San Pablo, Philippines, August 27, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the murder of journalist and broadcaster Sonny Alcantara in the city of San Pablo, south of Manila, and calls on the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to ensure a thorough and impartial investigation into the slaying. Alcantara, 51, was…
New York, August 26, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourns the death of our colleague Alistair McLeod, 41, a freelance reporter on assignment in Afghanistan for The Australian newspaper. McLeod, a New Zealand citizen, was killed over the weekend in a car accident outside Kabul. Luis Alvarez, a reporter for the Spanish news agency…
New York, August 26, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the brutal murder by Maoist rebels of Nava Raj Sharma, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Kadam, published from Kalikot District in Nepal’s remote Midwestern region. News of Sharma’s murder earlier this summer surfaced only last week, after a team of journalists and human rights…
Xiao Qiang, a 2001 MacArthur Fellow, is executive director of Human Rights in China, a monitoring and advocacy organization based in New York and Hong Kong. Sophie Beach is Asia research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists. NEW YORK — Last month, the Chinese government announced that some 45.8 million of its citizens had…
August 14, 2002, New York—Authorities in Vietnam will soon bring Internet essayist Le Chi Quang, 32, to trial on national security charges, according to CPJ sources. Quang has been in prison since February 21, 2002, when he was arrested for writing articles that criticized Vietnam’s border agreements with China. Officials from the Prosecutor’s Office informed…
August 6, 2002 Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba Prime Minister’s Office Singh Durbar Kathmandu, Nepal Via facsimile: +997 1 227286 Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent detention of Kishor Shrestha, editor of the Nepali-language weekly newspaper Jana Aastha. Although police claimed the detention was because of a July 31 article,…
New York, August 6, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent 11-year sentence handed down to activist Li Dawei for downloading and printing materials from the Internet. This is the longest sentence CPJ has documented for Internet-related activities in China. On July 24, 2002, the Intermediate Court in Tianshui City, Gansu Province, sentenced…
New York, August 1, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the recent attack on the office of the Tamil-language newspaper Dinamalar in Thanjavur, a city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. On the afternoon of July 30, about six people armed with wood sticks charged into the Dinamalar office and…
New York, July 24, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the deteriorating health of imprisoned journalist U Win Tin, one of Burma’s most prominent political prisoners. A former editor-in-chief of the daily Hanthawati and vice-chairman of Burma’s Writers Association, U Win Tin, 73, is currently serving the 13th year of a…