The families of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd, the three hikers detained in Iran, said today they are concerned about their children’s emotional well-being after nearly four months in prison. They asked supporters to send letters, which they will seek to deliver to them in Evin Prison in Tehran, where the three are…
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
New York, November 11, 2009—A court in Oaxaca has not ordered the release of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, who was charged last year for the 2006 killing of U.S. journalist Bradley Roland Will, contrary to initial news reports in the Mexican press.
We issued the following statement today in response to reports that a tribunal in Oaxaca state called for the release of Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, who was charged last year for the 2006 killing of U.S. journalist Brad Will. The tribunal determined there was insufficient evidence to continue holding the suspect…
Dear President Obama: We are heartened by news reports that you plan to talk to Chinese leaders about human rights and related issues when you visit the country next week. On World Press Freedom Day in May, you specifically raised the cases of two of China’s jailed journalists—Shi Tao, imprisoned for allegedly “leaking state secrets,” and Hu Jia, behind bars for alleged “incitement to subvert state power.” Both men remain jailed, and we ask that you now press for their immediate release.
Last Thursday, Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper published a reckless and unsubstantiated story accusing Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent Matthew Rosenberg of being a spy. It’s an accusation that gravely endangers Rosenberg’s safety. Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded with a scathing letter to The Nation’s editor, Shireen Mazari, expressing his disgust at the publication…
We issued the following statement in response to reports that Cuban bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Claudia Cadelo, and Omar Luís Pardo Lazo were detained, assaulted and harassed by state security agents on their way to a peaceful march in Havana. Details of the incident were published on the Web site of Global Voices.
New York, November 3, 2009—Crime reporter Bladimir Antuna García was found murdered Monday night, according local news reports, after reportedly being abducted from a street in the Mexican city of Durango that morning. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Mexican authorities to show their commitment to press freedom and the protection of Mexican journalists…
A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and…