Letters

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about government harassment of independent and opposition media in Yemen. In recent weeks, we have documented a disturbing pattern of censorship and intimidation of journalists in response to their professional work.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed by the recent imprisonment of essayist Liu Weifang on subversion charges. We call for his immediate and unconditional release. The government’s case against Liu is based on essays that he had posted on the Internet. In mid-June, the Ninth Agricultural Brigade district’s Intermediate People’s Court in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region sentenced him to serve three years in prison, according to a June 15 report in the Xinjiang Daily.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about your government’s continued persecution of independent journalists and news outlets. We first protested your administration’s heavy-handed treatment of our colleagues in an April 10 letter. Since then, conditions for Congolese journalists have only worsened.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the security of Dharmeratnam Sivaram, veteran journalist and editor of the TamilNet Web site. Over the past two weeks, state media have featured articles accusing Sivaram of being a spy for the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)–a charge that seriously endangers him and his family.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s recent decision establishing criteria for “timely, truthful, and impartial information” and specifying how this right may be exercised.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization dedicated to the defense of press freedom around the world, strongly protests the recent conviction of Oleg Liachko, editor of the independent Kyiv weekly Svoboda, on defamation charges.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is profoundly concerned about recent threats against Roosevelt Benjamin, director of information of the radio station Signal FM, based in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Pétion-Ville. We urge Your Excellency to guarantee the safety of our colleague.

Dear President Ling: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) notes with concern the Malaysia Chinese Association (MCA)’s recent acquisition of the Chinese-language dailies Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is very concerned about the continued detention of three leading Nepalese journalists. We call for their immediate and unconditional release.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch are writing jointly to protest the prosecution of Vineet Narain, founding editor of the New Delhi-based investigative journal Kalchakra. Narain faces contempt of court charges in Jammu and Kashmir State, where he says his life would be in serious danger. We urge you to order an immediate inquiry into possible political motivations behind Narain’s prosecution, and to provide him with appropriate protection if he is required to appear in court in Jammu.