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Dear Mr. President: CPJ is writing to protest the relentless campaign of persecution against Internet journalists and bloggers by Egypt’s various security services. Regrettably, the routine harassment and detention of bloggers, according to CPJ research, is only one element of an overall decline in press freedom in Egypt in recent years.

As the Sri Lankan government steps up its war with the LTTE, assaults on journalists are on the rise. So are suspicions that the government is complicit in these attacks.

Dear Prime Minister Dahal: On December 29, your government signed an agreement with local press freedom group the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), ending a week of protest by journalists against a series of attacks on media outlets which peaked in late December. That agreement promised that those attacks would be addressed.

Dear Prime Minister: The decision to form a unified government in Zimbabwe has created a welcome opportunity to address oppressive government decrees and media laws that have long stifled press freedom. Your party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has long made freedom of the press a central policy and you have repeatedly stated your aspirations to privatize the state-controlled media.

By Carl Bernstein When the Committee to Protect Journalists was founded in 1981, the prevailing threats to freedom of the press around the world were still from juntas, dictators, authoritarian regimes, and social systems determined to dominate the media as a means of maintaining control over citizens, usually within the boundaries of the nation-state. Toward…

The security situation deteriorated as reporters came under increasing threats, both political and criminal in nature. At least three foreign correspondents and two local reporters were kidnapped across the country, not only in the provincial areas that became exceedingly dangerous after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, but in the area surrounding the capital, Kabul, that…

Violence associated with organized crime fueled widespread self-censorship, especially in the provinces. Journalists sometimes wrote without bylines when covering dangerous subjects, but many were still attacked and threatened. Ongoing violence led to the slayings of two journalists and the kidnapping of a third.

Eleven journalists were killed because of their work, making Iraq the most dangerous nation for the press for the sixth consecutive year. Nevertheless, the figure was the lowest yearly toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003–and two-thirds lower than the annual figures for 2007 or 2006.

Nepal made a historic shift in 2008 from a monarchy to a coalition-ruled democratic republic under the leadership of a former Maoist guerrilla. Journalists’ uncertainty about the ex-rebel leader’s newfound legitimacy was apparent as they struggled to find a way to refer to him in print. Most hedged their bets and used his given name,…

Military leader Pervez Musharraf resigned as president in August under threat of impeachment, leaving a decidedly mixed legacy on press freedom. As his power waned in late 2007, Musharraf shut down all independent broadcasters for a time and then tried to impose a rigid “code of conduct” on the stations.