Detention of Afghan journalist | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Detention of Afghan journalist

PESHAWAR – The Peshawar High Court has ordered the authorities to explain the detention of an Afghan journalist who was working for Newsweek magazine and taken into custody two months ago while trying to enter the country’s restricted tribal areas, a lawyer said on May 28.

The court set a June 8 deadline for provincial and federal governments to file charges or respond as to why Sami Yousafzai, who covers Afghanistan for the US-based magazine, remains in custody, said Karman Arif, a lawyer working for his release.

Yousafzai was arrested along with Eliza Griswold, an American journalist and contributor to The New Yorker magazine, at a checkpoint near Bannu near the North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan. The Paris-based watchdog group Reporters Without Borders has said the two were detained while trying to enter the area without permission, which is punishable by jail or deportation. Griswold was released shortly afterward and has returned to the United States.
Source: Daily Times
Date:5/29/2004