Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent organization of journalists dedicated to defending press freedom around the world, is writing to express its shock and grave concern about the apparent murder of Libyan journalist Dayf al-Ghazal al-Shuhaibi, a former journalist for the government-owned daily Azahf al-Akhdar and contributor to the London-based Web sites Libya Alyoum and Libya Jeel.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that Jordanian authorities have harassed and censored journalists on several occasions since your government was formed in April. Several journalists interviewed by CPJ in recent weeks said that authorities have pressured printers to delay the publication of newspapers until editors agreed to remove critical articles. Further, editors have received phone calls from security officials instructing them how to cover certain events.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the recent harassment and censorship of journalists who reported on Ethiopia’s May 15 parliamentary elections and their aftermath. CPJ sources say that pressure on the media has increased amid violent post-election clashes between government security forces and opposition supporters.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that Olivier Péguy, a correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI) and several other international news organizations, was forced to leave the country on Sunday after the government refused to renew his work permit. Péguy, who had been reporting from Madagascar for four years, told CPJ that no explanation has been given for the non-renewal.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is very concerned about the recent surge of criminal defamation cases brought against journalists in Algeria, including numerous cases filed in retaliation for critical coverage of Your Excellency. In the past week alone, at least four journalists have been convicted of criminal defamation and three have received prison sentences. Hundreds of cases are pending against local journalists, many involving charges of defaming Your Excellency, journalists have told CPJ.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by ongoing government censorship and attacks on private media in the aftermath of the April 24 presidential election, of which you have been pronounced the winner. Local journalists told CPJ that many phone lines were cut and Internet connections remain tenuous, making it difficult to report ongoing events to the world.
Dear Ambassador Al-Hajjri: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing detention of two Yemeni media support staff members, Munif and Naif Damesh, who now have been held without charge for over a month. We wrote to Minister of Interior Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi on April 21, requesting Yemeni officials make public the reason for their detention. We have not received a reply to that letter.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the recent jail sentence given in absentia to two journalists who reported on alleged corruption in the gendarmerie. On April 20, a court in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far North Province, sentenced Guibaï Gatama, publication director of the independent weekly L’Oeil du Sahel, and Abdoulaye Oumaté, a journalist for the paper, to five months in prison and fined them 5 million CFA francs (approximately U.S. $9,782) in a criminal defamation case.