Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by restrictions on media freedom in Uganda following the November 14 arrest of opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Your Excellency’s government has instructed journalists not to comment on or discuss Besigye’s upcoming trials on treason, terrorism and rape charges. Ugandan troops today barred journalists from attending Besigye’s court hearing in the capital Kampala, according to Agence France-Presse. Police have also recently harassed staff members of the independent daily The Monitor, impeded its circulation, and threatened to close it down altogether.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the October 11 arrest and imprisonment on criminal defamation charges of Mam Sonando, a prominent radio journalist and founder of Sambok Khmum Radio FM 105, one of Cambodia’s few independent news outlets.
Your Excellency: As international leaders prepare to gather in Tunis for a summit on the Internet, the Committee to Protect Journalists strongly protests the imprisonment of journalists Hamadi Jebali and Mohamed Abbou, who have been jailed solely for expressing their views.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest your government’s targeting of the private press following clashes last week between protesters and security forces, in which at least 40 people were killed, according to international news reports.
Lt. Gen. Halutz: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the beating and brief detention of a cameraman filming a protest in the West Bank today. Nabil al-Mazzawi, 26, on assignment for the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news channel, was covering a demonstration against Israel’s construction of the separation barrier in the village of Beilin, near Ramallah, when he was attacked by several soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, the journalist told CPJ. He said the soldiers punched, kicked, and threw him to the ground. Al-Mazzawi said he was detained for six hours.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ongoing harassment of prominent writer and medical doctor Nguyen Dan Que. Although he was released from prison in February, Que continues to face harsh restrictions on his movements and communication with others. He is barred from sending material online and seeking employment.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Stanislav Dmitriyevsky in retaliation for his newspaper’s reporting on the war in Chechnya. The persecution of Dmitriyevsky is part of a broader government campaign to obstruct the work of independent media reporting on Chechnya.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists urgently calls on the United Nations Security Council to expand its current probe into the February 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri to include alarming, unsolved attacks against Lebanese journalists in recent months.