Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent arrest of Internet essayist Du Daobin and is gravely concerned that his arrest could mark an escalation in the continuing crackdown on online speech in China.
New York, October 27, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed that the executive editor of the daily tabloid Rakyat Merdeka was sentenced today on charges of insulting the president. The South Jakarta District Court gave editor Supratman (who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name) a six-month suspended sentence after Rakyat Merdeka published…
New York, October 21, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the three-year sentence recently handed down to Internet essayist Luo Yongzhong on charges of subversion. Luo, who has written numerous articles that have been distributed online, was detained on June 14 in Changchun, Jilin Province. On July 7, he was formally arrested. On October…
New York, October 20, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the Saturday, October 18, assassination of Chou Chetharith, a deputy editor of the royalist FUNCINPEC party’s Ta Prum radio station. A gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle shot Chetharith on his way to work in the capital, Phnom Penh. According to witnesses…
New York, October 7, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the safety of journalists Ersa Siregar and Ferry Santoro, who have been held hostage by rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (known by its Indonesian acronym GAM) for more than three months. Their current whereabouts are unknown, and Siregar is reportedly…
New York, October 6, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is investigating last week’s murder of Ameer Bux Brohi, 27, a district reporter for The Daily Kawish, the largest Sindh-language daily newspaper in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, and Kavish Television News (KTN). The police chief in the rural town of Shikapur where the murder took place…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the growing use of Indonesia’s antiquated criminal defamation laws to punish and intimidate journalists who are critical of government officials and other powerful individuals. This alarming trend is eroding hard fought press freedoms in Indonesia, and we call on you to put a stop to these criminal cases.
New York, October 2, 2003—The South Jakarta District Court today cancelled the order to seize the offices of Koran Tempo as collateral in a libel case against the newspaper. The order was issued yesterday, following a similar order on the home of Tempo journalist Goenawan Mohamad. Businessman Tomy Winata has sued both Mohamad and Koran…
New York, October 1, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the court ordered seizure of the home of Goenawan Mohamad, the co-founder and senior editor of Tempo magazine, and the offices of Koran Tempo, Tempo’s sister publication. Mohamad, a 1998 CPJ International Press Freedom Award recipient, and several of his colleagues, are being sued…
New York, September 30, 2003—Hiramon Mondol, a local correspondent for the daily Dainik Prabarttan, was released from jail and exonerated from extortion charges on September 20 by the Magistrate of the Special Tribunal Act in Khulna, a town in southwestern Bangladesh, according to local news reports. Police and security forces brutally attacked Mondol with hockey…