Americas

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets this week with Burmese President Thein Sein, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and senior ranking members of the military establishment, she conspicuously will not have the opportunity to meet with journalist Sithu Zeya.

Sithu was detained by police after recording the impact of a bomb that exploded in a crowded Burmese marketplace in April 2010. The journalist was sentenced to 17 years in prison on charges related specifically to his reporting activities, with an additional 10 years tacked on this year -- soon after Thein Sein announced his intention to increase media freedom in Burma.

New York, November 28, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by reports that an Ecuadoran journalist was sentenced to a six-month prison term after being found guilty of criminal defamation.

New York, November 28, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports of a cyberattack on Mexican weekly Ríodoce that forced its website offline on Friday. Ríodoce is one of the few publications to cover crime and drug trafficking in Mexico.

Press freedom groups worldwide are banding together today, the International Day to End Impunity, to demand justice for hundreds of journalists murdered for their work. On this day, the Committee to Protect Journalists and dozens of other members of the International Freedom of Information Exchange are remembering journalists killed, and urging governments to take action against those responsible for their deaths. We are also looking for lessons learned in past fights--like the one led by a group of journalists from the San Francisco Bay area, who battled tirelessly to ensure that justice was served in the slaying of their colleague Chauncey Bailey.

The Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria might seem like an odd venue to stage a call for resistance. Nine hundred people in tuxedos and gowns. Champagne and cocktails. Bill Cunningham snapping photos. This combination is generally more likely to coax a boozy nostalgia than foment a revolution. But the journalists honored last night at CPJ's annual International Press Freedom Awards had a clear message to their colleagues: Fight the power.

Last night, hundreds of journalists and members of New York's press freedom community met at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan for the Committee to Protect Journalists' XXI annual International Press Freedom Awards. At the event--celebrating the extraordinary courage of five journalists from across the globe--guests and award recipients unanimously expressed their commitment to fighting impunity in the murders of journalists.

New York, November 17, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that a Bolivian TV channel and its sister radio station were vandalized and forced off the air on Monday by supporters of a local mayor. 

New York, November 16, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by reports that two newspaper employees in Mexico have been missing since Monday and that in their last communication, the men said they were being followed by police cars.

New York, November 15, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by today's reports of New York City police mistreating and detaining journalists and obstructing them from covering events at the Occupy Wall Street protests.

New York, November 15, 2011--A group of unidentified gunmen attacked the premises of the Mexican daily El Siglo de Torreón early this morning, setting a car on fire and shooting at the building several times.

Around 2:40 a.m., at least three assailants parked two vehicles in front of the newspaper's offices in the city of Torreón in the northern state of Coahuila, the paper reported. They set one of the cars on fire in front of El Siglo's main door and left in the other. Before fleeing, the gunmen used assault rifles to spray the premises with about 20 bullets that police recovered at the scene, editor Javier Garza told CPJ. One of the offices suffered some damage, but there were no injuries, he said. Federal and state police, as well as members of the Mexican army, arrived at the scene shortly after the attack.