2011

  
A woman mourns at the burial of a man killed in the Gatumba shooting. (Reuters)

Burundi media defy censorship order

Tensions between the Burundi government and the local press are bound to increase as several media this week defied an order not to investigate or discuss a recent massacre. While officials say the measure is “temporary” and necessary to safeguard national unity and the course of justice, independent journalists are asserting their right to publish…

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Jordan’s anti-corruption bill would restrict press

New York, September 30, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is disheartened by the passage in Jordan’s lower chamber of Parliament of a draft anti-corruption law which would allow heavy fines for publishing information on corruption, and calls on the upper chamber to reject the bill. 

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María Elizabeth Macías Castro's killers left this note. (AFP)

Mexico murder may be social media watershed

María Elizabeth Macías Castro’s killers made sure their actions were understood. In a macabre, carefully orchestrated mise-en-scene, they placed her body in front of a poster with the ominous note. Nearby they left a computer keyboard, with a pair of headphones on her decapitated head.

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Addis Neger's newsroom in 2009, before the editors fled and the paper folded. (Addis Neger)

CPJ Impact

News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, September 2011 Journalist ID’d in WikiLeaks cable, flees Ethiopia U.S. diplomatic cables disclosed last month by WikiLeaks cited Ethiopian journalist Argaw Ashine by name and referred to his unnamed government source, forcing Ashine to flee the country after police interrogated him over the source’s identity. It is the…

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Mexican police reporter missing in Veracruz

New York, September 29, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that Mexican journalist Manuel Gabriel Fonseca Hernández has gone missing from the city of Acayucán, in Veracruz state. Fonseca’s friends first reported him missing on September 20, police records show.

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Tajik journalist faces 16 years in jail

New York, September 29, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ongoing imprisonment of journalist Makhmadyusuf Ismoilov and is dismayed by prosecutors’ call for a hefty prison term on defamation and other charges.

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Egyptian police raid Al-Jazeera offices again

New York, September 29, 2011–Egyptian plainclothes police stormed the office of an Al-Jazeera affiliate today for the second time this month, detaining a journalist. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the raid and calls on the authorities to end what has become a policy of censorship and intimidation of the media.

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Fighting abusive litigation against journalists

CPJ and others who defend the rights of journalists are rightly alarmed when public officials and other powerful figures instigate baseless criminal prosecutions that can send journalists to prison and force them to pay heavy fines. A case pending in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Fontevecchia & D’Amico vs. Argentina, shows how abusive civil litigation…

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CPJ

When a bug fix can save a journalist’s life

One of the most exciting aspects of working on Internet technologies is how quickly the tools you build can spread to millions of users worldwide. It’s a heady experience, one that has occurred time and again here in Silicon Valley. But there’s also responsibility that attaches to that excitement. For every hundred thousand cases in…

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Abduljalil Alsingace, center, stands with his family after being released from prison in February. (AP)

Bahrain upholds lengthy prison terms for journalists

New York, September 28, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s decision by the appeals chamber of Bahrain’s Court of National Safety to uphold lengthy prison terms for 21 individuals, including two online journalists and a prominent human rights defender. In separate press freedom violations, authorities prevented a newspaper from covering Saturday’s parliamentary by-election, and an…

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