Letters

Dear President Obama: When you meet with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping tomorrow at the White House, we urge you to raise concerns about media restrictions in China.

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by ongoing attacks on and detention of journalists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well as by a recent series of developments that restrict freedom of the press in Israel. Physical attacks, arrests, and other restrictions are creating an environment that undermines the vitality of the media, a key component of Israel's democracy.

Dear Mr. Insulza: The Committee to Protect Journalists has been monitoring with increasing concern an offensive launched by the government of Ecuador aimed at weakening the Inter-American human rights system, an effort that if successful could represent a serious blow to freedom of expression in the hemisphere.

Prime Minister Erdoğan: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to condemn the arrests of as many as 29 journalists in raids on Tuesday as well as the ongoing media repression that has earned Turkey a reputation as one of the world's worst press freedom violators and done grave damage to the consolidation of Turkish democracy.

Dear Prime Minister Abdurrahim al-Keib: The Committee to Protect Journalists has been monitoring with growing concern the difficulties that many foreign journalists have been experiencing in obtaining a visa to your country.

Dear President Lobo: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to express its deep concern about the unrelenting violence against the Honduran press. Our letter to you is prompted by events earlier this month that once again highlight the extraordinary risks that Honduran journalists must take simply to do their jobs.

Dear President Assad: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to bring to your attention disturbing reports of journalists being arrested and subjected to abuse in Syrian prisons. In the past 10 months, CPJ has documented 29 cases of journalists who were arrested for their work and nine cases of foreign journalists who have been expelled from Syria since March. We have also documented nine cases of journalists who are currently in prison.

Your Excellency Prime Minister El Ganzory: The Committee to Protect Journalists is writing to bring to your attention the mounting press freedom violations in Egypt. Between November 19 and 24, we documented at least 35 cases of journalists who were attacked in Cairo and Alexandria when protesters clashed with the military and police. We are attaching the list here and ask specifically for you to note the deteriorating state of press freedom in your country.

Dear President Zardari: This week marks the six-year anniversary of the abduction of journalist Hayatullah Khan. We join his family in asking your government to release the report on the investigation into his death that was prepared by High Court Justice Mohammed Reza Khan in September 2006 under the orders of former President Pervez Musharraf.

Dear Commodore Bainimarama: Five years after the military coup that brought you to power in Fiji, we note with concern the letter to you by Human Rights Watch and other organizations that was issued Friday. We would like to underscore their points on press freedom restrictions in Fiji.