2008

Dear President Bush, We are heartened to hear that on Thursday, before embarking for Beijing to attend the Olympic opening ceremony, you will deliver a speech in Bangkok reiterating U.S. commitment to press freedom and other human rights. The Associated Press, which reported on the prepared text of your speech, also said that you are expected to raise these issues with China’s leaders once you arrive in Beijing.

THAILAND: New York, August 6, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Thailand’s government to launch an independent investigation into the recent shooting death of Athiwat Chaiyanurat, a reporter with the Thai-language daily newspaper Matichon and a stringer for the army-owned Channel 7 television station. A local press freedom group said he had been threatened…

Yesterday’s shooting of Philippine journalist Dennis Cuesta is still the focal point of a series of stories this morning. GMA News is running a follow-up piece, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s site, Inqurier.net, has a story outlining the international media’s response to the incident, and The Macau Daily Times also has a news brief about the violent…

Yesterday, I posted two pieces that showed how China’s good intentions toward the media can go wrong, or never get under way in the first place. The first item described a Reuters report on new guidelines that had been handed down to the police about how to handle the media if an embarrassing demonstration should…

Visas into China have been hard to get since early this year, when new policies were instituted. The tighter restrictions had already hit me in late February, when I tried to get a tourist visa to visit my wife’s family in Beijing. I was in Hong Kong to launch the 2007 edition of CPJ’s annual…

The release of Mustafa Hormatallah, a Moroccan editor at the independent weekly Al-Watan Al An, prompted a memorable scene on July 25 as he exited Akacha Prison in Casablanca, Morocco’s most populous and business-oriented city. Scores of well-wishers including relatives, friends, and representatives of the of the National Syndicate of the Moroccan Press and human…

Hong Kong, August 6, 2008—Reporters covering the aftermath of  Monday’s attack on a border police outpost in Kashgar have been detained, beaten, and harassed, according to international news reports. Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported today that police in Kashgar dragged Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper’s Tokyo headquarters, and Shinji Katsuta, a…

New York, August 5, 2008—Gunmen shot and critically wounded radio journalist Dennis Cuesta in the southern Philippines late Monday, according to news reports. Police told international reporters the shooting may be related to Cuesta’s aggressive broadcasts on crime and social issues. Two gunmen traveling by motorcycle fired several shots at Cuesta, a program director and…

New York, August 5, 2008—The Vietnamese government revoked the press credentials of seven local journalists from four newspapers, of which at least two had aggressively covered the controversial arrest of two journalists in May, according to local and international new reports. All seven of the accused journalists are forbidden to work while their press cards…