The Jim Bakker Show

After one week, Myanmar silent on whereabouts of detained Reuters journalists

YANGON (Reuters) – Two Reuters journalists completed a week in detention in Myanmar on Tuesday, with no word on where they were being held as authorities proceeded with an investigation into whether they violated the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

Journalists Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested last Tuesday evening after they were invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.

“We and their families continue to be denied access to them or to the most basic information about their well-being and whereabouts,” Reuters President and Editor-In-Chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement calling for their immediate release.

“Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are journalists who perform a crucial role in shedding light on news of global interest, and they are innocent of any wrongdoing.”

The news group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) on Tuesday cited government spokesman Zaw Htay as saying that the journalists were “being treated well and in good health”.

It gave no further details in its online report.

Reuters was unable to reach Zaw Htay for comment.

Myanmar’s civilian president, Htin Kyaw, a close ally of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has authorized the police to proceed with a case against the reporters, Zaw Htay said on Sunday.

Approval from the president’s office is needed before court proceedings can begin in cases brought under the Official Secrets Act, which has a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis that has seen an estimated 655,000 Rohingya Muslims flee from a fierce military crackdown on militants in the western state of Rakhine.

CRITICISM FROM FAR AND WIDE

A number of governments, including the United States, Canada and Britain, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as a host of journalists’ and human rights’ groups, have criticized the arrests as an attack on press freedom and called on Myanmar to release the two men.

The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini added her voice on Monday, with her spokeswoman describing the arrests as “a cause of real concern”.

“Freedom of the press and media is the foundation and a cornerstone of any democracy,” the spokeswoman said.

Myanmar has seen rapid growth in independent media since censorship imposed under the former junta was lifted in 2012.

Rights groups were hopeful there would be further gains in press freedoms after Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi came to power last year amid a transition from full military rule that had propelled her from political prisoner to elected leader.

However, advocacy groups say freedom of speech has been eroded since she took office, with many arrests of journalists, restrictions on reporting in Rakhine state and heavy use of state-run media to control the narrative.

BLACK SHIRTS PROTEST

About 20 local reporters belonging to the Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists (PCMJ) posted pictures on Tuesday of themselves wearing black shirts as a sign of protest. They said their act was meant “to signify the dark age of media freedom”.

“By wearing black shirts, all journalists should show unity,” said Tha Lun Zaung Htet, a producer and presenter at DVB Debate TV and a leading member of the PCMJ. “We must fight for press freedom with unity.”

But most journalists in Yangon did not take part in the campaign. Mya Hnin Aye, senior executive editor at the Voice Weekly, said few participated because the arrested journalists work for foreign media, much of whose “reporting on the Rakhine issue is biased”.

Myo Nyunt, deputy director for Myanmar’s Ministry of Information, told Reuters the case against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had nothing to do with press freedom, and said journalists have “freedom to write and speak”.

The Ministry of Information said last week that the two journalists had “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, and released a photo of them in handcuffs.

The authorities have not allowed the journalists any contact with their families, a lawyer or Reuters since their arrest.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) called on the authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of the pair.

“All detainees must be allowed prompt access to a lawyer and to family members,” Frederick Rawski, the ICJ’s Asia-Pacific Regional Director, said in a statement on Monday.

“Authorities are bound to respect these rights in line with Myanmar law and the State’s international law obligations.”

On Sunday, spokesman Zaw Htay said the journalists’ legal rights were being respected. “Your reporters are protected by the rule of the law.”

(Reporting by Yimou Lee, Thu Thu Aung, Shoon Naing and Simon Lewis; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Alex Richardson and; Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. says concerned about Myanmar’s silence over where Reuters journalists are being held

YANGON (Reuters) – The U.S. embassy in Myanmar said on Friday it was concerned that there had been no word on the whereabouts of two Reuters journalists three days after they were detained, and that authorities had not allowed their families to visit them.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Information said on Wednesday that the reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and two policemen, faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, though officials have since disclosed that they have not been charged. The 1923 law carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The journalists had worked on stories about a military crackdown in Rakhine state, which has triggered the flight of more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to southern Bangladesh since the end of August.

“We remain concerned about Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo,” the U.S. embassy said in a statement on its Facebook page. “Their families and others have not been allowed to see them, and don’t even know where they are being held.”

In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s spokesman Motosada Matano, said the Japanese government is closely watching the situation. He said Japan has been conducting a dialogue with the Myanmar government on human rights in Myanmar in general.

Bangladesh, which is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees into its southern tip, condemned the arrests of reporters working for an agency that had shone a light for the world on the strife in Rakhine state.

“We strongly denounce arrests of Reuters journalists and feel that those reporters be free immediately so that they can depict the truth to the world by their reporting,” said Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, information adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that the arrests were a signal that press freedom is shrinking in Myanmar and the international community must do all it can to get them released.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo went missing on Tuesday evening after they had been invited to meet police officials over dinner on the northern outskirts of Yangon.

Gutteres said they were probably detained because they were reporting on the “massive human tragedy” in Rakhine state.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh say their exodus from the mainly Buddhist nation was triggered by a military offensive in response to Rohingya militant attacks on security forces.

The United Nations has branded the military’s campaign “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” of the minority Rohingya.

POLICE HAVE 28 DAYS TO FILE A CASE

The Ministry of Information said the reporters “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, and released a photo of the pair in handcuffs.

As of Friday evening, Reuters had not been formally contacted by officials about the detention of Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27.

A court official in the northern district of Yangon where they were detained, said that no paperwork had yet been filed relating to either journalist. The official said that usually cases are lodged 20-30 days after an arrest as suspects can be held in custody for up to 28 days without being charged.

Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler has called for the immediate release of the journalists, saying in a statement on Wednesday that the global news organization was “outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom”.

Britain has expressed “grave concerns” to the government of Myanmar over the arrest of the two journalists, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told reporters in London on Thursday.

“We are committed to freedom of speech and people’s ability to report the facts and bring into the public domain what is happening in Rakhine state,” he said.

(Writing by John Chalmers\; Editing by Martin Howell)

U.N. rights team warns Mexico of ‘crisis’ in journalists’ safety

By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Monday the Mexican government is struggling to keep journalists safe and prosecute their oppressors, after officials toured regions of the country that are among the most dangerous in the world for reporters.

Mexican federal prosecutors have yet to secure any convictions for crimes against reporters due to ineffective probes and scant resources, said the U.N.’s special rapporteur for freedom of expression, David Kaye, and his counterpart from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Edison Lanza.

They released a preliminary report describing a “profound crisis of safety” after a week-long tour of Mexico City and the violent states of Veracruz, Guerrero, Tamaulipas and Sinaloa, and plan to release detailed recommendations in the spring.

“Past prosecutors didn’t have the same political will to actually get the job done,” said Kaye, expressing cautious hope that current prosecutors will do more to address the problem.

“There’s a bit more attention to getting this done right. I hope what we heard wasn’t just words because we are here,” he added after the two met with 250 reporters on their trip.

A news photographer in the state of San Luis Potosi last October was the 11th journalist murdered so far this year, according to advocacy group Article 19, equaling the death toll in 2016, which was the bloodiest year for journalists on record in Mexico.

Murders are on track to reach a record high this year, as Mexico continues grappling with turf wars between violent drug gangs that have convulsed the country for more than a decade.

In the past 17 years, 111 journalists have been killed in Mexico, 38 of them under the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Kaye said the prosecutor’s office tasked with investigating attacks on reporters, formed in 2006, needs to deter such crimes by committing substantial resources to solving a single high-profile case, or a handful of them.

“Until that happens, there will be very little prevention, and very little ending of this cycle of violence,” Kaye said.

He and Lanza also said Mexico’s government must devote more funding and staff to a journalist protection program launched in 2012, taking measures such as daily monitoring of the situation in states where reporters are most at risk, and helping them to continue to work if they are forced to leave their homes.

“It has an amount of money that’s absurdly insufficient for the emergency that it’s facing,” Lanza said.

(Editing by Dave Graham and Leslie Adler)

North Korea sentences South Korean reporters to death over review of book about country

SEOUL (Reuters) – A North Korean court sentenced two South Korean journalists and their publishers to death for “seriously insulting the dignity” of the country by reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the North, its state media said on Thursday.

North Korea has previously issued harshly worded accusations against South Korean entities and individuals for allegedly violating its dignity, by slandering its leadership and its political system.

The book in English titled “North Korea Confidential” was authored by James Pearson, a Seoul-based correspondent for Reuters, and Daniel Tudor, former correspondent in South Korea for the Economist magazine.

The book, based on interviews with North Korean defectors, diplomats and traders, depicts a growing market economy where ordinary North Koreans enjoy access to South Korea music and TV dramas, fashion and smuggled Chinese and American films. Pearson wrote the book, published in 2015, before joining Reuters.

The Korean-language edition, published earlier this month with the title translated as “Capitalist Republic of Korea”, was reviewed by South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo newspapers.

A spokesman for the North’s Central Court said in a statement carried by the country’s official KCNA news agency that the book “viciously slandered the reality of the DPRK”, the initials for North Korea’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The book painted life in the country as increasingly capitalistic where money can buy power and influence, the spokesman said.

The South Korean journalists who reviewed the book “committed a hideous crime of seriously insulting the dignity of the DPRK with the use of dishonest contents” carried by “North Korea Confidential”, the court spokesman said.

The Central Court has ordered the execution of the journalists, Son Hyo-rim of the Dong-A Ilbo and Yang Ji-ho of the Chosun Ilbo, and the publishers of the newspapers. It also demanded the South Korean government investigate their crimes and punish them, the state media said.

The court statement did not make any mention of punishment for the book’s authors.

A Dong-A Ilbo representative said the newspaper declined to comment and its reporter Son did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chosun Ilbo reporter Yang declined to comment while a newspaper representative could not be immediately reached for comment. Tudor, the co-author of the book, declined to comment.

A Reuters spokeswoman declined to comment.

“Dong-A Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo and other conservative media in South Korea have so far committed smear campaign against the DPRK nonstop,” KCNA quoted the court as saying. “The criminals hold no right to appeal and the execution will be carried out any moment and at any place without going through any additional procedures.”

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Soyoung Kim; Editing by Neil Fullick)

Turkey detains more journalists in clampdown on cleric’s followers

Turkish journalist Nazli Ilicak is escorted by a police officer and her relatives after being detained and brought to a hospital for a medical check in Bodrum

By Daren Butler and Orhan Coskun

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey ordered another 47 journalists detained on Wednesday, part of a large-scale crackdown on suspected supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Ankara of masterminding a failed military coup.

Turkey has suspended, detained or placed under investigation more than 60,000 soldiers, judges, teachers, journalists and others suspected of ties to Gulen’s movement since the July 15-16 coup, which was staged by a faction within the military.

Turkey’s army General Staff on Wednesday put the number of soldiers belonging to the Gulen network who took part in the coup attempt at 8,651, roughly about 1.5 percent of the armed forces, broadcaster NTV reported.

Gulen has denied any involvement in the failed coup.

Turkey’s capital markets board said on Tuesday it had revoked the license of the head of research at brokerage AK Investment and called for him to face charges over a report he wrote to investors analyzing the July 15 coup.

Western governments and human rights groups, while condemning the abortive coup in which at least 246 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured, have expressed alarm over the extent of the crackdown, suggesting President Tayyip Erdogan may be using it to stifle dissent and tighten his grip on power.

The detention of journalists ordered on Wednesday involved columnists and other staff of the now defunct Zaman newspaper, a government official said. Authorities in March shut down Zaman, widely seen as the Gulen movement’s flagship media organization.

“The prosecutors aren’t interested in what individual columnists wrote or said,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “At this point, the reasoning is that prominent employees of Zaman are likely to have intimate knowledge of the Gulen network and as such could benefit the investigation.”

However, the list includes journalists, such as Sahin Alpay, known for their leftist activism who do not share the religious world view of the Gulenist movement. This has fueled concerns that the investigation may be turning into a witch-hunt of the president’s political opponents.

On Monday, media reported that arrest warrants had been issued for 42 other journalists, 16 of whom have so far been taken into custody.

Alpay is a former official of Turkey’s left-leaning, secularist main opposition CHP party. The Dogan news agency said police raided his home in Istanbul early on Wednesday and detained him after a 2-1/2 hour search of the property.

SPIRIT OF UNITY

Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and opposition parties, usually bitterly divided, have demonstrated a rare spirit of unity since the abortive coup and are seeking consensus on constitutional amendments partly aimed at “cleansing” the state apparatus of Gulenist supporters.

A senior AK Party official said on Wednesday they were discussing plans to increase parliamentary control of a key state body that appoints judges and prosecutors.

Also on Wednesday a government official said Turkish special forces were still hunting in hills around the Mediterranean resort of Marmaris for a group of 11 commandos thought to have tried to capture or kill Erdogan on the night of the coup.

Erdogan was holidaying in Marmaris at the time and only narrowly avoided capture before flying to Istanbul where he rallied his supporters who helped to defeat the coup plotters.

Erdogan, a popular but polarizing figure who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, will chair an annual meeting of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) on Thursday after vowing to restructure the armed forces following the coup.

The military said 35 planes, including 24 fighter jets, 37 helicopters, 74 tanks and three ships had been used by the coup plotters, NTV reported.

In Greece, authorities on Wednesday postponed hearings for eight Turkish soldiers who sought asylum there after fleeing Turkey. The men – three majors, three captains and two sergeant majors – deny being involved in the coup but Turkey has branded them “traitors” and is demanding their extradition.

Erdogan has signaled Turkey might restore the death penalty in the wake of the failed coup, citing strong public support for such a move, though the European Union has made clear this would scupper Ankara’s decades-old bid to join the bloc.

PIVOT TO MOSCOW

Turkish officials have complained of what they perceive as a lack of support from the EU over the coup, while European leaders have urged Ankara to show restraint and a sense of proportion in bringing those responsible to justice.

The attempted coup has also tested Turkey’s ties with its NATO ally the United States, where Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999. Responding to Turkey’s request for Gulen’s swift extradition, Washington has said Ankara must first provide clear evidence of his involvement in the coup.

The strains with the EU and the United States have coincided with Turkey’s renewed push to repair ties with Russia, badly hurt last November by the Turkish downing of a Russian jet near Syria and Moscow’s subsequent imposition of trade sanctions.

On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said his talks with Russian officials this week on improving bilateral relations had taken place “in a very positive atmosphere”.

Simsek, respected by Western investors as a safe pair of hands in guiding the Turkish economy, also said he saw no reason to downgrade Turkey’s credit rating following the coup. Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded the sovereign debt outlook to negative from stable and Moody’s has said it will review the rating for a possible downgrade.

(Additional reporting by Ercan Gurses in Ankara and Ayla Jean Yackley and Nick Tattersall in Istanbul; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by David Dolan and Peter Millership)

Document spells out FBI rules to get journalists’ phone records: article

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is allowed to seek journalists’ phone records with the approval of two government officials through a secretive surveillance process that does not require a warrant, The Intercept website reported on Thursday, citing a classified document.

The document, which The Intercept published without citing sources, was described as a classified appendix of the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) and was dated Oct. 16, 2013. The related document is at http://bit.ly/295HIpY.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the document.

FBI spokesman Christopher Allen said in an emailed reply to a Reuters request for comment, “We post a redacted version of the DIOG on our website. I am not in a position to comment or authenticate any other version.” Allen referred to an FBI website regarding the agency’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. http://1.usa.gov/1QleO9n

“Because the DIOG governs sensitive operations and investigations, not all of its contents can be released,” Allen wrote.

“As a result I am not able to comment on how, or whether, the DIOG is updated as laws, Guidelines, or technology change. However, the FBI periodically reviews and updates the DIOG as needed,” he said.

Allen said the FBI’s DIOG remained consistent with guidelines from the U.S. attorney general.

The Intercept is an online publication launched in 2014 by First Look Media, which was created and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The editors are Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, who were all involved in breaking the Edward Snowden story.

The Intercept reported that, according to the document, pursuing a journalist’s call data with a national security letter requires the consent of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of its national security branch, in addition to normal chain-of-command approval.

A national security letter is a type of government order for communications data sent to service providers. It is usually issued with a gag order, meaning the target is often unaware that records are being accessed.

There are several proposals in Congress to broaden the scope of national security letters, or NSLs. Privacy advocates, however, have said the authority is used too often, circumvents judicial oversight and lacks adequate transparency safeguards.

The Intercept reported that an added layer of review by the U.S. Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security is necessary to use an NSL to seek a journalist’s records if they are being sought “to identify confidential news media sources.”

National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s. But their frequency and breadth expanded under the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The FBI made 48,642 requests for data via NSLs in 2015, according to a Justice Department memo seen by Reuters in May.

Currently, national security letters can only compel sharing of phone billing records, according to a 2008 legal memo written by the U.S. Justice Department. Still, the FBI has used the letters since then to request internet records during national security investigations.

The U.S. Senate last week fell two votes short of advancing legislation that would broaden the type of records the FBI can compel a company to hand over under an NSL to include email metadata and some browsing history.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Dan Grebler, Toni Reinhold)

Embed quickly turns deadly for NPR team in Afghanistan

NPR photojournalist David Gilkey is pictured at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan in this handout photo

By Zainullah Stanekzai

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – The NPR photojournalist and his Afghan colleague killed in Afghanistan on Sunday died on the first day of an embed with local troops, highlighting the risks for reporters in a country where increasing amounts of territory are off-limits.

Photographer David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna, an Afghan journalist working as a translator, were killed in a Taliban ambush shortly after joining Afghan troops in Helmand province, one of the most volatile areas in the country.

The NPR team, including Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, had just spent several days with coalition troops, including U.S. special forces, before they went over to an Afghan unit, said Colonel Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition.

The team spent Sunday morning in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah interviewing local officials, according to Shakil Ahmad Tasal, a public affairs officer for the 205th Corps who accompanied the NPR team during the drive.

The team carried a letter from the Afghan Ministry of Defence, directing the soldiers to escort them to the town of Marjah, roughly 30 km (18 miles) away, he said.

While Lashkar Gah has remained in government control, some surrounding areas of Helmand have been under serious pressure from Islamist militants from the Taliban insurgency.

Earlier this year in Marjah, U.S. forces conducted several air strikes to help beleaguered Afghan troops, and a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a Taliban attack.

On Sunday afternoon, a convoy of six lightly armoured Humvees, which also carried an Afghan general, was nearing Marjah when Taliban gunmen opened fire, pelting the vehicles with small arms and rocket fire.

“We were taking very heavy fire,” Tasal told Reuters.

The Humvee carrying Tamanna and Gilkey was hit by a shell and caught fire, killing the journalists and the soldier driving the vehicle, according to witnesses and NPR.

DOZENS FORM GUARD OF HONOR

A gunfight raged for at least 30 minutes before coalition and Afghan aircraft arrived overhead, apparently prompting the Taliban to break off the attack, Tasal said.

The coalition said its aircraft provided surveillance for the Afghans, while attack aircraft were put on standby but never launched.

The other two NPR staffers, traveling in another vehicle, were unharmed.

A veteran photojournalist, Gilkey, 50, had reported from Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and won awards for covering veterans issues in the United States and the ebola breakout in Africa.

In a video posted by NPR on May 13, just prior to his departure for Afghanistan, Gilkey described a desire to get close to what is happening.

“What I always try to show in my pictures is what it’s like for the guys on the ground that are having to operate there,” he said.

Like many Afghan journalists who perform the lion’s share of the work covering their country, Tamanna had worked for a variety of foreign outlets, including the Chinese news agency Xinhua and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

Qualified journalists in their own right, Afghans like Tamanna are often contracted to provide translation and other help for foreign reporters.

“He was a very honest, responsible person and loved his country,” Haroon Sabawoon, a friend and business partner, said of Tamanna. “He was very polite, calm and had high hopes for peace and security.”

Tamanna, 38, left behind a wife and three children.

Afghan troops recovered the bodies of the slain journalists and handed them over to coalition forces at Camp Shorab, where the team had just previously been embedded with American troops, Lawhorn said.

“Dozens and dozens” of U.S. troops at the base formed an honor guard, stood to attention and saluted when the journalists’ remains arrived, Bowman reported to NPR.

Coalition CH-47 helicopters then transported them to the base at Kandahar Air Field, Lawhorn said.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Governments Claim National Security to Silence Journalists

Governments in the Middle East are using accusations of national security to try and silence western journalists from reporting on government corruption and other abuses of power.

Three journalists for Vice News were detained in Turkey on charges of terrorism for their reports that allegedly promoted Kurdish militants. A Dutch journalist was also detained on the same charges after being caught covering a Kurdish protest group.

“I’m in custody in Yuksekova,” Frederike Geerdink tweeted.

The Turkish government denied she was arrested for her reporting but for being in an area where fighting was taking place.

“Frederike has not been arrested for journalism. She was in a security zone where there was fighting. Because of that, we could not guarantee her safety, so she has been detained and investigations are continuing,” a government representative told Reuters.

Journalism watchdog groups dismissed the explanation, noting that Geerdink was arrested in January on similar charges of “illegal propaganda” for which she was acquitted in April.

“The Netherlands has been concerned about freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Turkey for some time,” Dutch embassy spokesman Roel van der Meij said. “This remains an important point in our relations with Turkey.”

In Egypt, three Al-Jazeera reporters are being tried on charges they filed false news reports to “promote terrorism.”

“What we see in terms of worrying trends that’s been picking up for a while is the use of overbroad anti-terror laws to prevent coverage and detain journalists,” said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, to the New York Times.

Mahoney cited many examples of abuse of journalists taking place around the world that largely go unreported in American media.

In Azerbaijan, an investigative journalist who contributed to the US funded Radio Free Europe was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for reporting on alleged corruption by the nation’s president.

“I don’t think anything will ever really improve unless there is real pressure from the West,” Gulnara Akhundova, who works for International Media Support told the Times. “What we need is real sanctions.”

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