Letters

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the recent closure of The Analyst, an independent newspaper based in the capital, Monrovia. During the early morning hours of April 25, police shut down The Analyst and ransacked the publication’s offices. According to an Associated Press (AP) report, Monrovia police chief Paul Mulbah said the ban was permanent and refused to give reasons for the closure. “The paper is closed and will not print again. This is a government order,” Mulbah told the AP.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests the Israeli government’s continued detention of several journalists in the West Bank. As of today, at least three journalists are in Israeli custody after being arrested while carrying out their professional duties. The IDF has so far provided no explanation for their detentions.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to condemn the arrests this week of three Harare-based, independent journalists Lloyd Mudiwa, Collin Chiwanza, and Andrew Meldrum. Central Intelligence Division officers arrested Mudiwa and Chiwanza, both staff writers at the privately owned Daily News, at their Harare office in the early morning hours of April 30.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the continued incarceration of Pham Hong Son, who was detained in late March for publishing an online article about democracy. Son is the third person to be apprehended in Vietnam since February for writing or distributing content on the Internet.

Your Royal Highness: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest an incident over the weekend in which Saudi authorities confiscated videotapes and a laptop computer from Dr. Bob Arnot, a reporter for the U.S. cable television channel MSNBC. On April 21, security officials at the Riyadh airport escorted Dr. Arnot off a flight to Dubai, in the neighboring United Arab Emirates. The officials demanded video footage that Dr. Arnot had gathered during his reporting trip to Saudi Arabia, which the journalist undertook with Saudi government permission.

Your Excellency: In May 2000, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote to you expressing concern that Togo’s harsh new Press Code would greatly inhibit the flow of information in your country. A spate of recent press freedom abuses has confirmed our fears.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the police assault yesterday on journalists in Faisalabad, Punjab Province, during a rally staged to promote an upcoming referendum to prolong your presidency for five more years.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by Wednesday’s abduction of Guatemalan journalist David Herrera, who was threatened with death during the kidnapping.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by your government’s ban on the April 4 edition of the Hong Kong­based weekly Far Eastern Economic Review. The cover story of the edition, “Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror,” described the country as besieged by “Islamic fundamentalism, religious intolerance, militant Muslim groups with links to international terrorist groups, a powerful military with ties to the militants, the mushrooming of Islamic schools churning out radical students, middle-class apathy, poverty and lawlessness.”