2018

Taipei, April 6, 2018–Chinese authorities should immediately release from custody journalist Zou Guangxiang and stop harassing the media for doing its job, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Brussels, April 6, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Czech authorities to ensure that journalists can work without interference. Three Czech investigative journalists issued a joint statement on April 3 that said police tried to intimidate them by repeatedly bringing them in for questioning over their reporting on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

When it comes to silencing critics, Azerbaijani authorities have been industrious and methodical. Ahead of snap presidential elections scheduled for April 11, potential opposition candidates have been either jailed or barred from running, and the political landscape has been cleansed of virtually all formal avenues of expressing dissent.

In August 2012, freelance journalist Austin Tice disappeared while reporting in Syria. A brief video made public a few weeks later showed Tice as a captive. He has not been heard from since.

Two members of the Turkish-funded militant group Ahrar al-Sham on March 31, 2018, attacked Syrian photographer and cameraperson Mohammed Hussein Obeid, also known as Abu Fahd al-Shami, while he was covering the arrival of refugee convoys from eastern Ghouta to the northwestern Hama province, according to the Syrian Journalists Association and Obeid.

Journalists sentenced An Istanbul court convicted in a retrial Hasan Cemal, a veteran journalist and a columnist for the news website T24, on charges of “making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization,” and issued a suspended sentence of 18 months and 22 days, according to an April 3 report from the daily Cumhuriyet.

New York, April 5, 2018–Nigerien authorities should reverse the expulsion of journalist Baba Alpha and ensure his safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. After jailing him for a year, authorities on April 3 released Baba Alpha, a journalist with the privately owned radio and television news agency Bonferey, and drove him to Labbezanga,…

Unrest continues in the Gaza Strip as Palestinians take part in weekly protests along the Gaza-Israel border. Violence has erupted repeatedly and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has fired on demonstrators and used tear gas and rubber bullets during clashes, according to news reports and the IDF. More than a dozen journalists covering the protests…

New York, April 4, 2018–Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo should immediately release Eliezer Ntambwe, a journalist and presenter at the privately owned news outlet and YouTube channel Tokomi Wapi, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Washington D.C, April 4, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the retaliatory measures taken by Egyptian authorities against the independent news website Masr al-Arabia for its coverage of last week’s presidential elections and calls on the authorities to release the website’s editor.