2012
Vigil in DC honors Ethiopian blogger Eskinder Nega
Writer, journalist, blogger, and free speech activist Eskinder Nega, the 2012 recipient of PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write Award, lived in Washington, D.C., before returning to his native Ethiopia to start one of the country’s first-ever independent newspapers. On Friday, Eskinder was back in D.C.–not physically, but as the subject of a candlelight vigil…
Charlie Hebdo cartoons set off fierce debate in France
Connection impossible! The Charlie Hebdo website was not accessible on Wednesday afternoon after the French satirical magazine proclaimed that it had published fresh cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Stéphane Charbonnier, its editor-in-chief, confirmed that the site had been attacked by hackers.
In Mali, rebels assault journalist, force station off the air
Rebel fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a separatist movement of ethnic Tuaregs in northern Mali, stormed the offices of private Radio Adar Khoïma in the northeastern town of Gao on April 3, 2012, according to local journalists and news reports. The rebels kidnapped a journalist and assaulted him, and…
Danlambao: We will not be silenced
On September 12, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued an administrative order–number 7169–accusing us, Danlambao, of “publishing information that is false, fabricated, and untruthful to slander the leadership of the nation, to agitate the people against the Party and the State, to cause doubts and create bad publicity reducing the people’s trust in the…
AP, Reuters journalists beaten, detained in Belarus
New York, September 18, 2012–Authorities in Belarus must immediately investigate the attack and detention of at least seven journalists reporting on a protest in downtown Minsk today and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.Agents in plainclothes repeatedly hit several journalists covering an opposition protest organized by activists calling for a…
Chinese Internet writer detained after posting on Diaoyu
New York, September 18, 2012–Chinese authorities should release a well-known academic and Internet writer detained last week in connection with his published articles, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Jiao Guobiao has been targeted in the past for his articles criticizing the Chinese government.
Pakistan journalists’ choice: Face death or jail
CPJ’s 2012 Impunity Index, an annual ranking of countries where journalists are murdered regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes, found unsolved journalist murders have increased in Pakistan.In an interview with the Associated Press, Bob Dietz, CPJ Asia Program Coordinator, describes the escalating violence against journalists in Pakistan’s province of Baluchistan. Click here for the full…
Amid execution debate, the Gambia censors newspapers
Lagos, Nigeria, September 17, 2012–State security agents in the Gambia on Friday ordered two independent newspapers to cease publication immediately but provided no explanation, according to local journalists and news reports.Agents from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in the capital, Banjul, visited the offices of the daily The Standard and the paper Daily News, which publishes three times…
Indian daily attacked for the fourth time in six months
New York, September 17, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Wednesday’s attack on two media workers outside the offices of local daily The Arunachal Times in India and calls on police in Arunachal Pradesh state to increase security for the paper, which has been attacked three other times since March.
Japan’s independent journalism on trial with Tanaka
It doesn’t take a baseball bat to silence a reporter in Japan–increasingly the blunt weapon being wielded by corporations, power brokers, and politicians is the court gavel. In May of this year, a writer for the weekly magazine Shukan Kinyobi was sued by one of Japan’s most powerful nuclear industry figures, for a total of…