Dear President Bush: We are greatly concerned about the disappearance of our colleague Hayatullah Khan, who has been missing since he was abducted by unknown gunmen in North Waziristan along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan on December 5. Members of his family and his colleagues have repeatedly asked the Committee to Protect Journalists to find out where he is being held and seek his release. With that in mind, we are writing to you and to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the imprisonment of Goshu Moges, a veteran journalist arrested in February in what police described as a crackdown on terrorists linked to opposition parties. We are seeking further information about the evidence against him.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending the rights of journalists worldwide, is deeply concerned about the fate of Mario Spezi, a veteran crime journalist imprisoned in the central Italian city of Perugia.
Dear President Hu: The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned that your government’s media-control policies have led to the unjust imprisonment of journalists and the stifling of press freedom in China. Chinese journalists tell CPJ that they are under growing intimidation from propaganda authorities to adhere to government censors’ rules.
Dear President Bush: In advance of your April 20 meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent organization dedicated to defending our colleagues worldwide, urges you to ensure that the issue of press freedom is part of the bilateral discussions that will take place during the visit.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention since early Tuesday of two senior journalists for the private newspaper The Independent, whose offices were also sealed off by security forces. Editor Musa Saidykhan and General Manager Madi Ceesay, who is also secretary-general of the Gambia Press Union, have now been in custody for more than three days without being informed of the reasons, according to CPJ sources. Gambian law normally requires that they be brought before a court within a three-day period, a local lawyer confirmed.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the March 11 abduction and assault of a Yemeni journalist who was warned to stop writing his weekly column because it offended state security forces. A recent series of attacks against journalists, coupled with the government’s indifference, is contributing to an ever more repressive climate for the press.
Your Excellency: I am writing to strongly protest Your Excellency’s recent promulgation of a draconian decree further restricting freedom of expression, including sharp new limits on discussion of the conflict that ravaged Algeria in the 1990s.
Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by evidence that Moroccan authorities played a role in organizing demonstrations against the magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire for publishing a photograph of a French newspaper showing some of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. These state-orchestrated protests placed the lives of the entire staff of the Casablanca-based weekly at risk, yet the government has failed to launch a credible investigation or call those responsible to account.