201

ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…

KYRGYZSTAN Months of discontent over President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s failure to enact reforms to combat crime, corruption, and economic woes boiled over in November when thousands of protesters gathered for a week of demonstrations in the central square of the capital, Bishkek. Bakiyev, ushered into office in a popular uprising just 19 months earlier, averted a…

ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled that one year after your government pledged to investigate a series of brutal assaults on journalists, the crimes have gone unpunished.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by a recent string of attacks on journalists in Liberia, some of which were carried out by government security forces. The Press Union of Liberia wrote to you on May 30 to express concern about these attacks and call for an investigation. However, despite an Information Ministry statement the following day affirming the government’s commitment to press freedom, there has been no evidence of an investigation into these incidents nor any public effort to punish those responsible.

Your Excellency: We are writing to ask you to use the authority of your office to reform Costa Rica’s archaic defamation laws, which are incompatible with international standards of freedom of expression and rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

See updated list of 10 Most Censored Countries at: https://cpj.org/reports/2019/09/10-most-censored-eritrea-north-korea-turkmenistan-journalist.php. North Korea tops CPJ’s list of “10 Most Censored Countries”

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: The Committee to Protect Journalists wishes to express its grave concern about the criminal prosecution of four Yemeni journalists facing lengthy prison terms if convicted under Yemen’s press law for publishing controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Their newspapers have all been ordered closed.

AFGHANISTAN: 1 Ali Mohaqqiq Nasab, Haqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights) Imprisoned: October 1, 2005 The attorney general ordered editor Nasab’s arrest on blasphemy charges after the religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, Mohaiuddin Baluch, filed a complaint about his magazine. “I took the two magazines and spoke to the Supreme Court chief, who wrote to the attorney…