Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is very concerned about the recent surge of criminal defamation cases brought against journalists in Algeria, including numerous cases filed in retaliation for critical coverage of Your Excellency. In the past week alone, at least four journalists have been convicted of criminal defamation and three have received prison sentences. Hundreds of cases are pending against local journalists, many involving charges of defaming Your Excellency, journalists have told CPJ.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by ongoing government censorship and attacks on private media in the aftermath of the April 24 presidential election, of which you have been pronounced the winner. Local journalists told CPJ that many phone lines were cut and Internet connections remain tenuous, making it difficult to report ongoing events to the world.
Dear Ambassador Al-Hajjri: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the continuing detention of two Yemeni media support staff members, Munif and Naif Damesh, who now have been held without charge for over a month. We wrote to Minister of Interior Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi on April 21, requesting Yemeni officials make public the reason for their detention. We have not received a reply to that letter.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the recent jail sentence given in absentia to two journalists who reported on alleged corruption in the gendarmerie. On April 20, a court in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far North Province, sentenced Guibaï Gatama, publication director of the independent weekly L’Oeil du Sahel, and Abdoulaye Oumaté, a journalist for the paper, to five months in prison and fined them 5 million CFA francs (approximately U.S. $9,782) in a criminal defamation case.
Your Majesty: Nearly 100 days after Your Majesty dismissed the government and curtailed civil liberties, press freedom has not been restored. Your Majesty has not lifted a ban on reporting that goes “against the letter and spirit” of your February 1 proclamation. A ban on FM radio news broadcasting remains in place, depriving rural citizens of their only source of independent news. And your government continues to harass and intimidate journalists.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the harsh 10-year prison sentence handed to journalist Shi Tao on charges of “illegally providing state secrets to foreigners” after an unfair trial last week. Shi plans to submit an appeal in advance of a May 10 deadline. We call on authorities to drop the state secrets charge against him, which your government has used with disturbing frequency to imprison journalists, and to ensure Shi’s immediate and unconditional release.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the ongoing harassment of acclaimed poet and freelance radio journalist Liu Hongbin. Liu, who lives in exile in the United Kingdom, has been banned from returning to China to visit his mother, who has fallen seriously ill.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about attacks on press freedom in the autonomous Puntland region of northeast Somalia, of which you were elected president by the region’s parliament in January. They include the arrests of two journalists from the weekly newspaper Shacab (Voice of the People) in the town of Garowe; threats to close that newspaper; plans to introduce identity cards for all journalists; and attempts to censor radio coverage of sensitive political issues.