Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by the efforts of Indonesian military authorities in Aceh to control press coverage of the conflict there. Your government declared martial law in Aceh effective at midnight on Monday, May 19, beginning a massive military offensive to crush the separatist Free Aceh Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym as GAM. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya, the military commander and head of the martial law administration in Aceh, warned journalists that they should neither report on statements issued by GAM leaders nor carry news that supports the separatist cause. “There should be no reports from GAM and no reports that praise GAM,” Suwarya said, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by the recent jailing of Melese Shine, editor-in-chief of the Amharic-language weekly Ethiop. Another journalist, Tewodros Kassa, the former editor-in-chief of Ethiop, has been imprisoned since May 2002. Shine was charged with defamation under Ethiopia’s Press Proclamation No. 34/1992 after a letter to the…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent murder of radio announcer Apolinario “Polly” Pobeda in Lucena City, Quezon Province. We call for a swift and thorough investigation into the killing and for those responsible to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the five-year sentence recently handed down to Internet publisher Huang Qi. The court has long delayed the verdict, which comes nearly three years after Huang’s arrest, compounding a case of grave injustice.
Dear Major General Tellefsen: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is writing to draw your attention to a death threat issued last week against journalist Ponniah Manikavasagam, a correspondent for the Tamil-language daily Virakesari who contributes regularly to the BBC. Manikavasagam lives in the town of Vavuniya and covers news across Sri Lanka’s northern region.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by your government’s continuing harassment of Andrew Meldrum, Zimbabwe correspondent for the U.K.-based Guardian newspaper. Immigration officials ordered him today to leave the country.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about several recent attacks against the press in Sitakunda, an industrial town in Chittagong District, in southeastern Bangladesh. We are particularly worried about the fate of journalist Mahmudul Haq, who was arrested on May 6, and journalist Atahar Siddik Khasru, who disappeared on April…
Excelencia: O Comitê para a Proteção dos Jornalistas (CPJ, por sua sigla em inglês) está alarmado pela rápida escalada de violência contra a imprensa na Colômbia nos últimos meses. Além de uma onda de ameaças que fomentaram um clima de temor nos meios de comunicação, dois jornalistas foram assassinados esta semana em ataques separados. Na…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply alarmed by the rapid escalation of violence against the press in Colombia in recent months. In addition to a wave of threats that has fostered a climate of fear among the media, two journalists were killed this week in separate attacks. On Monday, April 28,…