Letters

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near Baghdad yesterday. We demand a full, public investigation into this incident. According to several press accounts, Dana was struck in the chest while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad, late in the afternoon on August 17. Dana had been reporting near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. Eyewitnesses quoted by international media said that several journalists had been near the prison at the time of the incident and that a soldier in the tank fired on Dana as he filmed it approaching him from about 50 meters (55 yards).

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed that Rémy Ngono, a former journalist for the private, Yaoundé-based Radio Télévision Siantou (RTS), has been imprisoned on charges of criminal defamation.

Vossa Excelência: O Comitê para a Proteção dos Jornalistas (CPJ) está preocupado com a detenção de vários jornalistas dominicanos que criticaram a gestão presidencial. Tais detenções, que a nosso ver tiveram como objetivo intimidar e perseguir os jornalistas e obriga-los a autocensura, põem em perigo a reputação da República Dominicana como nação onde se respeita a liberdade de imprensa.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the detention of several Dominican journalists who criticized your government. We believe that these detentions were designed to intimidate and harass journalists into censoring themselves and, therefore, jeopardize the Dominican Republic’s reputation as a country that respects press freedom.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent attacks against Hasan Jahid Tusher, a correspondent for the English-language newspaper The Daily Star, and Jahangir Alam Akas, a reporter of the Bengali-language daily Sangbad. These are the latest in a series of assaults against journalists in Bangladesh, none of which your government has adequately investigated.

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.