DangerousAssignments covering the global press freedom struggle Fall | Winter 2005 www.cpj.org Mass graves, corruption, and drugs are under-reported in Colombia. Attacked by all sides, the press censors itself … Four Great Press Turnarounds Committee to·Protect Journalists Micah Garen’s Rescuers CONTENTS Dangerous Assignments Fall|Winter 2005 Committee to Protect Journalists AS IT HAPPENED Executive Director: Ann Cooper The top press freedom stories. 2 Deputy Director: Joel Simon IN FOCUS By Leigh Newman Dangerous Assignments A Kashmir battle injures eight journalists . 3 Editorial Director: Bill Sweeney Senior Editor: Robert Mahoney COMMENTARY By Ann Cooper Contributing Editor: Leigh Newman U.S. quietly imprisons journalists in Iraq . 4 Designer: Virginia Anstett Printer: Photo Arts Limited FIRST PERSON By Galima Bukharbaeva An Uzbek reporter witnesses a slaughter . 6 Committee to Protect Journalists Board of Directors FEATURES Honorary Co-Chairmen: Walter Cronkite COVER STORY Terry Anderson Untold Stories By Chip Mitchell Chairman: Paul E. Steiger Gustavo Santiago knew he couldn’t fully report a politician’s slaying. It would have cost him his own life. The killing is among Andrew Alexander, Franz Allina, Christiane Amanpour, Dean Baquet, many untold stories in Colombia. Besieged by all sides in a Tom Brokaw, Josh Friedman, Anne deadly civil war, the press is muzzling itself . 8 Garrels, James C. Goodale, Cheryl Gould, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Gwen Murderers Go Free By Nina Ognianova Ifill, Steven L. Isenberg, Jane Kramer, David Lavanthol, Anthony Lewis, No one except police thought reporter Natalya Skryl died in a David Marash, Kati Marton, Michael robbery. The case has followed standard Russian procedure: Massing, Geraldine Fabrikant Metz, no arrests, many questions . 16 Victor Navasky, Andres Oppenheimer, Burl Osborne, Charles L. Overby, PLUS: Moscow Q&A with David Marash. 19 Clarence Page, Norman Pearlstine, Erwin Potts, Dan Rather, Gene Roberts, About Face By Leigh Newman Sandra Mims Rowe, John Seigenthaler, Paul C. Tash, and Mark Whitaker CPJ recounts the four great press turnarounds of the past quarter century. In Argentina, Nigeria, Poland, and Indonesia, Published by the Committee to courage and commitment paid off. 20 Protect Journalists, 330 Seventh Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, N.Y. A Hostage’s Ordeal By Maya Taal 10001; (212) 465-1004; [email protected]. Micah Garen thought his Iraqi captors would behead him. In a Find CPJ online at www.cpj.org. new book, he tells how journalists helped win his release . 24 Zimbabwe’s Exiled Press By Elisabeth Witchel Dozens of the nation’s best journalists have been forced to flee their homeland. Now, they fight to keep their careers alive . 26 CPJ REMEMBERS By Kamel Labidi A “Prince of the Pen” is silenced . 31 DISPATCHES By Michael Marizco A slugging reporter vanishes in Mexico . 32 RADIO WAVES By Alexis Arieff Freedom delayed may be freedom denied . 34 On the cover: A cameraman runs CORRESPONDENTS By Martha Wexler for cover during fighting between A Russian reporter is trapped in his hometown. 36 government troops and guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of UPDATE By Shawn W. Crispin Colombia in rural southern Cauca. In Aceh, the press is reborn after the tsunami . 38 Photo: AP/J. George KICKER By Mick Stern . 40 Dangerous Assignments 1 AS IT HAPPENED IN FOCUS A look at recent red-letter cases from the CPJ files… June independent news agency Havana October Press, for covering a meeting of oppo- sition activists. He joins 24 other 2 Samir Qassir, columnist for the daily 4 CPJ condemns Thai Prime Minister Al-Nahar, is killed outside his Beirut Cuban journalists behind bars. Thaksin Shinawatra’s latest attack on home by a bomb planted in his car. the press: criminal defamation com- 24 Tunisia bars the Tunisian Journal- Mass demonstrations (below) follow. ists Syndicate from holding its first plaints against two talk show hosts. (Story, page 31.) national congress. The move comes as Thaksin’s government and affiliated Tunisia prepares to host a UN-spon- business interests have filed several sored summit on Internet expression. such cases. I l o o b q a September M q i As They Said f a R / i P d i The U.S. military fails in investi- A a 14 S “Imagine what would have hap- l a gating the killing of journalists by its m a pened if during the 1980s an J / s forces in Iraq, CPJ says in a new analy- r e American communications com- t u e sis. In 13 fatalities, the military did not R pany had provided information address questions of accountability; that allowed the South African 26 Corruption, easy access to guns, and did not make its inquiries public; or government to track down and an unresponsive justice system threat- simply failed to investigate at all. en the Philippine press, CPJ finds after imprison an anti-apartheid a weeklong mission. CPJ later issues a 15 After deadly attacks against jour- activist. That is pretty much report saying rural radio commentators nalists in Mexico’s northern states, the moral equivalent of what have been killed in record numbers. President Vicente Fox (below) says he Yahoo has just done in China in n will seek a special prosecutor to inves- the case of journalist Shi Tao.” i s a l Y o o tigate crimes against free expression. —Max Boot, Council on Foreign r a b q July D a / Relations, in the Los Angeles Times. P Fox’s pledge comes in a meeting at CPJ M A q i f headquarters. (Related story, page 32.) Yahoo provided China with infor- a In its first mission to Saudi Arabia, R 3-18 / P mation about Shi, who was sen- A CPJ finds that the government inter- tenced to 10 years in prison for feres in newspaper operations and top Srinagar, India f f e-mailing “state secrets.” e Saudi editors shy away from sensitive r e d n topics. (Kicker, page 40.) o “We’re just asking for due B e n process and some answers, a i 6 A U.S. judge jails New York Times D / P which so far the military has acing to cover an explosion in eramen from India TV and Zee TV, civilians were injured. reporter Judith Miller (below) for refus- A refused to provide.” Kashmir, eight journalists were were immediately wounded. Another Al-Mansurian and the Pakistan- ing to reveal a confidential source to a 16 CPJ demands that Eritrea, the —CBS News President Andrew Rwounded by gunmen. cameraman was later hit in the hand. based Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen claimed grand jury investigating the leak of a worst jailer of journalists in Africa, Heyward, in Huffington Post, Around 5 p.m. on Friday, July 25, Security forces returned fire and the responsibility for the attack. Indian CIA operative’s identity. account for 15 journalists held incom- about the case of a CBS camera- two Islamic gunmen targeted the cen- gunmen split up, each on one side of forces and militant groups accused municado, some in secret prisons, man detained by U.S. forces in tral Lal Chowk district of the capital, the busy Maulan Azad Road. In the each other of targeting the journal- since September 2001. Iraq for several months. through which government officials ensuing gunfire (bottom left), four ists. Journalists at the scene said the i r a frequently travel. One attacker fired more journalists were wounded, wounded were probably caught in the b 20 A Chinese court sentences Zheng n “That is our own affair, a sover- a h on a bunker in a nearby Indian para- including Sahara India TV camera- crossfire. G Yichun to seven years in prison for eign issue. It is up to us what, z a r military camp. The other hurled a man Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat, who was Since 1989, more than a dozen a “inciting subversion.” Zheng is the H why, when, and where we do / P grenade and fired at a Border Security hit in the stomach and carried out by Islamic groups have been fighting for A third Internet journalist sentenced to things.” Force vehicle (top photo), turning it his colleagues (bottom right). control of Indian-administered Kashmir. jail this year in China. —Eritrean Information Minister August into a “slow moving ball of fire and The fighting continued for more More than 44,000 people have died in Ali Abdu, to Agence France-Presse, 25 May Chidiac, a Lebanese TV news smoke,” Indian Express reporter Muza- than 24 hours until both gunmen were the conflict, including 11 journalists in response to a CPJ report on the 6 Cuba jails Albert Santiago Du anchor and critic of Syria, is seriously mil Jaleel said. killed. Two security officers were killed on duty. detention of 15 journalists. I Bouchet Hernández, director of the wounded when her car explodes. Three journalists, including cam- killed, and at least 25 officers and —Leigh Newman 2 Fall | Winter 2005 Dangerous Assignments 3 COMMENTARY But the record of detained journalists A military spokesman said “inconsis- instead displayed a pattern of disre- is plain: In each case documented by tencies in his story” warranted further gard when confronted with issues CPJ over the past two years, journal- questioning. After a public outcry, involving the security of Iraqi journal- ists detained on security suspicions Kadhem was freed three days later. ists and citizens. were released without charge. These detentions inhibit front-line In June, CPJ and Human Rights Jailing Iraqi Journalists Another August detention, although journalists from covering a conflict Watch wrote to Defense Secretary not as long as others, highlights the that is already exceptionally danger- Donald Rumsfeld to urge the Penta- secretive and arbitrary nature of the ous.