Letters

Your Excellency: On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to remind you that the illegal detention of Freddy Loseke Lisumbu la Yayenga, editor of the Kinshasa-based weekly La Libre Afrique, is entering its fifth consecutive month.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by your government’s recent crackdown on the Baku-based magazine Monitor Weekly and the continued harassment of its editor in chief, Elmar Huseynov.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ongoing campaign of harassment against the independent, Harare-based paper The Daily News, whose offices were the target of a terrorist bomb attack on April 22.

Honorable Members of Parliament: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-governmental organization of journalists devoted to upholding press freedom worldwide, is concerned about draft Penal Code amendments, now under discussion in Parliament, that would substantially increase criminal penalties for defamation.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged about the recent closure of 14 Iranian newspapers and the imprisonment of journalists Akbar Ganji and Latif Safari.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the imprisonment of Nongthonbam Biren, chief editor of the Manipuri-language daily Naharolgi Thoudang, and Thounaojam Iboyaima, the author of a speech recently published in the newspaper.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed by the recent assassination attempt against Amnat Khunyosying, owner and editor of the newspaper Phak Nua Raiwan, which is published in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express its deep concern about the censorship of the French-language weekly newspaper Le Journal and its sister publication the Arabic weekly Al-Sahiffa, as well as the dismissal of three employees from television station 2M.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the April 16 closure of Horizon FM, a privately-owned radio station based in Ouagadougou. The station appears to have been closed because it criticized your government for failing to adequately investigate the December 1998 murder of Norbert Zongo, editor of the newspaper L’Indépendant.

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by the recent break-in at the offices of the Bogotá-based magazine Alternativa, which was apparently carried out with the intention of blocking publication of the magazine’s forthcoming issue. We call on Your Excellency to see to it that the incident is fully investigated and the guilty parties punished.