(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is an 11 February 2003 CPJ press release: CPJ Campaign to Free Joshua New York, February 11, 2003 – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has launched a campaign to win the release of jailed Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes, known as Joshua. The popular editor of the weekly Setit, Joshua was […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – The following is an 11 February 2003 CPJ press release:
CPJ Campaign to Free Joshua
New York, February 11, 2003 – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has launched a campaign to win the release of jailed Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes, known as Joshua. The popular editor of the weekly Setit, Joshua was jailed in September 2001 for covering a dispute among Eritrea’s leadership about how the country should be governed. In November, CPJ honored Joshua with its 2002 International Press Freedom Award. Joshua is one of 18 journalists in jail in Eritrea, held incommunicado, without charge.
More than 600 people who attended the dinner ceremony honoring Joshua and the other CPJ awardees filled out petitions calling for Joshua’s immediate release. They include CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger, ABC News senior correspondent Claire Shipman, CBS News president Andrew Haywood, and Mort Zuckerman, the
publisher of the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report. The petitioners were delivered to the Eritrean ambassador to the United States on February 5.
We are asking you to join the campaign by visiting CPJ’s website www.cpj.org and filling out an on-line petition. Your name will be forwarded to the Eritrean authorities.
Please take a minute to fill out the on-line petition. We believe that a groundswell of support from journalists around the world could help win the release of Joshua and his colleagues in Eritrea.
