Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about a recent threat allegedly made by a senior official of the Punjab provincial government to the Weekly Independent—a Lahore-based, English-language newspaper. On March 10, Punjab home secretary Ejaz Shah reportedly telephoned Weekly Independent publisher, Ilyas Mehraj, and told him, “Enough is enough. The…
March 12, 2003, New York—On the eve of a major leadership change in Beijing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls on the Chinese government to release all journalists who have been jailed for their work. China currently holds 39 journalists in prison, making the country the world’s leading jailer of journalists for the fourth…
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is very concerned by your government’s importation ban on the Times of Tonga (Taimi ‘o Tonga), an independent, biweekly newspaper published in New Zealand. On February 27, the Times of Tonga offices in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, and Auckland, New Zealand, received a letter signed by the Tongan minister…
February 28, 2003, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the illegal detention of Internet publisher Huang Qi, who has been imprisoned for more than two and a half years without being convicted of any crime. The Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, had originally scheduled the sentencing for today,…
New York, February 28, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent harassment of two journalists by Maoist rebel forces in Nepal. In separate incidents, Maoist rebels have threatened journalists whose reporting criticized the “People’s War.” In mid-February, reporters for the national newspaper Nepal Samacharpatra learned that their colleague Deepak Bahadur Thapa has been…
CPJ RELEASES JOURNALIST SECURITY HANDBOOK New York, February 27, 2003–In an effort to prepare journalists for potentially hazardous reporting duties in conflict zones, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today released an online journalist security handbook, titled “On Assignment: Covering Conflict Safely” (click here). The handbook, which is geared toward editors and journalists covering conflict,…
February 20, 2003, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today submitted a memorandum to the Hong Kong Security Bureau detailing serious concerns about the proposed National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill drafted by the government. In its current form, this bill poses a grave threat to freedom of expression in Hong Kong. “The Hong Kong…
Memorandum on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill proposing legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law Submitted to the Security Bureau by the Committee to Protect Journalists February 20, 2003 The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) issues this memorandum in response to the National Security (Legislative Provisions)…