Barack Obama first addressed press freedom as a global issue back when he was visiting his father’s native Kenya as a senator in 2006. “Press freedom is like tending a garden, it’s never done,” Obama told reporters in Nairobi after a recent Kenyan government crackdown on the press. “It continually has to be nurtured and…
The resolution sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) drew the support of 10 other senators across both sides of the aisle, from elder statesmen like Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to the freshman Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE). Representing constituents from the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic to the Okefenokee swamplands, they…
New York, April 30, 2009–A Panama City court has sentenced leading Panamanian journalist Jean Marcel Chéry to two years in prison on trespassing charges stemming from a years-long series of complaints filed by a Supreme Court justice. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Justice Winston Spadafora to end his politically motivated harassment.
Why write a blog? My reasons might not be convincing, but to me, they are enough. The most important paper in my country is Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party in Cuba. You open it, you read it, and you don’t see anything. Nothing about the day that we are living in the…
Indictments came down on Wednesday in the murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was shot on an Oakland, Calif., street in August 2007. An Alameda County grand jury indicted the leader of the now-closed Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusuf Bey, on charges that he ordered Bailey killed.
In our special report, “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger,” CPJ names the world’s leading online oppressors. Here, Deputy Director Robert Mahoney explains why CPJ undertook this report and how it arrived at its conclusions. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (5:34) Read “10 Worst…
On Tuesday, Human Rights First (HRF) released its assessment of the implementation of the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act of 2008. CPJ supported the legislation, which created a category known as P2 (priority 2) for direct resettlement of Iraqi refugees with U.S. affiliations, including employees of U.S.-based media. The act promised a lifeline to Iraqi…
José Luis Ortega Vidal, 42, editorial director of the daily Notisur in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz was severely injured after falling off a staircase on the morning of March 3, 2009. He was attempting to flee from a former official who was threatening him and other journalists with a gun, according to witnesses…
New York, April 27, 2009–Veteran Colombian radio journalist José Everardo Aguilar, known for his harsh criticism of local corruption, was gunned down inside his home in southwestern Cauca province on Friday night. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Colombian authorities to thoroughly investigate Aguilar’s killing and bring all those responsible to justice