Letters

Dear Mr. Ashcroft: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is a New York­based, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom around the world. We are deeply concerned about the prolonged detention of journalist Vanessa Leggett on contempt of court charges. We view Leggett’s incarceration as a gross violation of press freedom.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the continued imprisonment of author and journalist Wu Jianming, a U.S. citizen, on charges of spying for Taiwan and “collecting information that endangers state security.”

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, strongly condemns the brutal attacks by police officers and demonstrators on journalists covering the Group of Eight (G-8) summit of the world’s industrialized nations in Genoa from July 20 to July 22.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the continued imprisonment of author and journalist Wu Jianming, a U.S. citizen, on charges of spying for Taiwan and “collecting information that endangers state security.”

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by the continued detention of Tamrat Zuma, former publisher and editor-in-chief of the defunct Amharic weekly Atkurot. Zuma has now been in prison for more than two months.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wishes to congratulate you on your appointment as the new president of Indonesia. As an organization of journalists dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, we hope that you will use your authority to preserve and strengthen recent gains in press freedom.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned that the prosecution on drug charges of Rehmat Shah Afridi, owner and chief editor of the English-language newspaper The Frontier Post and the Urdu daily Maidan, may be politically motivated. On June 27, a special anti-narcotics court in Lahore convicted Afridi on drug smuggling charges and sentenced him to death.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the imprisonment of journalist Jiang Weiping on the charge of “revealing state secrets.” We call for his immediate and unconditional release.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the latest deterioration in Angolan press freedom. While Angolan journalists have long faced official hostility and harassment, CPJ has documented a deplorable surge in government interference with the independent press in recent weeks.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to condemn the unjust prosecution of José Orlando González Bridón, a Cuban journalist and labor activist who was recently sentenced to two years in jail for distributing “false information.”