Asia

Contact CPJ Asia

Twitter: @cpjasia
Facebook: CPJ Asia Desk
Program Coordinator:
Beh Lih Yi

Researcher:
Sonali Dhawan

Tel: 212-465-1004
Fax: 212-214-0640

Knight Foundation Press Freedom Center
P.O. Box 2675
New York, NY 10108 USA

  
A street photographer takes photos of Taliban security personnel in Kabul on November 25, 2024. (Photo: AFP/Wakil Kohsar)

Taliban detains 7 Arezo TV journalists, seals network’s offices in Kabul

New York, December 5, 2024—Dozens of Taliban agents from the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) raided the offices of private broadcaster Arezo TV on December 4 in the capital, Kabul, questioned staff members for four hours, and detained seven journalists and media workers. Woman journalists were expelled from the premises, and the network’s offices were…

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Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu was arrested in February 2022 and sentenced to seven years in jail on espionage charges on November 29, 2024. (Photo: Dong family)

CPJ condemns 7-year jail sentence for Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu on spy charges

New York, November 29, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a harsh seven-year jail sentence handed down to veteran Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu on Friday on espionage charges, and calls for his immediate release. Dong, 62, a columnist for the state-run newspaper Guangming Daily, was arrested in Beijing in February 2022 while having…

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Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan, pictured here in 2019, was detained in Islamabad on November 28, 2024, in what colleagues see as retaliation for his reporting on recent protests. (Reuters/Akhtar Soomro)

CPJ calls for immediate release of Pakistan journalist Matiullah Jan

Pakistan authorities must immediately and unconditionally release senior journalist Matiullah Jan and stop harassing him for his journalistic work, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Thursday.  “CPJ is dismayed by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan following his coverage of protests in Islamabad,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “The Pakistani…

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Local journalists pray for fellow journalist Janan Hussain, who was killed in a shooting in Kurram district on November 20, 2024. (Photo: AFP/Dilawer Khan)

Journalist killed in mass shooting in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province

New York, November 27, 2024—Unidentified shooters opened fire on civilian vehicles, killing at least 42 people, including Janan Hussain, a journalist for the independent digital outlet 365 News and general secretary of the Parachinar Press Club, on November 20 in the Ochut area of Kurram district in northern Pakistan. “The tragic killing of Janan Hussain…

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Jimmy Lai walks through the Stanley prison in Hong Kong in 2023.

Jimmy Lai’s Hong Kong jail is ‘breaking his body,’ says his son

In his tireless global campaign to save 77-year-old media publisher Jimmy Lai from life imprisonment in Hong Kong, Sebastien Lai has not seen his father for more than four years. Sebastien, who leads the #FreeJimmyLai campaign, last saw his father in August 2020 — weeks after Beijing imposed a national security law that led to…

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Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, handcuffed and chained between two officers, is led into a police van as he heads to court to be charged under the territory's national security law on December 12, 2020 as he is accused of conspiring with foreign forces to endanger national security.

Hong Kong must end Jimmy Lai’s show trial, CPJ urges ahead of hearing

New York, November 18, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges the Hong Kong government to drop its trumped-up charges against media publisher Jimmy Lai, who is set to take the stand for the first time on Wednesday in his trial on national security charges, which could see the 77-year-old jailed for life if convicted. “This…

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CPJ urges Bangladesh’s interim leader Yunus to protect press freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday, November 11, wrote to Professor Muhammad Yunus urging him to protect press freedom in his role as chief adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh. On November 4, the interim information ministry announced that the Cyber Security Act would be repealed within a week. The law was passed…

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Indian journalist Rana Ayyub tailed by officials, harassed after number leaked

New Delhi, November 8, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is highly concerned after Indian investigative journalist Rana Ayyub’s personal number was leaked online and, separately, local intelligence personnel followed and repeatedly questioned her throughout a four-day reporting trip in the northeastern state of Manipur in early October, according to three people familiar with the situation…

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Vietnamese blogger handed 12-year prison sentence for anti-state propaganda

Bangkok, October 31–A court in Hanoi sentenced Duong Van Thai, an independent Vietnamese blogger who went missing in Thailand and was later in Vietnamese custody in April 2023, to 12 years in prison and three years’ probation on Wednesday on charges of anti-state propaganda. “Vietnam’s harsh sentencing of blogger Duong Van Thai is grotesque and an outrage, particularly amid allegations he…

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‘If you scream no one will hear you’: Pakistani journalists report in fear amid spike in media killings

Hope for justice in journalist murders is dim across the world, but especially in Pakistan, which has appeared on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index every year since the list’s inception in 2008. This year, the South Asian country ranks twelfth out of the 13 worst offenders. CPJ’s impunity index lists countries where perpetrators who kill journalists…

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