Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is very concerned that your government has blocked domestic transmission of BBC World television news broadcasts. This action is the latest in a series of moves by authorities to restrict the work of foreign journalists in China. On July 1, government officials blocked the encrypted signal that transmits BBC World through the Sinosat 1 satellite.
Washington, DC, June 24, 2002–In a round-table discussion organized by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), CPJ’s Asia program coordinator Kavita Menon called for greater U.S. support for press freedom in China. “The U.S. has clear commercial and political interests in promoting greater transparency and the rule of law in China,” said Menon. “The local…
Remarks Presented Before the Congressional-Executive Committee on China By Kavita Menon June 24, 2002 Thank you for inviting the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to participate in this round-table discussion about media freedom in China. CPJ has been monitoring press freedom conditions in China, and around the world, for more than 20 years. The organization…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the recent detention and deportation of Canadian journalist Jiang Xueqin, who was filming labor unrest in northeastern China. We call for an immediate easing of restrictions on journalists trying to cover the protests, which are the largest to hit China since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is outraged by the continued detention of Internet publisher Huang Qi, who was arrested on June 3, 2000, and today completes two years in prison. Although Huang was secretly tried on August 14, 2001, authorities have not yet delivered a verdict in his case. In October 1998, Huang Qi and his wife, Zeng Li, launched Tianwang Web site (www.6-4tianwang.com), a missing-persons search service based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
New York, April 9, 2002–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the detention of Li Yanling, wife of Jiang Weiping, imprisoned journalist and recipient of CPJ’s 2001 International Press Freedom Award. On March 18, Li was detained after being called in for questioning by security officials in Dalian, where the couple live, according to CPJ…
Your Excellency: CPJ is gravely concerned by the recent physical assault against Yang Wei, a photographer for the Chinese-language daily Jinghua Shibao (Beijing Times). Yang was working undercover to investigate reports of mismanagement and unfair pricing at a Beijing property management company called Zhongchuang. The investigation focused on Zhongchuang’s management of the Shiliu Yuan Estates in Beijing’s Fengtai District.
IN THE WAKE of September 11, 2001, journalists around the world faced a press freedom crisis that was truly global in scope. In the first days and weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., governments across the globe–in China, Benin, the Palestinian Authority Territories, and the United States–took actions to…
Journalists across Asia faced extraordinary pressures in 2001. Risks included reporting on war and insurgency, covering crime and corruption, or simply expressing a dissenting view in an authoritarian state. CPJ’s two most striking indices of press freedom are the annual toll of journalists killed around the world and our list of journalists imprisoned at the…
Under the totalitarian rule of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the press is nothing but a government propaganda instrument. One political observer noted that the only variation in the country’s media is the relative degree of vitriol directed against South Korea, Japan, and the United States, calibrated to suit the foreign policy priorities of…