Yahoo News ran a story on the letter CPJ sent to U.S. President Barack Obama this week. In the letter CPJ urges Obama to ensure that upcoming talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao include China’s persistent record of censorship and media repression.
Yahoo News quotes part of the letter written by CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon: “With at least 34 journalists and commentators imprisoned in China, the nation shares with Iran the dishonor of being the world’s worst jailer of journalists… In November 2009, your [Obama’s] interview with a reporter from Southern Weekly , an aggressive news outlet based in Guangzhou, sent a powerful message to the Chinese people that you support a more independent media. We urge you to build on these efforts and reiterate to Hu that to truly support journalists’ rights he must intervene to release the 34 journalists being held in China’s prisons.”