Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is very concerned that your government has blocked domestic transmission of BBC World television news broadcasts. This action is the latest in a series of moves by authorities to restrict the work of foreign journalists in China. On July 1, government officials blocked the encrypted signal that transmits BBC World through the Sinosat 1 satellite.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest the ongoing detention of free-lance journalists Ibrahim Hussein and Abdel Rahim Mohsen. On June 21, plainclothes police officers arrested Hussein the office of the Yemeni Unionist Party, according to CPJ sources. Mohsen was arrested at his home on May 23.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned by your government’s recent efforts to curtail free expression in Vietnam. This renewed attempt to control information comes amid a high-profile corruption scandal, which has spurred speculation in Vietnam and abroad that the Central Committee may institute government leadership changes at its meeting later this month. During the last few weeks, the government has banned reporting on a major corruption scandal, tightened restrictions over television broadcasts and Internet access, and prevented prominent intellectuals and writers from communicating with the outside world.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by the announcement last week that Indonesian officials are abandoning their investigation into the murder of Sander Thoenes, a Dutch journalist who was reporting for The Financial Times and The Christian Science Monitor when he was killed in East Timor in September 1999. Separate investigations conducted by the United Nations, Dutch authorities, and The Christian Science Monitor identified members of Indonesian army Battalion 745 as prime suspects in the murder.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the arrest of Iftikhar Gilani, the New Delhi bureau chief for the Jammu-based newspaper Kashmir Times and a regular contributor to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, as well as to the Pakistani newspapers The Friday Times and The Nation.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that the independent, twice-weekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, could be closed by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow at any time following proceedings to seal the paper’s property that were initiated last week by a bailiff. This action comes as a result of an excessive damage award in a recent libel suit against the paper.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent detention and deportation of Canadian journalist Jiang Xueqin, who was filming labor unrest in northeastern China. We call for an immediate easing of restrictions on journalists trying to cover the protests, which are the largest to hit China since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations.