CONTENTS Dangerous Assignments Spring|Summer 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 reporter becomes part of a Gaza Strip story . 3 Editorial Director: Bill Sweeney Senior Editor: Leigh Newman COMMENTARY By Mick Stern Designer: Virginia Anstett Keep governments away from the Internet . 4 Printer: Photo Arts Limited FIRST PERSON By Brian Latham Committee to Protect Journalists A Zimbabwean journalist is forced to flee. 5 Board of Directors Honorary Co-Chairmen: FEATURES Walter Cronkite Terry Anderson COVER STORY Chairman: David Laventhol Disappeared By Julia Crawford Vice Chairman: Paul E. Steiger Guy-André Kieffer vanished in Ivory Coast in April 2004, leaving Andrew Alexander, Franz Allina, questions and conflict on two continents . 6 Christiane Amanpour, Dean Baquet, PLUS: The stories of 19 other journalists still missing. 7 Tom Brokaw, Josh Friedman, Anne Garrels, James C. Goodale, Cheryl Gould, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Surviving Cuba’s Prisons By Sauro González Rodríguez Gwen Ifill, Steven L. Isenberg, Jane After more 20 months in prison, editor Jorge Olivera Castillo Kramer, Anthony Lewis, David describes the brutality behind bars and his hopes for a new life . 11 Marash, Kati Marton, Michael Massing, Geraldine Fabrikant Metz, Victor Navasky, Andres Oppenheimer, Under Stress By Elisabeth Witchel Burl Osborne, Charles L. Overby, A new study finds that many journalists suffer from Clarence Page, Norman Pearlstine, Erwin Potts, Dan Rather, Gene post-assignment trauma. News agencies finally step up. 15 Roberts, Sandra Mims Rowe, John Seigenthaler, and Paul C. Tash Eight Grave Threats to Press Freedom By Amanda Watson-Boles CPJ describes the biggest threats to press freedom worldwide, Published by the Committee to from blatant violence to subtle censorship. 18 Protect Journalists, 330 Seventh Avenue, 11th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001; (212) 465-1004; [email protected]. Rebels and Reporters By Alex Lupis As the Kremlin fights a two-front war in Chechnya—one against Find CPJ online at www.cpj.org. the rebels, the other against reporters—Russians are the losers. 22 PLUS: Cold War Tactics By Sophia Kishkovsky Russian security agents reach into the old KGB playbook. 23 ON THE WEB By Kristin Jones Online reporters crack the silence in Nepal . 27 DISPATCHES By Rhonda Roumani Syrian journalists push boundaries, tentatively. 29 CORRESPONDENTS By Sophie Beach On the cover: Guy-André Kieffer Are journalists’ rights on the rise in China?. 31 (above) was photographed on Easter 1992. The names of the 19 other UPDATE By Dean Bernardo journalists who have gone missing Justice awaits in Philippine journalist’s murder . 34 while working are superimposed on the photograph, along with the names CPJ REMEMBERS By Pap Saine of their associated media outlets, and Deyda Hydara held fast to his principles . 35 the countries where they disappeared. KICKER By Mick Stern . 36 Photo: Kieffer Family Archives Art: Virginia Anstett Dangerous Assignments 1 AS IT HAPPENED A look at recent red-letter cases from the CPJ files… December and Burma—account for more than May three-quarters of the 122 journalists 9 A U.S. judge sentences reporter Jim jailed around the world in 2004, CPJ 3 With at least 18 journalists slain in Taricani (below) to six months of says in a new report. five years, the Philippines is the most home confinement for refusing to murderous nation in the world for reveal the source of a leaked FBI tape. March journalists, CPJ says in a report issued For the first time in three years, the for World Press Freedom Day. Iraq, United States joins CPJ’s list of nations 1 New Ukrainian President Viktor Colombia, Bangladesh, and Russia also that imprison journalists. Yushchenko says investigators have make CPJ’s list of murderous places. I detained suspects in the 2000 murder of Internet reporter Georgy Gongadze— the first significant development in As They Said o the long-stalled probe. h c o r “Before God, before the people, A a Italian security agent Nicola Calipari i 4 r o before my conscience I’m clean.” t c i is killed and journalist Giuliana Sgrena V / —Former Ukrainian President P A (below) is wounded when U.S. forces Leonid Kuchma to reporters, in fire on their car near the Baghdad air- 21 French reporters Christian Chesnot response to allegations that he port. Kidnappers had released Sgrena and Georges Malbrunot are released was involved in the 2000 murder just minutes earlier. after being held for four months by of journalist Georgy Gongadze. kidnappers in Iraq. Armed groups “You don’t know whom to turn abduct at least 22 journalists in 2004. to for help because officials 26 Dozens of Serambi Indonesia staff and cops are somehow tied to members die in a devastating tsunami organized crime. You don’t hire that strikes south Asia. The daily, one bodyguards because they’re of the few news sources in Indonesia’s expensive, and even if you war-ravaged Aceh province, resumes s have them, if somebody wants r e t publishing days later. u e you dead, they will find a way R to kill you.” January 22 CPJ urges Bangladeshi Prime Min- —Roberto Gálvez Martínez, news ister Khaleda Zia to put an end to a director at a Nuevo Laredo radio 3 CPJ reports that 56 journalists were wave of violence against journalists. station, to the Dallas Morning News. killed in connection with their work in An alarming number of assaults and The slaying of one of his reporters 2004—the deadliest year in a decade. threats are reported. was among several recent attacks Murder remains the top cause of work- on Mexican journalists. related deaths. April “We were turned to stone when officials told us. The behavior of February 4 Mexican reporter Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla is shot in front of her the American soldiers, in such 1 Nepal’s King Gyanendra declares a radio station in the border town of a serious incident, must be state of emergency, curtails civil rights, Nuevo Laredo. She later dies. That week, explained. Someone must take and institutes broad press restrictions. Gulf Coast newspaper owner Raúl Gibb responsibility.” A CPJ delegation later travels to Kath- Guerrero is ambushed and killed. —Italian Prime Minister Silvio mandu to document abuses and seek Berlusconi on national television 12 CPJ representatives conclude fact- reforms. after U.S. troops wounded jour- finding missions in the Gambia and nalist Giuliana Sgrena and killed 3 Four countries with long records of Nepal by calling for broad govern- security agent Nicola Calipari. press repression—China, Cuba, Eritrea, mental reforms and press protections. 2 Spring | Summer 2005 IN FOCUS s a i l E r i N / s r e t u e R Southern Gaza Strip hile covering the aftermath house and opened fire, according to of a gun battle, Itzik Saban international news reports. Reporters Wbecame part of the story. were forced to take cover. As the shoot- Saban, a reporter for the Tel Aviv ing escalated, Saban was shot in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, was sum- leg. The fighting, transmitted live on moned to a press briefing at an army Israeli Army Radio, lasted for a half camp near the isolated Israeli settle- hour before the gunman was killed. s a i l E ment of Morag. The Israeli commander The Palestinian groups Islamic r i N / in the region, Gen. Shmuel Zacai, was Jihad, the Popular Resistance Commit- s r e t u to announce that four hours earlier tees, and the Ahmed Abu Rish Brigades e R that September 2004 morning, under claimed responsibility for the raid, The the cover of dense fog, three Palestin- New York Times reported. Saban has ian gunmen had infiltrated the camp recovered and is back on the job in and killed three Israeli soldiers. Two of Gaza, Yedioth Ahronoth editors said. the Palestinians had been killed; one Since the second Infatida began in had escaped. 2000, dozens of journalists have been When Saban and other journalists wounded in the West Bank and Gaza, arrived for the briefing, the third Pales- and seven have been killed. I tinian leapt out from behind a green- —Leigh Newman Dangerous Assignments 3 COMMENTARY countries, environment, health, gen- because, they argue, governments are der, Internet governance, spam, cyber- more representative. It is hard to say fraud—and freedom of expression. whom the Chinese government repre- Would-be Some results thus far have been sents, other than itself. China now encouraging. The participants pro- possesses the world’s most sophisti- duced a set of principles that reaf- cated system of Internet censorship, Web firms Article 19 of the Universal Dec- including the ability to scan e-mails in laration of Human Rights, which states transit for “subversive” content. It is Masters “that everyone has the right to free- safe to assume that the Chinese con- dom of opinion and expression.” cept of governance has nothing to do The WSIS statement went on to with the free exchange of ideas. By Mick Stern say, “We reaffirm our commitment to The Chinese are not alone in their the principles of freedom of the press attitudes. At a WSIS meeting titled “Free- and freedom of information, as well dom of Expression in Cyberspace,” held beying no power but the pres- as those of the independence, plural- in Paris in February, Yuri Ulianovsky of sure to keep expanding, the ism and diversity of media.” ITAR-TASS, the Russian news agency OInternet has grown like kudzu But this is only one side of WSIS. that bends to the will of the Kremlin, in the absence of international regula- Many participants are deeply dis- told participants that “a regulatory tion.