Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the physical and psychological abuse that veteran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky has reported suffering at the hands of Russian forces during his detention at Chrernokozovo, a Russian detention camp near Grozny. We are also concerned that despite his release on February 29, after several weeks of captivity, Babitsky still faces criminal charges for allegedly traveling on a forged passport.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges you to order an investigation into the apparently illegal takeover of the independent television station Telekanal 25 in the Ajarian capital, Batumi. Late on the evening of February 19, former Batumi mayor and current Georgian parliamentarian Aslan Smirba forced three of Telekanal 25’s four owners to sign over 75 percent of the station’s shares to Mikhail Gagoshidze, whom CPJ’s sources describe as an unknown third party chosen by Smirba to be the station’s nominal owner.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the prolonged imprisonment of Krishna Sen, editor of the Nepali-language weekly Janadesh. Though police claim that Sen was freed on February 9 and arrested on an unrelated charge on February 13, CPJ has learned that Sen was never truly released. He has been in police custody for more than ten months, according to CPJ’s sources.
Your Honor: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed by your decision to censor media coverage of the trial of former Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif. In an order delivered on February 25 in response to a petition filed by the prosecution, you reportedly said that any statements made by the defendants must be recorded by the court, which “will decide at the appropriate stage as to whether the same or part of it should not be released to the public or media.”
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing yet again to protest the continued detention of journalist Andre Domingos Mussamo, who has been held for 86 days in Cuanza Norte province amid increasing concerns for his safety and his health.
Dear Mr. Wako: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the eighteen-month jail sentence handed down to Johann Wandetto, a reporter for the daily The People newspaper, based in Kitale, Rift Valley Province. Wandetto was charged in the magistrate’s court on February 15 with publishing an “alarmist report” in the March 6, 1999, edition of The People. The article, titled “Militia men rob eight crack unit officers: Shock as Moi’s men surrender meekly,” claimed that elite presidential guards had been ambushed by militiamen in the remote West Pokot area of the country. Witnesses from the presidential guard denied this.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the abrupt closure, on February 17, of the state-owned Swazi Observer media group, which includes the daily Swazi Observer, the Weekend Observer, and the weekly Intsatseli. This decision appears to be the latest and most serious attempt to punish the Swazi Observer’s editorial staff for refusing to reveal confidential sources of information contained in recent critical reports on Swazi police activities.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to protest the court-ordered confiscation of broadcast equipment used by the independent station Radio 1160. Ostensibly, the equipment was seized in compensation for an old debt. But according to CPJ’s sources, the real purpose of the February 16 raid was to silence journalist César Hildebrandt’s recently-launched program “Ondas de Libertad” (“Freedom Waves”), which has aired critical views of Your Excellency’s regime.