six months later, armed men stormeda building in suburban Kanifing thathoused The Independent’s printingpress, setting it ablaze and injuringthree employees.

Then, on August 15, 2004, arson-ists struck the home of Ebrihima Sillah,a BBC stringer in Banjul. In the weeksbefore the attack, the Green Boys hadthreatened Sillah in a letter to the BBC.

Journalists had much reason to becautious as 2004 came to a close—andmy friend had little left to prove in a

distinguished career noted for outspo-ken independence. He was president ofthe Gambia Press Union for a decade,treasurer of the West African Journal-ists Association, and a longtime corre-spondent for Agence France-Presse. Heworked for press freedom with theParis-based Reporters Without Borders.

In the last weeks of the year,though, Hydara stood up to the gov-ernment. He was vocal in his opposi-tion to the obnoxious new presslaws—and he acted on his beliefs. Hesuspended publication of The Pointfor a week in protest, even though itcost the paper some lucrative adver-tising. The National Assembly passedthe new laws on December 14, 2004.

Two days later, the staff had a din-ner to mark our anniversary. Afterthe gathering, Hydara gave a lift hometo two of our staffers, Ida Jagne andNyansarang Jobe, at around 11 p.m. AMercedes-Benz taxi without a licenseplate came up quickly from behind inKanifing, about nine miles (15 kilome-ters) west of Banjul.

Hydara turned off the main road,but the taxi followed, with the driverflashing his headlights. As Hydaraslowed and the cab pulled alongside,a passenger fired several times, strik-ing Hydara twice and causing him tolose control of the car. Jagne, who waswounded in the attack along withJobe, remembers crying out, “My bossis killed.”

Shortly after his murder, the Gam-bia News and Report named him Manof the Year. Hydara was, in fact, a manof courage, humility, and generositythroughout his life. Among his goodworks was a fund-raising campaign torehabilitate Old Jeswang Cemetery.

He was buried there on December17, 2004. Three days after our friendand colleague was laid to rest, jour-nalists in the Gambia, Senegal, Mali,and Ghana marched in protest. Theycarry on his legacy, determined toseek justice. n

For updates on the Deyda Hydaracase, visit www.cpj.org.

C P J R E M E M B E R S

Deyda Hydara

To his final days, a fearless editor stood up

for his beliefs.

By Pap Saine

Pap Saine is editor of The Point, whichcontinues to provide independent newsfor Gambians.

Deyda Hydara inspired many youngGambian journalists with his courage.

The

Poin

t/Pa

pSa

ine


K I C K E R

Illust

rati

on:

Mic

kSt

ern

Documents

DA spring 04 - Committee to Protect Journalists · But this is only one side of WSIS. Many participants are deeply dis-turbed by the decision to allow T unisia to host the next conference