Revolving stripes
close my eyes
The singer sings
in my headphones
going off
as a siren
sinking instead of
rising calm shores.
Reasonable cloud
don’t come down
No person is here
to feel that rain
Empty your mind
on different terrain
I am lost in this field
you are my
sense of direction
but I can’t float
out at heights that high.
Colors are refusing
their light
but I’m still here.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Dedicated to the Death of Wayne Fenton
He was short in the morning
as the evening
while the light grew longer with age.
Mr. Fenton grabs his guitar and sings
for his four children and long haired wife.
Four women surround him with eight
green blue eyes.
Maybe they’ll sing together, but
Mr. Fenton likes to sing alone
and we all like to watch him sing.
Mr. Fenton woke each day
feeling the currents in his home as a pretense to earth’s pulse.
He could take part in the daily breathe. But
Mr. Fenton saved the world
that drew him beneath its sand.
But Mr. Fenton could never save the world
that would never save him.
In the mornings Mr. Fenton
would grab needle and thread.
With his hands he’d mend broken minds
while recording it down with a ballpoint pen.
In the evening Mr. Fenton
found it back into his bed,
but beneath the kitchen lay
the psychologist’s den.
Everyone morning Mr. Fenton
stayed the same height.
With his guitar he filled eight rooms
using only one inarticulate heart.
In the afternoons
Mr. Fenton
picks up his sharpest nails,
his grandfather’s hammer,
drives to his local office.
With his hands, Mr. Fenton,
would repair leaky children
by banging together heirlooms of sustenance.
Lazy on Sundays
Mr. Fenton
would walk and sing throughout the house
serenading three ginger haired daughters,
two of which kept growing higher
while Mr. Fenton stayed quite the same.
And in the afternoons
Mr. Fenton
would find some gauze and tape,
maybe a little rubbing alcohol
and then
gingerly
clean up bloodless wounds
leftover from consequence
while diverting arrows with a shield made from compassion.
But Mr. Fenton found the wall
that is the floor
But Mr. Fenton saved the world
while the world would never save him at all.
By that afternoon
Mr. Fenton
could not find his tools
or his hands
because Mr. Fenton saved the world
that refused to find him.
That afternoon the hammer was burnt.
We tore up all the thread
Someone bent the nails
Everything unglued
and all threads unwound themselves
into a fragmentation made with entropy and silence.
Written 9/4/06, Dr. Fenton died on 9/3/06
as the evening
while the light grew longer with age.
Mr. Fenton grabs his guitar and sings
for his four children and long haired wife.
Four women surround him with eight
green blue eyes.
Maybe they’ll sing together, but
Mr. Fenton likes to sing alone
and we all like to watch him sing.
Mr. Fenton woke each day
feeling the currents in his home as a pretense to earth’s pulse.
He could take part in the daily breathe. But
Mr. Fenton saved the world
that drew him beneath its sand.
But Mr. Fenton could never save the world
that would never save him.
In the mornings Mr. Fenton
would grab needle and thread.
With his hands he’d mend broken minds
while recording it down with a ballpoint pen.
In the evening Mr. Fenton
found it back into his bed,
but beneath the kitchen lay
the psychologist’s den.
Everyone morning Mr. Fenton
stayed the same height.
With his guitar he filled eight rooms
using only one inarticulate heart.
In the afternoons
Mr. Fenton
picks up his sharpest nails,
his grandfather’s hammer,
drives to his local office.
With his hands, Mr. Fenton,
would repair leaky children
by banging together heirlooms of sustenance.
Lazy on Sundays
Mr. Fenton
would walk and sing throughout the house
serenading three ginger haired daughters,
two of which kept growing higher
while Mr. Fenton stayed quite the same.
And in the afternoons
Mr. Fenton
would find some gauze and tape,
maybe a little rubbing alcohol
and then
gingerly
clean up bloodless wounds
leftover from consequence
while diverting arrows with a shield made from compassion.
But Mr. Fenton found the wall
that is the floor
But Mr. Fenton saved the world
while the world would never save him at all.
By that afternoon
Mr. Fenton
could not find his tools
or his hands
because Mr. Fenton saved the world
that refused to find him.
That afternoon the hammer was burnt.
We tore up all the thread
Someone bent the nails
Everything unglued
and all threads unwound themselves
into a fragmentation made with entropy and silence.
Written 9/4/06, Dr. Fenton died on 9/3/06
The Number Two is Made from Ones
The outside escapes here
nonchalantly passing by
water on glass or
water with oil
surfaces find one another
Reflect two faces
Communicate silently
Turn and go two separate ways
The skin remembers an imprint
unlike the story the eyes always seem to say
It’s outside of the blood that
in here are
dying tissue purple red
Agile movements, abrupt shoves
are stored inside tiny fibers
collectively made into permeable
webs weaving tissues that seek a way from itself
Hairs waving in a breeze
while anchored down to the nearness
Hairs as tiny flags proclaim
the territory of oxygen
to send reports back
Magnanimous friction speaks in
single tones
decipherable into a zodiac by intuitive gongs of solid
iron and bone.
No memory alkaloid finds a
differentiation between materials
Each soft and metallic density
is engravable just the very same.
Impassable barriers are what they
are because we see
two banks
Because we see the walkable bridge
But there are no banks
No stairs to claim
Merely two shores and
a path we know to create or
creatively know.
Who can tell?
The finger points, but nothing is there.
The curtain pulls back to reveal the cement wall
The lights shine to show translucent air waning towards a distance.
The box was empty all along
We realized
after a thorough investigation of every side,
every crevice where top meets bottom
fails to bond as one and the same.
The inside was one side of
the molecularly dense
ball
To the left!
Destination of comparison
my other that is I
we are two for one
indivisible, numerically defied,
inarticulate.
nonchalantly passing by
water on glass or
water with oil
surfaces find one another
Reflect two faces
Communicate silently
Turn and go two separate ways
The skin remembers an imprint
unlike the story the eyes always seem to say
It’s outside of the blood that
in here are
dying tissue purple red
Agile movements, abrupt shoves
are stored inside tiny fibers
collectively made into permeable
webs weaving tissues that seek a way from itself
Hairs waving in a breeze
while anchored down to the nearness
Hairs as tiny flags proclaim
the territory of oxygen
to send reports back
Magnanimous friction speaks in
single tones
decipherable into a zodiac by intuitive gongs of solid
iron and bone.
No memory alkaloid finds a
differentiation between materials
Each soft and metallic density
is engravable just the very same.
Impassable barriers are what they
are because we see
two banks
Because we see the walkable bridge
But there are no banks
No stairs to claim
Merely two shores and
a path we know to create or
creatively know.
Who can tell?
The finger points, but nothing is there.
The curtain pulls back to reveal the cement wall
The lights shine to show translucent air waning towards a distance.
The box was empty all along
We realized
after a thorough investigation of every side,
every crevice where top meets bottom
fails to bond as one and the same.
The inside was one side of
the molecularly dense
ball
To the left!
Destination of comparison
my other that is I
we are two for one
indivisible, numerically defied,
inarticulate.
Heavy
A stonewall echoes
and I don’t know what I wrote
last year
These inklings are inky,
benevolent.
Halted flow can’t give a dam
It all adds
for the stonewall through the sky
cutting the ozone
to slice in half a life.
Too much thought
blockades a porous memory
You emptied out the garbage
to remember what you ate
Now you can taste.
When I was young I was old
and when I was old I was ageless.
Yesterday a fly died.
Today a grand ceremony is taking place.
Nuns painted the wings with gold and built a mohair coffin
embroidered with holy spiders’ thread.
The President of the President
chose a sea burial off the Indian Ocean.
Huge planes
of the 1970s
boarded everyone as they flew with a fire equal
to eight trips around America.
Children chose a sunflower bed
to float the fly off from a spotless shore.
I forgot to go,
I was feeling inordinately heavy.
and I don’t know what I wrote
last year
These inklings are inky,
benevolent.
Halted flow can’t give a dam
It all adds
for the stonewall through the sky
cutting the ozone
to slice in half a life.
Too much thought
blockades a porous memory
You emptied out the garbage
to remember what you ate
Now you can taste.
When I was young I was old
and when I was old I was ageless.
Yesterday a fly died.
Today a grand ceremony is taking place.
Nuns painted the wings with gold and built a mohair coffin
embroidered with holy spiders’ thread.
The President of the President
chose a sea burial off the Indian Ocean.
Huge planes
of the 1970s
boarded everyone as they flew with a fire equal
to eight trips around America.
Children chose a sunflower bed
to float the fly off from a spotless shore.
I forgot to go,
I was feeling inordinately heavy.
Outside Born
Born in the center of a Mother
pre-established
already willed so by some exterior power
motivated by another force
motivated by a best bet
by an instinct
cultivated by an interior other.
Son the moon is full
forgetting an infinitesimal
Melting decomposition finds lungs forever full,
unasking and quenched.
The tide is a tumbler smoothing rough edges,
keeping cool under bridges swarthy with blackened green moss.
A family is born from an alphabetic sequence.
Sounds separate and find themselves expressing
permutation free from repetition.
But never free from anything.
pre-established
already willed so by some exterior power
motivated by another force
motivated by a best bet
by an instinct
cultivated by an interior other.
Son the moon is full
forgetting an infinitesimal
Melting decomposition finds lungs forever full,
unasking and quenched.
The tide is a tumbler smoothing rough edges,
keeping cool under bridges swarthy with blackened green moss.
A family is born from an alphabetic sequence.
Sounds separate and find themselves expressing
permutation free from repetition.
But never free from anything.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
X=Neon Underbelly
Lights are intermingling with a gray backdrop
neon underbelly
expressing the linear interior that
guides through slowly, slower than just now. Almost a
crawl without the kneecaps or
a mile flown by Zeno
The heavy creak of a let down
neon underbelly
sustains a blind town watching out for a means to suggest a mystery prize
Our self same surfaces in bubbles of
I thought reaching out for a pop
neon underbelly
neon underbelly
expressing the linear interior that
guides through slowly, slower than just now. Almost a
crawl without the kneecaps or
a mile flown by Zeno
The heavy creak of a let down
neon underbelly
sustains a blind town watching out for a means to suggest a mystery prize
Our self same surfaces in bubbles of
I thought reaching out for a pop
neon underbelly
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Summoned To
Some one too beyond the gate
summoned to
another late day escape break. A face turned
back towards a procrastinating
son looks ignorance square between the eyes and then
can’t help feeling that this is not his argument
Deliverance is daily
summoned to
some two
kids playing after dark with
no cover, no fear for light
summoned to
summoned to
another late day escape break. A face turned
back towards a procrastinating
son looks ignorance square between the eyes and then
can’t help feeling that this is not his argument
Deliverance is daily
summoned to
some two
kids playing after dark with
no cover, no fear for light
summoned to
A Walk in Brooklyn
A blue jay warning sign
went off in
the middle of the street. No one knew
how to decipher
the languages. The
blue car kept
rolling
by and the strangers
made no eye contact.
went off in
the middle of the street. No one knew
how to decipher
the languages. The
blue car kept
rolling
by and the strangers
made no eye contact.
Segregation of Powers
Dis in franchise looking for branded names to re-sell to
itself.
Too bad the roofs are gone. They
cracked
from hot air and dreams.
Cap it
all is scarcely in small mansion bricks
hanging
to get her to build supremacy’s new golden
nest egg.
Dip lunacy into
the fire. Paper
cackles
faster and louder than a war
rooster
perched upon a deducible dawn
crackling
on records
locked
up alive.
Fences
are double faced and
speaking.
Man is festering, no man is
landing
on all four feet from this new height.
Say once
“the Congo” or
“To go”
bare foot.
Walk there
backwards and take
back your
words and bring them to your
parents
if they die.
In more
toll
is high,
cracked
ice squares
forgetting too
pay four
moments
for birth.
Contract
less right
to kill
life it
self
wills not,
but
fears
erase
sure hands
no rings,
just straight
mono
color
lines of
future tenses
said in
mono
tone.
College
ate bad books
and now
the belly of the beast
is full
with Nausea
control
centers
of dis
sent the young to
die four
infantry dreams of in fed
Dells in
every
classroom.
Infantile power
is one
and the same, except power is gained.
Although,
alternative types are suppressed chickens
who give
each egg to any bodies
present.
Stubs born clawless
cannot
pick at the tiny knots
Plaguing
sacred ties now lying naked upon the ground.
No wear
covers each desert land expanse with wind
until
the moon complies with
demands
made by the pop you lace
mortals
still unable to ransack happiness and own content.
itself.
Too bad the roofs are gone. They
cracked
from hot air and dreams.
Cap it
all is scarcely in small mansion bricks
hanging
to get her to build supremacy’s new golden
nest egg.
Dip lunacy into
the fire. Paper
cackles
faster and louder than a war
rooster
perched upon a deducible dawn
crackling
on records
locked
up alive.
Fences
are double faced and
speaking.
Man is festering, no man is
landing
on all four feet from this new height.
Say once
“the Congo” or
“To go”
bare foot.
Walk there
backwards and take
back your
words and bring them to your
parents
if they die.
In more
toll
is high,
cracked
ice squares
forgetting too
pay four
moments
for birth.
Contract
less right
to kill
life it
self
wills not,
but
fears
erase
sure hands
no rings,
just straight
mono
color
lines of
future tenses
said in
mono
tone.
College
ate bad books
and now
the belly of the beast
is full
with Nausea
control
centers
of dis
sent the young to
die four
infantry dreams of in fed
Dells in
every
classroom.
Infantile power
is one
and the same, except power is gained.
Although,
alternative types are suppressed chickens
who give
each egg to any bodies
present.
Stubs born clawless
cannot
pick at the tiny knots
Plaguing
sacred ties now lying naked upon the ground.
No wear
covers each desert land expanse with wind
until
the moon complies with
demands
made by the pop you lace
mortals
still unable to ransack happiness and own content.
4+8=12/2=6-8=-2x2=-4+8=4/2=2-8=-6x2=-12+8=-4
A concave moon
face poured out prophecy last
night around the time I left.
She spoke
without breathing in light
and told me to come back to her.
No more
neon
flashes cause my
sudden disappearances.
I’ve tattooed
this ground
with sleep.
Reflected pink goodbyes hide be
side an exiting son
of night.
The door is in the middle of the lake. I must
walk their alone with a map drawn
out in the sky.
face poured out prophecy last
night around the time I left.
She spoke
without breathing in light
and told me to come back to her.
No more
neon
flashes cause my
sudden disappearances.
I’ve tattooed
this ground
with sleep.
Reflected pink goodbyes hide be
side an exiting son
of night.
The door is in the middle of the lake. I must
walk their alone with a map drawn
out in the sky.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
now
i'm having these eerie flash backs of my most stupid moments in graduate school. those times where i made myself heard in aristotle's physics, but didn't say anything and then had to bite my tongue. i'm thinking of the job i thought i'd have...how i justified its reality to myself over and over...and how it feels to live with the tune of a hundred "i told you so"s that no one really wanted to say. its too obvious and bitter. i'm thinking of the job i could have and how i don't know what i want to do besides be more than what i seem to be being. did i not just accomplish something? i suppose i did. i got an MA in philosophy. from a good place, but that does that mean i'm an adequate philosopher? i don't think so...not with the new school.
i'm thinking of my terribly awkward graduation reception where only one of my professors showed...oh, and only 6 other students. hm. i'm thinking of how my brother thinks i'm mean and i how i hope i'm not.
i feel like i've sold out before i've even sold out because i can't get passed my own I
now what? i feel perpetually embarrassed. i feel incapable of many things, but i guess atleast i care. thats some thing over no thing, i suppose.
now what? I have so much but now its time to for me to figure out what to do, where to go, who to be, what i want to accomplish, and how to support myself. i've come up with....................
yeah i don't have anything. i'm reactionary to want ads and possibilities that pay. i'm not actively seeking anything but a positive response to my resume.
networking. what did that ever have to do with notions of continuity, context, ontology, and phenomenology?
what does poetry set to mathematical patterns have to do with anything at all?
when will i start? how can i begin?
i'm thinking of my terribly awkward graduation reception where only one of my professors showed...oh, and only 6 other students. hm. i'm thinking of how my brother thinks i'm mean and i how i hope i'm not.
i feel like i've sold out before i've even sold out because i can't get passed my own I
now what? i feel perpetually embarrassed. i feel incapable of many things, but i guess atleast i care. thats some thing over no thing, i suppose.
now what? I have so much but now its time to for me to figure out what to do, where to go, who to be, what i want to accomplish, and how to support myself. i've come up with....................
yeah i don't have anything. i'm reactionary to want ads and possibilities that pay. i'm not actively seeking anything but a positive response to my resume.
networking. what did that ever have to do with notions of continuity, context, ontology, and phenomenology?
what does poetry set to mathematical patterns have to do with anything at all?
when will i start? how can i begin?
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
have you seen...
CPJ research indicates that the following journalists have disappeared while doing their work. Although some of them are feared dead, no bodies have been found, and they are therefore not classified as "Killed." If a journalist disappeared after being held in government custody, CPJ classifies him or her as "Imprisoned" as a way to hold the government accountable for the journalist's fate.
2006
PARAGUAY: 1
Enrique Galeano, Radio Azotey, February 4, Yby Yaú
Galeano, host of a morning news and music program on the Horqueta-based Radio Azotey, disappeared on his way home from work near the city of Yby Yaú in the northern Concepción province in the afternoon of February 4.
Galeano was seen boarding a vehicle on a road connecting Horqueta to Yby Yaú, but his wife, Bernardina Quintana, said that he never made it home.
Galeano, 51, lives with his wife and four children in Yby Yaú. He had been working at Radio Azotey, a local station owned by the ruling Colorado party, for a month before he disappeared. According to Julio Benegas, secretary-general of the Paraguayan Journalists Union (SPP), Galeano had previously worked for another local radio station owned by the same political party. Galeano also edits Alo vecino, a local periodical.
The Yby Yaú prosecutor is looking into a possible connection between Galeano’s journalistic work and his disappearance.
2005
PAKISTAN: 1
Hayatullah Khan, freelance, December 5, 2005, North Waziristan
Khan was seized by unidentified gunmen in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Some of Khan’s journalist colleagues believe he was taken by the authorities after contradicting the government version of a report on the killing of an al-Qaeda commander.
Khan was abducted after he had reported on an explosion in the town of Haisori in North Waziristan on December 1. His story contradicted official accounts claiming that a senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, died after munitions exploded inside a house. Khan quoted local tribesmen as saying the house was hit by an air-launched missile. He photographed fragments of the missile for the European Pressphoto Agency. International media identified it as a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. drone.
Khan, who worked for the Urdu-language daily Ausaf and the European Pressphoto Agency, has received numerous threats from Pakistani security forces, Taliban members, and local tribesmen because of his reporting, CPJ research shows.
Inquiries to authorities by Khan’s relatives, local journalist associations, CPJ, and other international groups have met with silence or misleading information from officials.
One of Khan’s journalist colleagues told CPJ that Khan had told his mother that the Pakistani government was threatening him. He had been told to leave journalism or the region, or accept a government job there. In Pakistan, journalists’ cooperation is sometimes “bought” by offering them government positions rather than have them continue to report news critical of the authorities.
Other colleagues in contact with CPJ speculated that Khan was being held by either Taliban militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, tribal groups, or Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Others accused the government of spreading disinformation that he was in hiding with either U.S. military forces in neighboring Afghanistan or the Taliban operating in the border area.
INDONESIA: 1
Elyuddin Telaumbanua, Berita Sore, August 17, 2005, Nias
Telaumbanua, a journalist with the daily Berita Sore, was reported missing on the island of Nias off the northwestern coast of Sumatra on August 22.
Telaumbanua left his home in the northern town of Gunungsitoli on August 17 for a reporting trip, promising to return home after several days, according to his wife. An editor for Berita Sore told local reporters that Telaumbanua may have disappeared while reporting on a murder in the island's southern Teluk Daram district. Telaumbanua, 51, had also recently reported on criminal gangs, local corruption, and irregularities in recent local elections, sources told CPJ.
Ukuran Maruhawa, a journalist traveling home with Telaumbanua, said that the two were ambushed on August 22 by a group of six men riding three motorcycles who forcibly took Telaumbanua away, The Jakarta Post reported. Local journalists told CPJ that they fear Telaumbanua is dead. Citing unnamed witnesses, Berita Sore reported that the journalist was beaten and killed by gangsters on August 24.
Journalists and family members have protested to police and lawmakers, urging them to find those responsible for his disappearance. Hundreds of journalists gathered in Medan in northern Sumatra on September 15 to protest the ongoing delays in the investigation.
MEXICO: 1
Alfredo Jiménez Mota, El Imparcial, April 2, 2005, Hermosillo
Jiménez, a crime reporter for the Hermosillo-based daily, disappeared from his home in the city of Hermosillo in the northwestern state of Sonora at about 9 p.m. on April 2. That night, he called a colleague at El Imparcial to say that he was going to meet with one of his contacts, according to Juan F. Healy, president and general director of the daily. Jiménez told his colleague that the contact was "very nervous." No one has heard from Jiménez since that call.
Jiménez, 25, lives alone in Hermosillo and has been working with El Imparcial for the last six months. Police said that no belongings were taken and nothing was disturbed.
Recent articles of Jiménez have investigated drug-trafficking families in the region. Sonora prosecutors have linked his disappearance with his journalistic work.
According to CPJ's recent research, Mexico's northern states have become one of the most hazardous places in Latin America for journalists to practice their profession. Journalists like Jiménez, who cover crime and drug trafficking, are particularly vulnerable.
2004
IRAQ: 1
Isam al-Shumari, Sudost Media, August 15, 2004, Fallujah
Al-Shumari, a cameraman for Sudost Media, a small production company that provides footage to Germany's N24 television, is believed to have disappeared in Fallujah on August 15. His disappearance came the same day his friend, cameraman Mahmoud Abbas, who was working with the German television station ZDF, was killed while on assignment. Al-Shumari's relatives told an N24 journalist in Baghdad that he had traveled to Fallujah with Abbas on August 15. Although al-Shumari was not on assignment for Sudost Media or N24, he may have been assisting his friend, Abbas, with his work. CPJ is currently seeking more information about his disappearance.
IVORY COAST: 1
Guy-André Kieffer, freelance, April 16, 2004, Abidjan
Kieffer, one of the few foreign investigative reporters still based in Ivory Coast, was last seen on April 16, according to local and international press reports. In the weeks prior to his disappearance, Kieffer received death threats, according to his family and friends, who fear that he has been killed. The journalist has both French and Canadian citizenship.
Since then his cell phone has been switched off, and his family has not heard from him. Unconfirmed reports in the opposition press have suggested that members of the security forces abducted and killed Kieffer. Reports that the tortured corpse of a white man was seen in Azaguié, near Abidjan, also remain unconfirmed.
The missing journalist is also a commodities consultant who specializes in the Ivory Coast's lucrative cocoa and coffee sectors for a company that had contracts with the government. He had conducted numerous investigations in these sectors, including exposing corruption. His freelance work included contributions to the Paris-based African business newsletter Lettre du Continent.
On May 25, Michel Legré, a brother-in-law of Ivory Coast's first lady, was detained in the commercial capital, Abidjan, and formally charged as an accessory in the kidnapping, confinement, and murder of Kieffer, according to international news reports. According to local press reports, Kieffer, was on his way to meet Legré when he disappeared.
A French judicial inquiry has been under way since May 3, after Kieffer's wife filed a complaint in a Paris court. France and Ivory Coast have a bilateral treaty on judicial cooperation dating back to Ivorian independence in 1960.
In the days before he was detained, Legré testified for 10 hours before a French investigating judge and blamed people close to the Ivorian government for Kieffer's disappearance, according to local and international press reports. On May 21, the French judge, Patrick Ramael, complained to the Ivorian state prosecutor that he has been unable to question the government officials that Legré implicated and asked the prosecutor to intervene.
While the government has charged Legré with being an accessory to murder, Kieffer's body has not been recovered, and the government has yet to present evidence that he was killed.
RUSSIA: 1
Maksim Maksimov, Gorod, June 29, 2004, St. Petersburg
Maksimov, 41, an investigative reporter for the St. Petersburg weekly magazine Gorod, was last seen on June 29, 2004, when he went to meet with a source in the city's downtown district, the business daily Kommersant reported.
A month later, police found his car parked near a local hotel. Maksimov's mobile phone without its SIM card resurfaced at a local flea market at about the same time, according to local press reports.
Initially, investigators and colleagues did not focus on Maksimov's journalism as a reason for his disappearance. At the time, Maksimov was seeking to trade his apartment in downtown St. Petersburg for a bigger one. Colleagues believed that he might have fallen victim to the organized crime gangs that control the real estate market in St. Petersburg, the news Web site Gazeta.ru reported.
For an entire year after the disappearance, neither law enforcement nor prosecutors reported any development in the investigation. Then, in June 2005, several Russian newspapers reported on the detention of at least three police officers—all senior investigators in the corruption division of the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry. The three were said to be suspects in Maksimov's disappearance and suspected murder.
The initial report came from the news agency Interfax and cited an anonymous source in the Northwestern Federal District's Prosecutor-General's Office. The report said that investigators believed that Maksimov was murdered for his work as a journalist and that two majors and a lieutenant colonel were considered suspects.
The suspects, Kommersant said, were held on unrelated criminal charges of forgery and falsifying evidence. The English-language daily Moscow Times said that St. Petersburg police confirmed the Interfax report but refused to give further details.
Soon after those reports appeared, however, on June 30, 2005, the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry issued a statement denying the involvement of the three police investigators in Maksimov's disappearance. The Interior Ministry said it "considers inadmissible and premature the appearance of press reports, accusing [the investigators] of masterminding the murder of journalist Maksim Maksimov." The Interior Ministry gave no information on how the investigation was developing. The statement generated no follow-up by the authorities.
In the absence of official information, speculation about what could have happened to Maksimov continued to circulate in the Russian press.
The St. Petersburg newspaper Smena, where Maksimov worked before joining Gorod, said on June 27, 2005, that it learned from unnamed sources from the St. Petersburg branch of the Interior Ministry that Maksimov disappeared after a contract-style hit organized by high-ranking investigators in retaliation for the journalist's investigation of corruption in the local Interior Ministry. The paper said that the perpetrators, three masterminds and two executors, were in detention.
Kommersant carried a similar story the next day. The paper said investigators believed Maksimov was strangled to death to prevent him from reporting on corruption in the St. Petersburg branch of the Interior Ministry. Several newspapers described in detail what they said happened to Maksimov the day he disappeared, and how he had been killed, but they did not source their accounts or explain how they had received the information.
Other reports noted that Maksimov had investigated the murders of several Russian businessmen and politicians, including Galina Starovoytova, a parliamentary deputy shot in her apartment building in 1998.
Authorities have not disclosed further information on the investigation, the identities of anyone held in connection with the crime, or the status of any criminal case. The journalist's body has not been found.
Rimma Maksimova, Maksim Maksimov's mother, described her communication with prosecutors in charge of the investigation as "difficult." Maksimova told CPJ that she had received no answer to queries about the status of the case which she sent to the Northwestern Federal District's Prosecutor-General's Office and the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry in St. Petersburg.
2003
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 1
Acquitté Kisembo, Agence France-Presse, June 26, 2003, Bunia
Kisembo, a 28 year-old medical student who was recruited by Agence France-Presse (AFP) to work as a fixer in the northeastern Ituri region, a notoriously dangerous and unstable area, was reported missing in Bunia, Ituri's main town. The last person to report seeing Kisembo alive was Anthony Morland, an AFP journalist who was working with him.
Local journalists believe that Kisembo was abducted by militiamen loyal to the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), which controlled Bunia until it was dislodged by a French-led international peacekeeping force earlier in June. Reports suggest that there was UPC resentment at locals perceived to be collaborating with the foreign presence in Bunia. However, the reasons behind Kisembo's disappearance remain unclear.
According to Morland, Kisembo was first hired as a general fixer, but later was given some reporting duties. On the day he disappeared, Kisembo had been assigned to interview displaced people returning to Bunia.
At the time Kisembo was reported missing, Ituri was emerging from several years of bloodletting, violence, and ethnic conflict, spurred by the region's richness in natural resources. According to journalists who have visited Ituri, disappearances, arbitrary killings, and other severe human rights abuses were all common in Ituri at the time.
Morland told CPJ that he had investigated Kisembo's disappearance and was unable to locate any independent witnesses. UPC leader Thomas Lubanga told AFP that Kisembo was killed by militia from a rival ethnic militia, but was unable to substantiate the allegation, according to Morland.
On the evening before his disappearance, Kisembo was threatened by men outside houses occupied by the UPC, Morland said. At the time, he was with a group of international journalists watching the departure from Bunia of the last UPC gunmen, in line with an ultimatum issued by the peacekeeping force.
Kinshasa-based press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) told CPJ that Kisembo was believed to have been assassinated by his kidnappers.
EGYPT:1
Reda Helal, Al-Ahram, August 11, 2003
MISSING
Helal, an editor with Egypt's semiofficial daily Al-Ahram, has been missing since August 11, 2003. Helal, considered controversial by some because of his outspoken support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, was last seen entering his home in the capital, Cairo, on the afternoon he disappeared. Local journalists say there is little evidence pointing to who kidnapped him, or if he was even kidnapped. CPJ continues to investigate the case.
IRAQ: 1
Fred Nerac, ITV News, March 22, 2003, Iman Anas
On March 22, veteran ITV News correspondent Terry Lloyd, cameraman Nerac, and translator Hussein Othman came under fire while driving to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The journalists were not embedded with military forces.
The three men, along with cameraman Daniel Demoustier, were traveling in two marked press vehicles in the town of Iman Anas, near Al-Zubayr, when they came under fire, ITN reported. According to Demoustier, the car he and Lloyd had been driving had been pursued by Iraqi troops who may have been attempting to surrender to the journalists. Demoustier reported that the incoming fire to their vehicles likely came from U.S. or British forces in the area.
Demoustier, who was injured when the car he was driving crashed into a ditch and caught fire, managed to escape. He said he did not see what happened to Lloyd, who was seated next to him, or to the other crew members. Lloyd's body was recovered in a hospital in Basra days later.
An investigative article published in the Wall Street Journal in May indicated that Lloyd's SUV and another vehicle belonging to his colleagues came under fire from U.S. Marines. The article cited accounts from U.S. troops who recalled opening fire on cars marked "TV." Soldiers also said they believed that Iraqi suicide bombers were using the cars to attack U.S. troops.
The Journal article cited a report from a British security firm commissioned by ITN to investigate the incident saying that Lloyd's car was hit by both coalition and Iraqi fire; the latter most likely came from behind the car, possibly after the vehicle had crashed.
The report concluded that "[t]he Iraqis no doubt mounted an attack using the ITN crew as cover, or perhaps stumbled into the U.S. forces whilst attempting to detain the ITN crew." The report also speculated that Nerac and Othman, who were last seen by Demoustier in another car being stopped by Iraqi forces—might have been pulled out of their car before it came under fire from coalition forces, and then Iraqi forces used the SUV to attack the coalition forces.
In April, Nerac's wife approached U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell at a NATO press conference, and he promised to do everything in his power to find out what had happened to the missing men. In late May, Centcom said that it was investigating the incident, while the British Ministry of Defense promised to open an inquiry. Neither had made public any results as of October.
In September, London's The Daily Mirror newspaper reported the testimony of an Iraqi man named Hamid Aglan who had allegedly tried to rescue the wounded Lloyd in a civilian minibus. Aglan told the newspaper that he had picked up a lightly wounded Lloyd, who had suffered only a shoulder injury, and attempted to take him to hospital in Basra when the minibus came under fire from a U.S. helicopter, killing Lloyd. The paper reported that the bus was also carrying wounded Iraqi soldiers.
An ITN spokesperson told CPJ that a number of elements of Aglan's story are not consistent with ITN's own investigation. She said an autopsy revealed that Lloyd had suffered two serious wounds that likely resulted from Iraqi and U.S. fire. She said that after he was wounded, an Iraqi civilian in a minibus had picked up Lloyd and tried to take him to a hospital in Basra. The minibus later came under U.S. attack. "It was a gunshot to the bus and [Terry] was probably in the bus," she said. ITN investigators believe that either wound that Lloyd sustained would have been fatal.
According to ITV, when the journalists disappeared, Nerac was wearing three press cards—one American and two Kuwaiti—containing his name and photo. He had on a blue Gortex jacket, khaki trousers, thick Gortex shoes, and a silver watch. He has dark brown hair and gold-colored, round-rimmed glasses. Nerac has a fairly recent scar (about 2 inches [4 to 5 centimeters] long) on one side of his buttocks.
Othman was also wearing three press cards—one American and two Kuwaiti—containing his name and photo, said ITV. He was dressed in dark-colored, casual clothes. Othman is 5 feet 6 inches (1.70 meters) tall, with a medium build and short, thinning, dark hair.
RUSSIA: 1
Ali Astamirov, Agence France-Presse, July 4, 2003, Ingushetia, Russia
Astamirov, a 34-year-old correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, was abducted on July 4 by unknown armed assailants in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia.
Astamirov, who is married and has two children, previously worked for Chechnya's Grozny Television. He was based in Ingushetia's capital, Nazran, and had worked for AFP for more than a year. He reported on politically sensitive issues, primarily the conflict in Chechnya and the plight of Chechen refuges in neighboring Ingushetia.
The journalist was kidnapped while he and two colleagues, humanitarian worker Ruslan Musayev and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) stringer Aslambek Dadayev, were driving through Nazran and stopped for gas.
A white vehicle blocked the car, and three armed men in camouflage attire—two of whom were wearing masks—seized the journalists' cell phones, pulled Astamirov out of the car, and drove off in the direction of Chechnya.
Russian law enforcement authorities launched a criminal investigation into the incident but have not reported any progress.
Astamirov's fate remains unknown, and the abductors have not contacted the journalist's family or AFP with demands.
According to AFP, Astamirov had received telephone threats in the months prior to his abduction and had moved to a different house because he feared for his safety. On July 24, AFP reported that a reliable source in Chechnya told the news agency that the journalist was still alive and that he was being held in Chechnya. The source provided no further details.
2002.
UKRAINE: 1
Oleksandr Panych, Donetskiye Novosti, November 2002, Donetsk
Panych, a 36-year-old journalist and manager for the daily Donetskiye Novosti, disappeared in late November 2002 from the southeastern city of Donetsk and has not been heard from since. Donetskiye Novosti editor-in-chief Ryma Fil said that Panych had written articles about drugs and business issues, The Associated Press reported.
Panych disappeared several days after he sold his apartment for US$14,000. Soon after, investigators found bloodstains on the apartment's carpet. Prosecutors believe he may have been robbed but have not ruled out the possibility that his disappearance is related to his journalism.
1998
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 1
Belmonde Magloire Missinhoun, Le Point Congo, October 3, 1998, Kinshasa
Missinhoun, a citizen of Benin and owner of the independent financial newspaper La Pointe Congo, has not been seen since he was arrested after a traffic accident with a military vehicle in the capital, Kinshasa. Police investigations into the journalist's disappearance have yielded no results.
Missinhoun had lived in Kinshasa for approximately 30 years. La Pointe Congo has not published since the regime of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko fell in 1997. It is feared that the journalist, who had close ties to the Mobutu government, was killed.
In March 2003, Congolese sources told CPJ that no one has received any information about Missinhoun since his disappearance. Local sources said they saw the journalist's jeep re-painted in army colors after his arrest, and that they suspect he was killed.
RWANDA: 1
Emmanuel Munyemanzi, Rwandan National Television, May 2, 1998, Kigali
Munyemanzi, head of production services at Rwandan National Television, disappeared on his way home from work in the capital, Kigali. Two months before his disappearance, the director of the Rwanda Information Office (Orinfor) accused the journalist of sabotage because of a technical problem that had occurred during the taping of a political debate. Munyemanzi was then suspended from his job and transferred to Orinfor's Studies and Programs Bureau.
In March 2003, one source told CPJ that the journalist's body was recovered shortly after he disappeared. CPJ was unable to confirm this report.
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: 1
Djuro Slavuj, Radio Pristina, August 21, 1998, Orahovac
Slavuj, a reporter at the state-run Radio Pristina, and Ranko Perenic, his driver, disappeared while on assignment in Kosovo. They were last seen in the town of Orahovac, where they had left by car to travel to Malisevo to report on strife in the area. Milivoje Mihajlovic, Slavuj's editor, as well as Serbian officials and nongovernmental organizations, believe that fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army captured the two. They were the first ethnic Serbs working for the media reported missing during the Kosovo conflict of 1999.
1996
RUSSIA: 3
Vitaly Shevchenko, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Andrei Bazvluk, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Yelena Petrova, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Shevchenko and Bazvluk, journalists from Lita-M, a small television company in Kharkhiv, Ukraine, were reported missing by their colleagues in early September 1996. Fellow correspondents last saw the pair on August 11 in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, during heavy fighting between Russian federal troops and Chechen fighters who had seized control of the city on August 6. Shevchenko and Bazvluk had reportedly traveled from their native Ukraine to Chechnya to cover the conflict. A third journalist, Yelena Petrova, a senior executive of Lita-M, was also believed to be missing. She did not contact her studio after mid-August, according to a colleague.
A representative of the Kharkiv Committee for Human Rights Protection told CPJ in March 2003 that the Lita-M television company no longer exists, and that the three are still missing. He also said that Shevchenko and Bazvluk were members of the ultranationalist Ukrainian Nationalist Assembly–Ukrainian National Self-Defense party. Other sources reported that the three were representatives of civic organizations and were involved in humanitarian work, making it unclear whether they were in Chechnya working as journalists.
1995
RUSSIA: 4
Maksim Shabalin, Nevskoye Vremya, February 1995, Chechnya
Feliks Titov, Nevskoye Vremya, February 1995, Chechnya
Shabalin, assistant political editor of the St. Petersburg daily Nevskoye Vremya, and Titov, a photographer for the paper, were reported missing in Chechnya. They left Nazran on February 27, 1995, for their fifth trip to the breakaway republic since fighting there began in 1992.
According Nevskoye Vremya staff, the journalists were due back on March 4 but have not been heard from since and are presumed dead. Shabalin and Titov may not have had official accreditation from Russian authorities to enter Chechnya.
Colleagues at Nevskoye Vremya heard in September 1995 that the bodies of two journalists had been found in February 1995 in the Achoi Region of the republic. However, there were no documents or photographs confirming the bodies' identities. On June 16, 1995, Nevskoye Vremya correspondent Sergei Ivanov traveled to Chechnya to look for Shabalin and Titov, but he never returned and has not been heard from since.
Alla Manilova, editor-in-chief of Nevskoye Vremya, told CPJ in March 2003 that Shabalin, Titov, and Ivanov are still missing, and that she heard rumors in the mid-1990s that Chechen rebels had killed Shabalin and Titov.
Sergei Ivanov, Nevskoye Vremya, June 1995, Chechnya
Ivanov, a correspondent for the St. Petersburg daily Nevskoye Vremya, was last seen by his colleagues on June 16, 1995, when he left for Chechnya to look for Nevskoye Vremya journalists Maksim Shabalin and Feliks Titov, who had disappeared in February. By the end of 1995, Ivanov's colleagues had not heard from him, and they feared he was killed.
Alla Manilova, the editor-in-chief of Nevskoye Vremya, told CPJ in March 2003 that Shabalin, Titov, and Ivanov are still missing and that she heard rumors in the mid-1990s that Chechen rebels had killed Shabalin and Titov. She said that when Ivanov went to Chechnya to look for his colleages, the search team initially agreed not to split up, but Ivanov decided to go into the mountains on his own and was never heard from again.
Andrew Shumack, free-lancer, July 1995, Chechnya
Shumack, an American free-lance journalist, was last seen on July 28, 1995, when he left the Chechen capital of Grozny for the surrounding mountainous area. The St. Petersburg Press, an English-language newspaper, had provided Shumack with a letter of introduction on July 20 to help him obtain press credentials. In return, Shumack was to provide them with photographs and stories for three months. He is presumed dead because no one from the newspaper has heard from him since, and U.S. Embassy officials have not been able to locate him, despite repeated trips to the region.
RWANDA: 1
Manasse Mugabo, United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda Radio, August 19, 1995, Rwanda
Mugabo, director of the UNAMIR radio service, left Rwanda's capital, Kigali, to go on vacation to Uganda and has not been heard from since. CPJ has been unable to find information regarding the journalist's whereabouts.
1994
ALGERIA: 1
Mohamed Hassaine, Alger Républicain, March 1, 1994, Algiers
Hassaine, a reporter with the daily Alger Républicain, was kidnapped by unknown assailants. CPJ originally believed that Hassaine had been murdered based on his colleagues' reports of discovering Hassaine's decapitated body. But during interviews in the capital, Algiers, in October 1998, CPJ learned that Hassaine's body was in fact never found, and that there has been no evidence confirming his death.
1982
LEBANON: 1
Kazem Akhavan, IRNA, July 4, 1982, Byblos
Akhavan, a photographer for Iran's official news agency IRNA, and two officials from the Iranian Embassy in the capital, Beirut, were believed to have been kidnapped by Phalangist militiamen at a checkpoint near the northern city of Byblos and executed shortly after their abduction.
However, a March 18, 1998, story in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz raised suspicion that Israel may be holding the journalist. The story, written by Israeli journalist Josef al-Ghazi and based on information provided by the Israeli prison service, reported that three Iranian nationals were imprisoned in Israel at the time.
CPJ wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 15, 1998 requesting the names of the imprisoned Iranians but received no response.
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/missing_list.html
from The Guardian...uk
2006
PARAGUAY: 1
Enrique Galeano, Radio Azotey, February 4, Yby Yaú
Galeano, host of a morning news and music program on the Horqueta-based Radio Azotey, disappeared on his way home from work near the city of Yby Yaú in the northern Concepción province in the afternoon of February 4.
Galeano was seen boarding a vehicle on a road connecting Horqueta to Yby Yaú, but his wife, Bernardina Quintana, said that he never made it home.
Galeano, 51, lives with his wife and four children in Yby Yaú. He had been working at Radio Azotey, a local station owned by the ruling Colorado party, for a month before he disappeared. According to Julio Benegas, secretary-general of the Paraguayan Journalists Union (SPP), Galeano had previously worked for another local radio station owned by the same political party. Galeano also edits Alo vecino, a local periodical.
The Yby Yaú prosecutor is looking into a possible connection between Galeano’s journalistic work and his disappearance.
2005
PAKISTAN: 1
Hayatullah Khan, freelance, December 5, 2005, North Waziristan
Khan was seized by unidentified gunmen in the lawless North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Some of Khan’s journalist colleagues believe he was taken by the authorities after contradicting the government version of a report on the killing of an al-Qaeda commander.
Khan was abducted after he had reported on an explosion in the town of Haisori in North Waziristan on December 1. His story contradicted official accounts claiming that a senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, died after munitions exploded inside a house. Khan quoted local tribesmen as saying the house was hit by an air-launched missile. He photographed fragments of the missile for the European Pressphoto Agency. International media identified it as a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. drone.
Khan, who worked for the Urdu-language daily Ausaf and the European Pressphoto Agency, has received numerous threats from Pakistani security forces, Taliban members, and local tribesmen because of his reporting, CPJ research shows.
Inquiries to authorities by Khan’s relatives, local journalist associations, CPJ, and other international groups have met with silence or misleading information from officials.
One of Khan’s journalist colleagues told CPJ that Khan had told his mother that the Pakistani government was threatening him. He had been told to leave journalism or the region, or accept a government job there. In Pakistan, journalists’ cooperation is sometimes “bought” by offering them government positions rather than have them continue to report news critical of the authorities.
Other colleagues in contact with CPJ speculated that Khan was being held by either Taliban militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, tribal groups, or Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Others accused the government of spreading disinformation that he was in hiding with either U.S. military forces in neighboring Afghanistan or the Taliban operating in the border area.
INDONESIA: 1
Elyuddin Telaumbanua, Berita Sore, August 17, 2005, Nias
Telaumbanua, a journalist with the daily Berita Sore, was reported missing on the island of Nias off the northwestern coast of Sumatra on August 22.
Telaumbanua left his home in the northern town of Gunungsitoli on August 17 for a reporting trip, promising to return home after several days, according to his wife. An editor for Berita Sore told local reporters that Telaumbanua may have disappeared while reporting on a murder in the island's southern Teluk Daram district. Telaumbanua, 51, had also recently reported on criminal gangs, local corruption, and irregularities in recent local elections, sources told CPJ.
Ukuran Maruhawa, a journalist traveling home with Telaumbanua, said that the two were ambushed on August 22 by a group of six men riding three motorcycles who forcibly took Telaumbanua away, The Jakarta Post reported. Local journalists told CPJ that they fear Telaumbanua is dead. Citing unnamed witnesses, Berita Sore reported that the journalist was beaten and killed by gangsters on August 24.
Journalists and family members have protested to police and lawmakers, urging them to find those responsible for his disappearance. Hundreds of journalists gathered in Medan in northern Sumatra on September 15 to protest the ongoing delays in the investigation.
MEXICO: 1
Alfredo Jiménez Mota, El Imparcial, April 2, 2005, Hermosillo
Jiménez, a crime reporter for the Hermosillo-based daily, disappeared from his home in the city of Hermosillo in the northwestern state of Sonora at about 9 p.m. on April 2. That night, he called a colleague at El Imparcial to say that he was going to meet with one of his contacts, according to Juan F. Healy, president and general director of the daily. Jiménez told his colleague that the contact was "very nervous." No one has heard from Jiménez since that call.
Jiménez, 25, lives alone in Hermosillo and has been working with El Imparcial for the last six months. Police said that no belongings were taken and nothing was disturbed.
Recent articles of Jiménez have investigated drug-trafficking families in the region. Sonora prosecutors have linked his disappearance with his journalistic work.
According to CPJ's recent research, Mexico's northern states have become one of the most hazardous places in Latin America for journalists to practice their profession. Journalists like Jiménez, who cover crime and drug trafficking, are particularly vulnerable.
2004
IRAQ: 1
Isam al-Shumari, Sudost Media, August 15, 2004, Fallujah
Al-Shumari, a cameraman for Sudost Media, a small production company that provides footage to Germany's N24 television, is believed to have disappeared in Fallujah on August 15. His disappearance came the same day his friend, cameraman Mahmoud Abbas, who was working with the German television station ZDF, was killed while on assignment. Al-Shumari's relatives told an N24 journalist in Baghdad that he had traveled to Fallujah with Abbas on August 15. Although al-Shumari was not on assignment for Sudost Media or N24, he may have been assisting his friend, Abbas, with his work. CPJ is currently seeking more information about his disappearance.
IVORY COAST: 1
Guy-André Kieffer, freelance, April 16, 2004, Abidjan
Kieffer, one of the few foreign investigative reporters still based in Ivory Coast, was last seen on April 16, according to local and international press reports. In the weeks prior to his disappearance, Kieffer received death threats, according to his family and friends, who fear that he has been killed. The journalist has both French and Canadian citizenship.
Since then his cell phone has been switched off, and his family has not heard from him. Unconfirmed reports in the opposition press have suggested that members of the security forces abducted and killed Kieffer. Reports that the tortured corpse of a white man was seen in Azaguié, near Abidjan, also remain unconfirmed.
The missing journalist is also a commodities consultant who specializes in the Ivory Coast's lucrative cocoa and coffee sectors for a company that had contracts with the government. He had conducted numerous investigations in these sectors, including exposing corruption. His freelance work included contributions to the Paris-based African business newsletter Lettre du Continent.
On May 25, Michel Legré, a brother-in-law of Ivory Coast's first lady, was detained in the commercial capital, Abidjan, and formally charged as an accessory in the kidnapping, confinement, and murder of Kieffer, according to international news reports. According to local press reports, Kieffer, was on his way to meet Legré when he disappeared.
A French judicial inquiry has been under way since May 3, after Kieffer's wife filed a complaint in a Paris court. France and Ivory Coast have a bilateral treaty on judicial cooperation dating back to Ivorian independence in 1960.
In the days before he was detained, Legré testified for 10 hours before a French investigating judge and blamed people close to the Ivorian government for Kieffer's disappearance, according to local and international press reports. On May 21, the French judge, Patrick Ramael, complained to the Ivorian state prosecutor that he has been unable to question the government officials that Legré implicated and asked the prosecutor to intervene.
While the government has charged Legré with being an accessory to murder, Kieffer's body has not been recovered, and the government has yet to present evidence that he was killed.
RUSSIA: 1
Maksim Maksimov, Gorod, June 29, 2004, St. Petersburg
Maksimov, 41, an investigative reporter for the St. Petersburg weekly magazine Gorod, was last seen on June 29, 2004, when he went to meet with a source in the city's downtown district, the business daily Kommersant reported.
A month later, police found his car parked near a local hotel. Maksimov's mobile phone without its SIM card resurfaced at a local flea market at about the same time, according to local press reports.
Initially, investigators and colleagues did not focus on Maksimov's journalism as a reason for his disappearance. At the time, Maksimov was seeking to trade his apartment in downtown St. Petersburg for a bigger one. Colleagues believed that he might have fallen victim to the organized crime gangs that control the real estate market in St. Petersburg, the news Web site Gazeta.ru reported.
For an entire year after the disappearance, neither law enforcement nor prosecutors reported any development in the investigation. Then, in June 2005, several Russian newspapers reported on the detention of at least three police officers—all senior investigators in the corruption division of the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry. The three were said to be suspects in Maksimov's disappearance and suspected murder.
The initial report came from the news agency Interfax and cited an anonymous source in the Northwestern Federal District's Prosecutor-General's Office. The report said that investigators believed that Maksimov was murdered for his work as a journalist and that two majors and a lieutenant colonel were considered suspects.
The suspects, Kommersant said, were held on unrelated criminal charges of forgery and falsifying evidence. The English-language daily Moscow Times said that St. Petersburg police confirmed the Interfax report but refused to give further details.
Soon after those reports appeared, however, on June 30, 2005, the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry issued a statement denying the involvement of the three police investigators in Maksimov's disappearance. The Interior Ministry said it "considers inadmissible and premature the appearance of press reports, accusing [the investigators] of masterminding the murder of journalist Maksim Maksimov." The Interior Ministry gave no information on how the investigation was developing. The statement generated no follow-up by the authorities.
In the absence of official information, speculation about what could have happened to Maksimov continued to circulate in the Russian press.
The St. Petersburg newspaper Smena, where Maksimov worked before joining Gorod, said on June 27, 2005, that it learned from unnamed sources from the St. Petersburg branch of the Interior Ministry that Maksimov disappeared after a contract-style hit organized by high-ranking investigators in retaliation for the journalist's investigation of corruption in the local Interior Ministry. The paper said that the perpetrators, three masterminds and two executors, were in detention.
Kommersant carried a similar story the next day. The paper said investigators believed Maksimov was strangled to death to prevent him from reporting on corruption in the St. Petersburg branch of the Interior Ministry. Several newspapers described in detail what they said happened to Maksimov the day he disappeared, and how he had been killed, but they did not source their accounts or explain how they had received the information.
Other reports noted that Maksimov had investigated the murders of several Russian businessmen and politicians, including Galina Starovoytova, a parliamentary deputy shot in her apartment building in 1998.
Authorities have not disclosed further information on the investigation, the identities of anyone held in connection with the crime, or the status of any criminal case. The journalist's body has not been found.
Rimma Maksimova, Maksim Maksimov's mother, described her communication with prosecutors in charge of the investigation as "difficult." Maksimova told CPJ that she had received no answer to queries about the status of the case which she sent to the Northwestern Federal District's Prosecutor-General's Office and the Northwestern Federal District's Interior Ministry in St. Petersburg.
2003
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 1
Acquitté Kisembo, Agence France-Presse, June 26, 2003, Bunia
Kisembo, a 28 year-old medical student who was recruited by Agence France-Presse (AFP) to work as a fixer in the northeastern Ituri region, a notoriously dangerous and unstable area, was reported missing in Bunia, Ituri's main town. The last person to report seeing Kisembo alive was Anthony Morland, an AFP journalist who was working with him.
Local journalists believe that Kisembo was abducted by militiamen loyal to the rebel Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), which controlled Bunia until it was dislodged by a French-led international peacekeeping force earlier in June. Reports suggest that there was UPC resentment at locals perceived to be collaborating with the foreign presence in Bunia. However, the reasons behind Kisembo's disappearance remain unclear.
According to Morland, Kisembo was first hired as a general fixer, but later was given some reporting duties. On the day he disappeared, Kisembo had been assigned to interview displaced people returning to Bunia.
At the time Kisembo was reported missing, Ituri was emerging from several years of bloodletting, violence, and ethnic conflict, spurred by the region's richness in natural resources. According to journalists who have visited Ituri, disappearances, arbitrary killings, and other severe human rights abuses were all common in Ituri at the time.
Morland told CPJ that he had investigated Kisembo's disappearance and was unable to locate any independent witnesses. UPC leader Thomas Lubanga told AFP that Kisembo was killed by militia from a rival ethnic militia, but was unable to substantiate the allegation, according to Morland.
On the evening before his disappearance, Kisembo was threatened by men outside houses occupied by the UPC, Morland said. At the time, he was with a group of international journalists watching the departure from Bunia of the last UPC gunmen, in line with an ultimatum issued by the peacekeeping force.
Kinshasa-based press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) told CPJ that Kisembo was believed to have been assassinated by his kidnappers.
EGYPT:1
Reda Helal, Al-Ahram, August 11, 2003
MISSING
Helal, an editor with Egypt's semiofficial daily Al-Ahram, has been missing since August 11, 2003. Helal, considered controversial by some because of his outspoken support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, was last seen entering his home in the capital, Cairo, on the afternoon he disappeared. Local journalists say there is little evidence pointing to who kidnapped him, or if he was even kidnapped. CPJ continues to investigate the case.
IRAQ: 1
Fred Nerac, ITV News, March 22, 2003, Iman Anas
On March 22, veteran ITV News correspondent Terry Lloyd, cameraman Nerac, and translator Hussein Othman came under fire while driving to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The journalists were not embedded with military forces.
The three men, along with cameraman Daniel Demoustier, were traveling in two marked press vehicles in the town of Iman Anas, near Al-Zubayr, when they came under fire, ITN reported. According to Demoustier, the car he and Lloyd had been driving had been pursued by Iraqi troops who may have been attempting to surrender to the journalists. Demoustier reported that the incoming fire to their vehicles likely came from U.S. or British forces in the area.
Demoustier, who was injured when the car he was driving crashed into a ditch and caught fire, managed to escape. He said he did not see what happened to Lloyd, who was seated next to him, or to the other crew members. Lloyd's body was recovered in a hospital in Basra days later.
An investigative article published in the Wall Street Journal in May indicated that Lloyd's SUV and another vehicle belonging to his colleagues came under fire from U.S. Marines. The article cited accounts from U.S. troops who recalled opening fire on cars marked "TV." Soldiers also said they believed that Iraqi suicide bombers were using the cars to attack U.S. troops.
The Journal article cited a report from a British security firm commissioned by ITN to investigate the incident saying that Lloyd's car was hit by both coalition and Iraqi fire; the latter most likely came from behind the car, possibly after the vehicle had crashed.
The report concluded that "[t]he Iraqis no doubt mounted an attack using the ITN crew as cover, or perhaps stumbled into the U.S. forces whilst attempting to detain the ITN crew." The report also speculated that Nerac and Othman, who were last seen by Demoustier in another car being stopped by Iraqi forces—might have been pulled out of their car before it came under fire from coalition forces, and then Iraqi forces used the SUV to attack the coalition forces.
In April, Nerac's wife approached U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell at a NATO press conference, and he promised to do everything in his power to find out what had happened to the missing men. In late May, Centcom said that it was investigating the incident, while the British Ministry of Defense promised to open an inquiry. Neither had made public any results as of October.
In September, London's The Daily Mirror newspaper reported the testimony of an Iraqi man named Hamid Aglan who had allegedly tried to rescue the wounded Lloyd in a civilian minibus. Aglan told the newspaper that he had picked up a lightly wounded Lloyd, who had suffered only a shoulder injury, and attempted to take him to hospital in Basra when the minibus came under fire from a U.S. helicopter, killing Lloyd. The paper reported that the bus was also carrying wounded Iraqi soldiers.
An ITN spokesperson told CPJ that a number of elements of Aglan's story are not consistent with ITN's own investigation. She said an autopsy revealed that Lloyd had suffered two serious wounds that likely resulted from Iraqi and U.S. fire. She said that after he was wounded, an Iraqi civilian in a minibus had picked up Lloyd and tried to take him to a hospital in Basra. The minibus later came under U.S. attack. "It was a gunshot to the bus and [Terry] was probably in the bus," she said. ITN investigators believe that either wound that Lloyd sustained would have been fatal.
According to ITV, when the journalists disappeared, Nerac was wearing three press cards—one American and two Kuwaiti—containing his name and photo. He had on a blue Gortex jacket, khaki trousers, thick Gortex shoes, and a silver watch. He has dark brown hair and gold-colored, round-rimmed glasses. Nerac has a fairly recent scar (about 2 inches [4 to 5 centimeters] long) on one side of his buttocks.
Othman was also wearing three press cards—one American and two Kuwaiti—containing his name and photo, said ITV. He was dressed in dark-colored, casual clothes. Othman is 5 feet 6 inches (1.70 meters) tall, with a medium build and short, thinning, dark hair.
RUSSIA: 1
Ali Astamirov, Agence France-Presse, July 4, 2003, Ingushetia, Russia
Astamirov, a 34-year-old correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, was abducted on July 4 by unknown armed assailants in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia.
Astamirov, who is married and has two children, previously worked for Chechnya's Grozny Television. He was based in Ingushetia's capital, Nazran, and had worked for AFP for more than a year. He reported on politically sensitive issues, primarily the conflict in Chechnya and the plight of Chechen refuges in neighboring Ingushetia.
The journalist was kidnapped while he and two colleagues, humanitarian worker Ruslan Musayev and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) stringer Aslambek Dadayev, were driving through Nazran and stopped for gas.
A white vehicle blocked the car, and three armed men in camouflage attire—two of whom were wearing masks—seized the journalists' cell phones, pulled Astamirov out of the car, and drove off in the direction of Chechnya.
Russian law enforcement authorities launched a criminal investigation into the incident but have not reported any progress.
Astamirov's fate remains unknown, and the abductors have not contacted the journalist's family or AFP with demands.
According to AFP, Astamirov had received telephone threats in the months prior to his abduction and had moved to a different house because he feared for his safety. On July 24, AFP reported that a reliable source in Chechnya told the news agency that the journalist was still alive and that he was being held in Chechnya. The source provided no further details.
2002.
UKRAINE: 1
Oleksandr Panych, Donetskiye Novosti, November 2002, Donetsk
Panych, a 36-year-old journalist and manager for the daily Donetskiye Novosti, disappeared in late November 2002 from the southeastern city of Donetsk and has not been heard from since. Donetskiye Novosti editor-in-chief Ryma Fil said that Panych had written articles about drugs and business issues, The Associated Press reported.
Panych disappeared several days after he sold his apartment for US$14,000. Soon after, investigators found bloodstains on the apartment's carpet. Prosecutors believe he may have been robbed but have not ruled out the possibility that his disappearance is related to his journalism.
1998
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: 1
Belmonde Magloire Missinhoun, Le Point Congo, October 3, 1998, Kinshasa
Missinhoun, a citizen of Benin and owner of the independent financial newspaper La Pointe Congo, has not been seen since he was arrested after a traffic accident with a military vehicle in the capital, Kinshasa. Police investigations into the journalist's disappearance have yielded no results.
Missinhoun had lived in Kinshasa for approximately 30 years. La Pointe Congo has not published since the regime of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko fell in 1997. It is feared that the journalist, who had close ties to the Mobutu government, was killed.
In March 2003, Congolese sources told CPJ that no one has received any information about Missinhoun since his disappearance. Local sources said they saw the journalist's jeep re-painted in army colors after his arrest, and that they suspect he was killed.
RWANDA: 1
Emmanuel Munyemanzi, Rwandan National Television, May 2, 1998, Kigali
Munyemanzi, head of production services at Rwandan National Television, disappeared on his way home from work in the capital, Kigali. Two months before his disappearance, the director of the Rwanda Information Office (Orinfor) accused the journalist of sabotage because of a technical problem that had occurred during the taping of a political debate. Munyemanzi was then suspended from his job and transferred to Orinfor's Studies and Programs Bureau.
In March 2003, one source told CPJ that the journalist's body was recovered shortly after he disappeared. CPJ was unable to confirm this report.
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO: 1
Djuro Slavuj, Radio Pristina, August 21, 1998, Orahovac
Slavuj, a reporter at the state-run Radio Pristina, and Ranko Perenic, his driver, disappeared while on assignment in Kosovo. They were last seen in the town of Orahovac, where they had left by car to travel to Malisevo to report on strife in the area. Milivoje Mihajlovic, Slavuj's editor, as well as Serbian officials and nongovernmental organizations, believe that fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army captured the two. They were the first ethnic Serbs working for the media reported missing during the Kosovo conflict of 1999.
1996
RUSSIA: 3
Vitaly Shevchenko, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Andrei Bazvluk, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Yelena Petrova, Lita-M, Chechnya, August 11, 1996, Grozny
Shevchenko and Bazvluk, journalists from Lita-M, a small television company in Kharkhiv, Ukraine, were reported missing by their colleagues in early September 1996. Fellow correspondents last saw the pair on August 11 in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, during heavy fighting between Russian federal troops and Chechen fighters who had seized control of the city on August 6. Shevchenko and Bazvluk had reportedly traveled from their native Ukraine to Chechnya to cover the conflict. A third journalist, Yelena Petrova, a senior executive of Lita-M, was also believed to be missing. She did not contact her studio after mid-August, according to a colleague.
A representative of the Kharkiv Committee for Human Rights Protection told CPJ in March 2003 that the Lita-M television company no longer exists, and that the three are still missing. He also said that Shevchenko and Bazvluk were members of the ultranationalist Ukrainian Nationalist Assembly–Ukrainian National Self-Defense party. Other sources reported that the three were representatives of civic organizations and were involved in humanitarian work, making it unclear whether they were in Chechnya working as journalists.
1995
RUSSIA: 4
Maksim Shabalin, Nevskoye Vremya, February 1995, Chechnya
Feliks Titov, Nevskoye Vremya, February 1995, Chechnya
Shabalin, assistant political editor of the St. Petersburg daily Nevskoye Vremya, and Titov, a photographer for the paper, were reported missing in Chechnya. They left Nazran on February 27, 1995, for their fifth trip to the breakaway republic since fighting there began in 1992.
According Nevskoye Vremya staff, the journalists were due back on March 4 but have not been heard from since and are presumed dead. Shabalin and Titov may not have had official accreditation from Russian authorities to enter Chechnya.
Colleagues at Nevskoye Vremya heard in September 1995 that the bodies of two journalists had been found in February 1995 in the Achoi Region of the republic. However, there were no documents or photographs confirming the bodies' identities. On June 16, 1995, Nevskoye Vremya correspondent Sergei Ivanov traveled to Chechnya to look for Shabalin and Titov, but he never returned and has not been heard from since.
Alla Manilova, editor-in-chief of Nevskoye Vremya, told CPJ in March 2003 that Shabalin, Titov, and Ivanov are still missing, and that she heard rumors in the mid-1990s that Chechen rebels had killed Shabalin and Titov.
Sergei Ivanov, Nevskoye Vremya, June 1995, Chechnya
Ivanov, a correspondent for the St. Petersburg daily Nevskoye Vremya, was last seen by his colleagues on June 16, 1995, when he left for Chechnya to look for Nevskoye Vremya journalists Maksim Shabalin and Feliks Titov, who had disappeared in February. By the end of 1995, Ivanov's colleagues had not heard from him, and they feared he was killed.
Alla Manilova, the editor-in-chief of Nevskoye Vremya, told CPJ in March 2003 that Shabalin, Titov, and Ivanov are still missing and that she heard rumors in the mid-1990s that Chechen rebels had killed Shabalin and Titov. She said that when Ivanov went to Chechnya to look for his colleages, the search team initially agreed not to split up, but Ivanov decided to go into the mountains on his own and was never heard from again.
Andrew Shumack, free-lancer, July 1995, Chechnya
Shumack, an American free-lance journalist, was last seen on July 28, 1995, when he left the Chechen capital of Grozny for the surrounding mountainous area. The St. Petersburg Press, an English-language newspaper, had provided Shumack with a letter of introduction on July 20 to help him obtain press credentials. In return, Shumack was to provide them with photographs and stories for three months. He is presumed dead because no one from the newspaper has heard from him since, and U.S. Embassy officials have not been able to locate him, despite repeated trips to the region.
RWANDA: 1
Manasse Mugabo, United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda Radio, August 19, 1995, Rwanda
Mugabo, director of the UNAMIR radio service, left Rwanda's capital, Kigali, to go on vacation to Uganda and has not been heard from since. CPJ has been unable to find information regarding the journalist's whereabouts.
1994
ALGERIA: 1
Mohamed Hassaine, Alger Républicain, March 1, 1994, Algiers
Hassaine, a reporter with the daily Alger Républicain, was kidnapped by unknown assailants. CPJ originally believed that Hassaine had been murdered based on his colleagues' reports of discovering Hassaine's decapitated body. But during interviews in the capital, Algiers, in October 1998, CPJ learned that Hassaine's body was in fact never found, and that there has been no evidence confirming his death.
1982
LEBANON: 1
Kazem Akhavan, IRNA, July 4, 1982, Byblos
Akhavan, a photographer for Iran's official news agency IRNA, and two officials from the Iranian Embassy in the capital, Beirut, were believed to have been kidnapped by Phalangist militiamen at a checkpoint near the northern city of Byblos and executed shortly after their abduction.
However, a March 18, 1998, story in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz raised suspicion that Israel may be holding the journalist. The story, written by Israeli journalist Josef al-Ghazi and based on information provided by the Israeli prison service, reported that three Iranian nationals were imprisoned in Israel at the time.
CPJ wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 15, 1998 requesting the names of the imprisoned Iranians but received no response.
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/missing_list.html
from The Guardian...uk
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
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