Cameroon must investigate jailed editor’s death
Dear President Biya: Following Thursday’s death of newspaper editor Germain S. Ngota Ngota, whose health deteriorated while he was incarcerated in Kondengui Prison in the capital, Yaoundé, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on you to launch a public, thorough, and transparent inquiry into the circumstances of his death. We urge you to provide guarantees for the well-being of three other journalists held in Cameroonian prisons and address ongoing abuses—including allegations of state torture—against independent journalists who raise questions about the administration’s performance.
Jailed journalist dies in Cameroon prison
New York, April 22, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged by today’s death of newspaper editor Germain S. Ngota Ngota, whose health deteriorated while he was incarcerated in Cameroon. The death certificate for Ngota, editor of the private bimonthly Cameroon Express, determined that the journalist died from a lack of medical attention in Kondengui prison in the…
CPJ denounces Iranian threats against Maziar Bahari
New York, April 19, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned threats made by the Iranian government against Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari. Bahari, left, who was imprisoned in Iran for 118 days on fabricated antistate charges following last year’s disputed June presidential election, told CPJ that family members in Iran had received a threatening phone…
Dawit Isaac: Jailed 3,127 days in Eritrea without trial
Journalist Dawit Isaac has spent 3,127 days in government custody in his native Eritrea, according to the ticker on FreeDawit, a Web site based in Sweden, Isaac’s adopted country, where he is a citizen. He has never been publicly charged with a crime or been given a trial. A thorny issue between Sweden and the…
Freed Cuban journalist tells of his ‘dreadful experience’
When I asked Cuban journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan to describe in one sentence his three years in jail, he told me: “I don’t wish on anybody the dreadful experience I had in prison.” A municipal court in Unión de Reyes, province of Matanzas, freed him on Sunday after he completed a three-year prison term. Around 6 a.m.,…
Oscar Sánchez Madan freed from jail in Cuba
In early 2007, freelancer Oscar Sánchez Madan was detained twice and warned to stop working for the independent press after he covered a local corruption scandal and social problems in western Matanzas province, where he lived. He was arrested in April 2007 and, after a one-day trial, Cuban authorities convicted him of “social dangerousness,” a vague charge contained in…
Truth about jailed journalists is locked away in Eritrea
In the reclusive Red Sea nation of Eritrea, the fate of 10 journalists who disappeared in secret prisons following a September 2001 government crackdown has been a virtual state secret—only occasionally pierced by shreds of often unverifiable, secondhand information smuggled out of the country by defectors or others fleeing into exile.
CPJ urges Egypt to free blogger with 18 release orders
Dear Minister el-Adly: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to protest the continued detention of Mosad Soleiman, known online as Mosad Abu Fagr, a blogger, novelist, and activist who writes about social and political issues on his blog, Wedna N`ish (We Want to Live). Abu Fagr has been in administrative detention by order of the Ministry of Interior since February 2008, despite obtaining 18 court orders for his release, his lawyer, Ahmed Ragheb, told CPJ.
More than 3,500 petition Iran to free journalists, writers
New York, April 6, 2010—More than 3,500 concerned people from around the world—including prominent international journalists, writers, and press freedom leaders—are petitioning Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, to immediately release dozens of journalists, writers, and bloggers currently imprisoned in the country. Among those who have signed the petition are Martin Amis, Jon Lee…