Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the continuing use of Indonesia’s outdated criminal defamation laws to punish journalists who criticize public figures. This disturbing trend is having a chilling effect on local journalists and poses a direct threat to press freedom in Indonesia. We call on you to do everything in your power to uphold Article 28 of Indonesia’s Constitution, which guarantees press freedom, and to fight for the removal of defamation laws from your country’s Criminal Code.
New York, August 10, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes a Hong Kong court decision today setting aside a search warrant issued in a July 24 raid on the daily newspaper Sing Tao. The newspaper was one of seven raided by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in a sweeping anti-corruption investigation. Justice Michael…
New York, August 9, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is troubled by the continuing deterioration of press freedom conditions in Nepal, marked by several recent threats and attacks on journalists covering the Maoist rebel insurgency in the western part of the country. On July 31, Maoist rebels abducted a local journalist and human rights…
New York, August 6, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent arrest of Burmese documentary filmmaker Lazing La Htoi, who was detained on July 27 in Myitkyina, the capital of the northern Kachin State, for filming and distributing footage of extreme flooding that hit the region in late July. La Htoi shot footage…
New York, August 5, 2004—Gunmen ambushed and killed a Filipino newspaper and radio correspondent this morning shortly after he dropped his children off at school, according to international news reports and local journalists. Arnel Manalo, 42, a correspondent for the Manila tabloid Bulgar and radio station DZRH, was the second journalist killed in less than…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the detention of Abdulghani Memetemin, a writer, teacher, and translator from the northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. CPJ recently learned that Memetemin, who had actively advocated for the Uighur ethnic group in Xinjiang, has been detained since 2002 on charges of “sending secret state information out of the country.”
New York, August 3, 2004—Rogelio “Roger” Mariano, a commentator for Radyo Natin-Aksyon Radyo, was fatally shot by unidentified gunmen on Saturday, July 31, in Laoag City, the capital of Ilocos Norte Province, Philippines, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating the motives behind his murder to determine whether they were…
New York, July 29, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the sentence handed down today to writer Nguyen Dan Que by the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court. Que was sentenced to 30 months in prison on charges of “taking advantage of democratic rights to infringe upon the interests of the state.” Que did…
New York, July 27, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the conditions under which two journalists covering Vietnamese asylum-seekers in Cambodia were released without charge from a two-day detention today. On Sunday, July 25, Cambodian officials arrested Sok Rathavisal, stringer for the U.S. government–funded Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Kevin Doyle, editor-in-chief of…
New York, July 26, 2004—Journalist Tha Ban, a former editor at Kyemon newspaper and a prominent pro-democracy activist, was released from Insein Prison in the capital, Rangoon, on July 12 after serving more than six years of his seven-year prison sentence. According to the BBC, he was released from prison after signing a pledge not…