The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by the prolonged imprisonment of Gao Qinrong, a reporter for China’s state news agency, Xinhua. Gao has been in jail on trumped-up charges since December 4, 1998, for exposing flaws in a much-touted irrigation system in drought-plagued Yuncheng, Shanxi Province, according to his wife, Duan Maoying.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express its deep sorrow over the recent assassination of Jean Léopold Dominique, owner and director of the independent station Radio Ha•ti Inter, and of the station’s security guard, Jean Claude Louissaint. We call on Your Excellency to ensure that this heinous crime is investigated and its authors brought to justice.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by several serious, recent press freedom violations in Côte d’Ivoire. Upon seizing power in December 1999, Your Excellency promised that freedom of expression would be respected. Since then, however, soldiers close to the ruling National Public Salvation Committee (CNSP) have conducted raids on several Abidjan-based publications.
Dear Mayor Giuliani, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by reports that journalist Errol Maitland of the radio station WBAI was attacked by members of the New York Police Department (NYPD) while covering the March 25 funeral of Patrick Dorismond, a Haitian-American who was fatally shot by an NYPD officer on March 16.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the events of Saturday, March 25, when thirty-five journalists were among the hundreds detained in connection with a demonstration held in Minsk to protest your government’s ban on a march that was to have been part of opposition-staged festivities commemorating the 1918 founding of the Belarusian National Republic.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the recent arrest of veteran journalist Aziza Abdrasulova and the continued legal harassment of her newspaper, the Bishkek weekly Res Publika. We believe the arrest is part of an intimidation campaign being mounted by your government against independent media during the run-up to parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan.