Dear President Calderón: On Freedom of Expression Day today, the Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express concern about a series of incidents this year in which federal security forces have attacked and harassed local reporters who cover crime and report on law enforcement operations.
Dear Prime Minister Abhisit: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns recent violence against journalists in Thailand, including the shooting deaths of two foreign reporters killed while covering news events. We call on your government to launch independent probes into recent attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Dear Director-General Bokova: We, the undersigned freedom of expression organizations, join with the Committee to Protect Journalists to express our grave concern regarding the $3 million donation by Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang for the administration of an international prize in life sciences. As a leading institution that advocates “empowering people through the free flow of ideas and by access to information and knowledge,” UNESCO should not accept funds from one of Africa’s worst violators of press freedom.
Your Excellency: The Overseas Press Club of America, an international association of journalists working in the United States and abroad, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, want to express our deep concerns about your government’s treatment of journalists and its unabated harassment of Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari.
Dear President Biya: We are alarmed by investigations that appear to be flawed and marred with political interference into the April 22 death in prison of journalist Germain Cyrille Ngota Ngota. We hold Cameroon’s government responsible for Ngota’s death and the well-being of three other journalists in the custody of the administration. We call on you to address these concerns, along with allegations of torture of journalists by a security agency accountable to your office.
Dear Secretary Gates: The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by a video recently disclosed by the Web site WikiLeaks showing a U.S. military strike that took place on July 12, 2007. The attack killed an unspecified number of individuals, including Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant, Saeed Chmagh.
Dear President Biya: Following Thursday’s death of newspaper editor Germain S. Ngota Ngota, whose health deteriorated while he was incarcerated in Kondengui Prison in the capital, Yaoundé, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on you to launch a public, thorough, and transparent inquiry into the circumstances of his death. We urge you to provide guarantees for the well-being of three other journalists held in Cameroonian prisons and address ongoing abuses—including allegations of state torture—against independent journalists who raise questions about the administration’s performance.
Dear President Obama: In advance of your April 12 meeting in Washington with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, we’d like to draw your attention to the deteriorating press freedom conditions in Kazakhstan. Unchecked violence and the arrest of independent reporters, politicized prosecution and harassment of critical outlets, and draconian media and Internet regulation laws tarnish the record of the current chair of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Dear Minister el-Adly: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest the continued detention of Mosad Soleiman, known online as Mosad Abu Fagr, a blogger, novelist, and activist who writes about social and political issues on his blog, Wedna N`ish (We Want to Live). Abu Fagr has been in administrative detention by order of the Ministry of Interior since February 2008, despite obtaining 18 court orders for his release, his lawyer, Ahmed Ragheb, told CPJ.