Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009journalists in prison: chinaDetention Center in Rangoon, accordingto the Burma Media Association.Paing Soe Oo (Jay Paing), freelanceIMPRISONED: October 28, 2009Six officials arrested Paing Soe Oo inhis apartment in Rangoon, accordingto the exile-run Mizzima news agency.Officials searched his home and seizedone of the journalist’s notebooks, thereport said.Paing Soe Oo, who formerly workedfor the weekly news publications Favoriteand Pyi Myanmar, is a freelanceonline commentator writing under thename Jay Paing. He also was a memberof the volunteer relief group Lin LetKye (Shining Star), which providedunsanctioned relief to Cyclone Nargissurvivors and has been targeted byauthorities for persecution.Maung Thura, an organizing memberof Lin Let Kye, was serving a totalof 35 years for communicating withexiled dissidents and giving interviewsto foreign media that criticized thegovernment’s disaster relief efforts.CAMBODIA: 1Hang Chakra, Khmer Machas SrokIMPRISONED: June 26, 2009national news reports. He was arrestedlater in his home and imprisoned inPrey Sar Prison near the capital, PhnomPenh, according to the reports.A Cambodian court ruled that a seriesof articles published by the daily inApril and May, accusing officials workingunder Deputy Prime Minister SokAn of corruption, had violated criminaldisinformation laws. The courtalso fined Hang Chakra 9 million riels(US$2,250), according to the SoutheastAsian Press Alliance. Hang Chakrasaid he stood by his coverage.Cambodian officials sentencedHang Chakra under the penal codeenacted by the former U.N. TransitionalAuthority in Cambodia (UN-TAC), which allows criminal prosecutionand jail terms of up to three yearsfor disinformation. UNTAC’s legalauthority expired with the promulgationof a new national constitution in1993, so the use of the criminal codesuggests officials had targeted the editorfor imprisonment.Cambodia’s National Assembly decriminalizeddefamation in 2007, andthe country’s 1995 Press Law broadlyprotects press freedoms. Publishing“false” information remains a criminaloffense, but with a lesser fine of up to5 million riels (US$1,250), accordingto the The Phnom Penh Post.An appeal court upheld the sentenceon August 11, according to local newsreports. King Norodom Sihamoniwrote to Prime Minister Hun Sen onOctober 27 requesting the journalist’srelease, other news reports said.CAMEROON: 1Lewis Medjo, La Détente LibreIMPRISONED: September 22, 2008On January 7, 2009, a judge in thecommercial city of Douala sentencedMedjo, editor of the weekly tabloid LaDétente Libre, to three years in prisonand a fine of 2 million CFA francs(US$4,500) on charges of publishingfalse news, according to local journalistsand news reports. Medjo was beingheld at Douala’s New Bell Prison.Medjo was arrested in September2008 in connection with a columnincorrectly speculating that PresidentPaul Biya had fired Alexis DipandaMouelle, president of the SupremeCourt, according to the same sources.The story was based on a presidentialdecree that did not extend Mouelle’sterm, according to Editor-in-ChiefMichée Medjo Gatheu.While in detention, Medjo sufferedheart trouble, and a doctor at Douala’sLaquintinie Hospital diagnosed himwith a severe ear infection, accordingto Gatheu. Medjo was seeking medicalparole in late year.CHINA : 24Xu Zerong (David Tsui), freelanceIMPRISONED: June 24, 2000Xu was serving a 13-year prison term oncharges of “leaking state secrets” throughhis academic work on military historyThe editor-in-chief of the oppositionKhmer-language daily was sentenced inabsentia to one year in prison stemmingfrom his reports on alleged governmentcorruption, according to local and interand“economic crimes” related to unauthorizedpublishing of foreign policyissues. Some observers believed that hisjailing may have been related to an articlehe wrote for the Hong Kong-based YazhouZhoukan (Asia Weekly) magazinerevealing clandestine Chinese CommunistParty support for a Malaysianinsurgency in the 1950s and 1960s.Xu, a permanent resident of HongKong, was arrested in Guangzhouand held incommunicado for 18months until his trial. He was triedby the Shenzhen Intermediate Courtin December 2001, and his appeal toGuangzhou Higher People’s Courtwas rejected in 2002.According to court documents,the “state secrets” charges against Xustemmed from his use of historicaldocuments for academic research. Xu,also known as David Tsui, was an associateresearch professor at the Instituteof Southeast Asian Studies at ZhongshanUniversity in Guangzhou. In1992, he photocopied four books publishedin the 1950s about China’s rolein the Korean War, which he then sentto a colleague in South Korea.The verdict stated that the SecurityCommittee of the People’s LiberationArmy of Guangzhou determined thatthe books had not been declassified40 years after being labeled “top secret.”After his arrest, St. Antony’sCollege at Oxford University, whereXu earned his doctorate and wrote hisdissertation on the Korean War, wasactive in researching the case and callingfor his release.2962 9 7