Letters

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about recent closures of independent media outlets in Ukraine. We believe that these closures are part of a sweeping campaign to eliminate voices that are critical of the government and to block public access to independent sources of information in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled for October.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonprofit organization committed to defending press freedom worldwide, is extremely concerned about escalating government persecution of Turkmen journalists working for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned by the Ethiopian government’s intervention in the affairs of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists Association (EFJA), an independent organization dedicated to promoting press freedom and protecting the rights of journalists.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the recent assault on Tchanguis Vatankhah, director of the privately owned Radio Brakos, which is based in the southern town of Moissala.

Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely concerned about the government’s use of restrictive new media laws to silence several publications in Tonga.

Dear President Bush: In advance of your meeting with Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, scheduled for Tuesday, February 17, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to draw your attention to Tunisia’s dismal press freedom record.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the plight of photojournalist Wallace Gichere, who is paralyzed from the waist down because of a 1991 incident in which Kenyan police officers threw him from a fourth floor residence. This crime was committed after Gichere wrote articles in the foreign press about abuses of civil and political rights in Kenya under former president Daniel arap Moi. In 2000, a government Standing Committee on Human Rights recommended that the State compensate Gichere for injuries and financial losses–a recommendation that was approved by government the same year. However, Gichere has still not received compensation.

Dear Mr. Millán: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York­based independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide, is deeply concerned about Mexican journalist Irene Medrano Villanueva, who has been threatened and harassed during the last two months in connection with her journalistic work.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, is extremely concerned about deteriorating press freedom conditions in Russia. Recent steps taken by the Federal Security Service (FSB) to harass and intimidate independent journalists in retaliation for their work are particularly troubling. While FSB officials say they are safeguarding national security, journalists say they have become targets for reporting on government corruption and FSB abuses.

Dear Lieutenant General Yaalon: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to request information about the status of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) investigations into the shooting deaths of two journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2003, and to reiterate our call for a thorough inquiry into these deaths.