Your Excellency: As the honorary co-chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and a journalist who was kidnapped and detained for nearly seven years, I wish to express my profound concern about the ongoing imprisonment of our colleague Zouhair Yahyaoui, a 35-year-old Tunisian Internet journalist who was unjustly jailed last summer. Yahyaoui is one…
New York, February 10, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) deplores last week’s decision sentencing of two journalists to prison. On Thursday, February 6, a court in the capital, N’Djamena, convicted Nadjikimo Bénoudjita, the publisher of the private weekly Notre Temps, and Mbainaye Bétoubam, an editor at the paper, of criminal defamation and sentenced each…
New York, February 10, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) honorary co-chairman Terry Anderson sent a letter today to Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali calling for the release of Tunisian Internet journalist Zouhair Yahyaoui, jailed since June 2002, and renewing calls for the release of Hamadi Jebali, the editor of Al-Fajr, the weekly newspaper…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is requesting information about the arrest of Mam Sonando, owner and manager of Beehive (Sombok Khmum) radio station, and In Chan Sivutha, editor of the Light of Angkor (Rasmei Angkor) newspaper. Both men have been formally charged with inciting crimes and discrimination and disseminating false information, in…
February 6, 2003, New York – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today sent a letter of inquiry to Prime Minister Hun Sen requesting information about the arrest of Mam Sonando, owner and manager of Beehive (Sombok Khmum) radio station, and In Chan Sivutha, editor of the Light of Angkor (Rasmei Angkor) newspaper. Both men…
New York, February 6, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed that Venezuela’s Infrastructure Ministry has opened an investigation into the private, Caracas-based television stations Televén and Venevisión to determine if they have violated media broadcast regulations. The ministry could fine the stations or suspend or even revoke their licenses. On January 30 and…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the murder of journalist Parvaz Mohammed Sultan, editor of an independent wire service based in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir State. On the evening of January 31, Sultan, editor of the News and Feature Alliance (NAFA), was shot dead by an unidentified gunman.…
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: A delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today delivered more than 600 petitions to the Eritrean ambassador to the United States. The petitions, signed by prominent U.S. journalists who attended the CPJ benefit dinner in November, urge Eritrea’s president Isaias Afewerki to immediately and unconditionally release Eritrean editor Fesshaye Yohannes,…
New York, February 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by a Chilean judge’s decision to impose a two-months suspended prison sentence on television commentator Eduardo Yáñez. On Friday January 31, Judge Juan Manuel Muñoz convicted Yáñez, a panelist on Chilevisión’s debate show “El Termómetro,” of “disrespect” under Article 263 of the…
New York, February 5, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today delivered more than 600 petitions to Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki calling for the release of jailed Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes (commonly known as Joshua), a recipient of CPJ’s 2002 International Press Freedom Award. Fesshaye, the popular editor of the weekly Setit, Eritrea’s largest-circulation newspaper,…