Letters

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent murder of Bonifacio Gregorio, a reporter and columnist for the weekly Dyaryo Banat, in La Paz, Tarlac Province. On the evening of July 8, an unidentified gunman approached Gregorio while he was talking to a colleague on a cell phone in front of his house and shot him in the head three times at close range. According to news reports, the gunman was likely a professional killer who fled the scene on foot. Gregorio was rushed to La Paz District Hospital, before being transferred to Ramos General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Dear Mr. Bremer: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the fact that U.S. forces have detained Said Abu Taleb and Soheil Kareemi, two journalists with Iranian State Television, since July 1.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is greatly alarmed by a series of recent threats and attacks against journalists in Bangladesh and urges your government to take immediate action to ensure that these crimes are prosecuted vigorously.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the detention of Luo Yongzhong, a free-lance writer who has published more than 150 articles online, according to the New York­based organization Human Rights in China (HRIC).

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged at the five-year sentence given to Donatien Nyembo Kimuni, Lubumbashi correspondent for the Kinshasa-based private weekly La Tribune, on a charge of defamation.

Your Majesty: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the sharp erosion of press freedom in Morocco in recent months, including the arrest and criminal prosecutions of newspaper editors and the closure of independent publications. These actions contravene the internationally guaranteed right to freedom of expression and continue to undermine Morocco’s standing as a country that permits open media.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply alarmed by the death of Canadian-Iranian free-lance photographer Zahra Kazemi. Although you have ordered several government ministries to officially investigate her death, we demand that an immediate, independent inquiry be conducted—including an autopsy—and that the results be made public. According to the official Iranian news…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed that Munawar Mohsin, a former subeditor of the national daily Frontier Post, has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in North West Frontier Province on charges of blasphemy.

Dear Minister Zhang: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing once again to draw your attention to the unjust imprisonment of South Korean photographer Jae Hyun Seok, whose appeal may be heard later this month. Seok, a well-known free-lance photojournalist who worked regularly for The New York Times and Geo magazine, among other publications, was arrested in January in Shandong Province while documenting the plight of North Korean refugees. On May 22, he was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of human smuggling.

Your Excellency, On the eve of the Assembly of Heads of State at the African Union (AU) summit in Maputo, Mozambique, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to express deep concern over the state of press freedom in Africa.