Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent arrests of Sayeed Mirhassan Mahdawi and Ali Payam Sistany, editor-in-chief and deputy editor, respectively, of the weekly newspaper Aftab. On Tuesday, June 17, the two journalists were arrested in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and the newspaper was closed after it published an article that Afghan authorities considered blasphemous.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply saddened by the death of our colleague Mohamad Jamal, a cameraman for the Indonesian government-run television station TVRI. We urge Your Excellency to order a thorough and impartial inquiry into his murder.
New York, June 16, 2003—Internet essayist Pham Hong Son is scheduled to be tried this week on charges of espionage. Son has been in prison for more than a year for publishing an online article about democracy. An official from the Hanoi People’s Court told The Associated Press that the trial is set for Wednesday,…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the safety of two European journalists and their American guide who were arrested last week by Laotian authorities: Thierry Falise, a Belgian free-lance photographer and reporter; Vincent Reynaud, a French free-lance photographer and cameraman; and Naw Karl Mua, a U.S. citizen of ethnic Hmong origin who was working with the two journalists as a guide and translator. Falise and Reynaud are well-regarded, professional journalists based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the safety of American free-lance journalist William Nessen, who is traveling with separatist rebels in the restive Indonesian province of Aceh, where a massive military campaign is underway. The group Nessen is with has come under direct attack from Indonesian government soldiers, and his life is currently at great risk.
New York, May 29, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by a recent series of sniper attacks in which unknown gunmen have targeted journalists in Aceh, a conflict-riven province on the northwestern tip of the Indonesian archipelago. We are also gravely concerned by mounting evidence of a systematic effort by Indonesian security forces…
New York, May 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns today’s sentencing of Internet journalists Xu Wei, Jin Haike, Yang Zili, and Zhang Honghai. This morning, the Beijing Intermediate Court sentenced Xu Wei and Jin Haike to ten years in prison on subversion charges, according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights in…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the efforts of Indonesian military authorities in Aceh to control press coverage of the conflict there. Your government declared martial law in Aceh effective at midnight on Monday, May 19, beginning a massive military offensive to crush the separatist Free Aceh Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym as GAM. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, the military commander and head of the martial law administration in Aceh, warned journalists that they should neither report on statements issued by GAM leaders nor carry news that supports the separatist cause. “There should be no reports from GAM and no reports that praise GAM,” Suwarya said, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
New York, May 22, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the sentencing of South Korean free-lance photojournalist Jae Hyun Seok to two years in prison. Today, a court in Yantai, Shandong Province, sentenced Seok, who works regularly for The New York Times and South Korea’s Geo magazine, to a two-year prison term on charges…