Letters

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned that your government has banned Michael Field, South Pacific correspondent for Agence France-Presse, from entering the country to cover the upcoming Pacific Forum summit. Leaders from 16 countries in the Pacific region are expected to attend the meeting, scheduled to begin on August 14.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the safety of Hayat Ullah, a correspondent for the Urdu-language daily Ausaf in Mirali, North Waziristan Agency. Hayat Ullah is currently in hiding after North Waziristan authorities ordered his arrest for reporting on clashes between local tribal groups.

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.