Sport for Rights

PRESIDENT ZINE AL-ABIDINE BEN ALI CONTINUED TO DENY BASIC LIBERTIES, including press freedom, even as his government’s shameful human-rights record came under increased international scrutiny. For the third year in a row, CPJ named Ben Ali to its annual list of the “Ten Worst Enemies of the Press.” Over the years, Ben Ali has stifled…

ALTHOUGH PRESIDENT CLINTON RECEIVED STAR TREATMENT during his historic visit to Vietnam in November, little news of the trip was allowed into the country’s state-owned press. Huge crowds greeted the first U.S. president to tour the country since the Vietnam War. Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City, Clinton urged the Vietnamese government to allow more…

EIGHTY-ONE JOURNALISTS WERE IN PRISON AROUND THE WORLD at the end of 2000, jailed for practicing their profession. The number is down slightly from the previous year, when 87 were in jail, and represents a significant decline from 1998, when 118 journalists were imprisoned. While jailing journalists can be an effective means of stifling bad…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes yesterday’s release of independent journalist Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, who was imprisoned for two years because of his work, in clear violation of international law. We urge Your Excellency to release the two other journalists who remain behind bars, Bernardo Arévalo Padrón and Manuel Antonio González Castellanos.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly protests your government’s continued harassment of journalist Rafael Marques, who was refused the right to leave the country this morning despite official assurances, and a signed court order, stating clearly that all travel restrictions against him had been lifted.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is appalled at the October 2 attack on the Accra offices of The Crusading Guide, a private bi-weekly newspaper which has taken a critical stand toward your government.

Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in RUSSIA New York, October 6, 2000–A local court in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan, convicted radio reporter Andrei Babitsky of using false documents and sentenced him to pay a fine 13,200 rubles (about US$475), according to international and local media reports.

As Vladimir Putin jousts with business magnates and political kingpins throughout his vast country, press freedom is the last thing on anyone’s mind So much the worse for Russian democracy.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by your stated intention of banning private radio stations from broadcasting in Kenya’s vernacular languages. On August 31, 2000, at the opening of the Agricultural Society of Kenya show in Mombasa, you accused private stations that broadcast in languages other than English and Kiswahili, Kenya’s two official languages, of undermining national unity and promoting tribal chauvinism. You also ordered Attorney General Amos Wako and Information, Transport, and Communication Minister Musalia Mudavadi to draft legislation that would force private stations to broadcast only in English and Kiswahili.

Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed at your government’s ongoing persecution of two Kinshasa weekly newspaper editors: Emile-Aimè Kakekese Vinalu of Le Carrousel, and Jean-Pierre Ekanga Mukuna of La Tribune de la Nation. Both journalists have been charged with high treason and face the death penalty if convicted, according to CPJ sources.