Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about threats made against Belize journalist Melvin Flores, who fled to the United States. Flores began receiving threats and menacing telephone calls following the publication of an exposé about corruption in Belize City, the country’s largest metropolis. Flores, 33, is a prominent investigative journalist who…
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…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about threats made against Vukasin Obradovic, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Vranje-based weekly Novine Vranjske, and Goran Antic, a reporter with the publication, in retaliation for reporting allegations of sexual abuse made against Serbian Orthodox Bishop Pahomije. The bishop’s secular name is Tomislav Gacic.…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about increased restrictions on press freedom in Togo ahead of presidential elections, which are scheduled for June. We are particularly alarmed by last week’s closure of private radio station Tropik FM, based in the capital, Lomé. On Friday, February 28, the High Authority for…
Dear Mr. Martínez: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests the detention of Mexican journalist Isabel Arvide, who was charged with criminal defamation on December 23, 2002, by Chihuahua State attorney general, Jesús Solís Silva. Arvide, a Mexico Citybased journalist and author who has written many exposés about drug traffickers, corruption, and violence, as…
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is encouraged that the administration is making efforts to accommodate journalists who are seeking to cover a possible U.S. military action in the Gulf. We welcome the Pentagon’s plan to embed as many as 500 journalists with U.S. forces as a positive step that will improve…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is extremely concerned about an official warning issued by the Russian Media Ministry on Wednesday, February 26, to the Moscow-based communist, ultra-nationalist weekly Zavtra. This warning, which followed the publication of an interview with exiled Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev, is the latest in the Russian government’s…
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…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about two libel lawsuits that have been filed by a senior government official against Elmar Huseynov, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Baku-based, independent magazine Monitor. These lawsuits are the latest actions in a 7-year-old campaign of official harassment targeting Huseynov and the Monitor…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the government’s closure of Radio Bombolom, Guinea-Bissau’s main independent news broadcaster, in the latest attempt to silence critical voices ahead of general elections scheduled for April 20. On February 13, police shuttered Radio Bombolom’s offices, forcing the broadcaster off the air. The Ministry of…