Your Excellency: As the start of your government’s “National Dialogue,” which opens today and runs through September 20 and is aimed at reconciling the Central African Republic after years of war, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) writes to respectfully remind you of the many challenges facing Central African media, in the hopes that they may be addressed at this forum. This is especially important in light of Your Excellency’s plans, according to local and international press, to have a new constitution drafted and approved by 2005.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns last month’s brutal assault and arrest of Hiramon Mondol, a local correspondent for the daily Dainik Prabarttan in the southwestern town of Khulna, and calls for his immediate release from jail. This case is emblematic of the risks that rural journalists face in Bangladesh, and those responsible must be brought to justice.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the Algerian state printers’ refusal to print a number of private newspapers in recent weeks. On August 14, state printers issued an ultimatum to six privately owned dailies—El-Khabar, Errai, Le Soir d’Algérie, Le Matin, L’Expression, and Liberté—stating that if they did not pay…
Dear Mr. Ubaydulloyev: Joel Simon, Josh Friedman, and I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you on July 22 to discuss press freedom conditions in Tajikistan. We also appreciate your willingness to review a letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) outlining our specific concerns about the country’s criminal defamation laws and problems regarding journalists’ access to government information.
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believes that the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of journalist and human rights activist Ruslan Sharipov are part of a politically motivated campaign to suppress press freedom in Uzbekistan.
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near Baghdad yesterday. We demand a full, public investigation into this incident. According to several press accounts, Dana was struck in the chest while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad, late in the afternoon on August 17. Dana had been reporting near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. Eyewitnesses quoted by international media said that several journalists had been near the prison at the time of the incident and that a soldier in the tank fired on Dana as he filmed it approaching him from about 50 meters (55 yards).
Vossa Excelência: O Comitê para a Proteção dos Jornalistas (CPJ) está preocupado com a detenção de vários jornalistas dominicanos que criticaram a gestão presidencial. Tais detenções, que a nosso ver tiveram como objetivo intimidar e perseguir os jornalistas e obriga-los a autocensura, põem em perigo a reputação da República Dominicana como nação onde se respeita a liberdade de imprensa.