Committee to Protect Journalists – Defending Journalists Worldwide.

1 journalist among 135 deported by Nicaragua

Nicaraguan citizens wave from a bus after being released from a Nicaraguan jail and landing at the airport in Guatemala City on Thursday, September 5, 2024. (Photo: AP/Moises Castillo)

Nicaraguan authorities deported 135 political prisoners to Guatemala on Thursday, September 5, including journalist Víctor Ticay.

“Nicaragua’s release of journalist Víctor Ticay brings us relief, but he should have never been imprisoned, as he was simply doing his job as a journalist,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Nicaragua must stop persecuting journalists and their families for their reporting and allow the media to operate without the constant threat of detention or exile.”

Authorities arrested Ticay, a Canal 10 reporter, after he live-streamed a Catholic Easter celebration in April 2023, following a government ban on public expressions of religion. He was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and disseminating false news.

CPJ, partners call for release of slain Nigerian journalist’s body

Nigerian reporter Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi was found dead in a mortuary in southwestern Lagos state in 2020. Nearly four years after his death, CPJ has joined others in a renewed call for justice. (Screenshot: YouTube/Gboah TV)

The Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, and the Media Foundation for West Africa released a joint statement on September 3 calling on Nigerian authorities to ensure the body of slain journalist Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi is released to his family and that those responsible for his death are identified and held to account.

Pelumi, an intern at Gboah TV, was shot on October 24, 2020, while covering the #EndSARS protests in Ikeja, the capital of Nigeria’s southwestern Lagos state. The injured journalist was reported to have been seen in the custody of the police; his body was found in a mortuary a week later.

Read the full statement

The Committee to Protect Journalists promotes press freedom worldwide.

We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.

Journalists Attacked

Myat Thu Tan

MURDERED

Myat Thu Tan, a contributor to the local news website Western News and correspondent for several independent Myanmar news outlets, was shot and killed on January 31, 2024, while in military custody in Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State.

He was arrested on September 22, 2022, and held in pre-trial detention under a broad provision of the penal code that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news for critical posts he made on his Facebook page. Myat Thu Tan had not been tried or convicted at the time of his death.

The journalist’s body was found buried in a bomb shelter, with the bodies of six other political detainees, and showed signs of torture.

Myanmar’s military junta has cracked down on journalists and media outlets since seizing power in a February 2021 coup.

Learn more about Myat Thu Tan