Asia

2019

  
A worker dries material for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress Party election campaigns on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, in March. India is due to hold elections from April 11 to May 19. (AFP/Sam Panthaky)

India elections 2019: Journalist safety kit

India is scheduled to hold national and provincial elections from April 11 to May 19, 2019. As the country celebrates over 70 years of democracy, journalists are under pressure from attacks, harassment, cyber bullying, and government restrictions. At least five journalists were killed in relation to their work in India in 2018, including four who…

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Chinese police seen on November 9, 2018. Recently, several editors of a labor rights website in China have been arrested or have gone missing. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Labor rights website editor Wei Zhili arrested in China; another is missing

Taipei, March 21, 2019 — Chinese authorities should immediately release ILabour.net editor Wei Zhili and ensure that editors and reporters will not be arrested for reporting on workers’ rights.

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Blogger Truong Duy Nhat stands trial in Vietnam on March 4, 2014. He recently disappeared from Thailand and has resurfaced in a Vietnamese prison. (Vietnam News Agency via AFP)

Vietnamese blogger Truong Duy Nhat, who disappeared in Thailand, imprisoned in Vietnam

Bangkok, March 21, 2019 — Vietnamese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release detained blogger Truong Duy Nhat and allow him to travel freely outside of the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Fathimath Shehenaz holds a sign outside the Malé parliament in February, calling for justice for her brother, the blogger Ahmed Rilwan, who was abducted in 2014. (CPJ)

Maldives commission renews hope of justice for Rilwan and Rasheed

Mission Journal: With a new presidential commission investigating the abduction of Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla and the murder of Yameen Rasheed, CPJ’s Asia program research associate Aliya Iftikhar travels to Malé in late February to speak with the bloggers’ families about their pursuit of justice, and with authorities about the progress and challenges in the cases.

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An Afghan police officer inspects vehicles at a checkpoint in Kabul on August 6, 2017. An Afghan journalist was recently killed when he was shot by two unidentified men in Khost. (Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

Afghan journalist killed; Islamic State affiliate claims responsibility

New York, March 18, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the killing of Afghan journalist Sultan Mahmoud Khairkhwah and calls on authorities to investigate his killing and improve the safety of journalists in the country.

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Afghan policemen search passengers at a checkpoint in Helmand province on December 17, 2017. A journalist in Helmand was recently injured by a car bomb in an assassination attempt. (Noor Mohammad/AFP)

Afghan journalist wounded in assassination attempt

New York, March 12, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists urged Afghan authorities to swiftly investigate the attempted assassination of journalist Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi in Helmand province today and bring the perpetrators to justice.

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The Intermediate People's Court in Tianjin, in December 2018. By law, court verdicts should be posted online, but in reality few rulings are made public. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)

How many journalists are jailed in China? Censorship means we don’t know

Reporting on China’s harassment of journalists has never been easy. Lately it’s been getting much harder, which suggests that conditions for the press could be worsening. At least 47 journalists were jailed in China at the time of CPJ’s 2018 prison census and I am investigating at least a dozen other cases, but the details…

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A screenshot of The Shillong Times. The Meghalaya state High Court fined the paper's publisher and editor over an opinion piece published in December. (CPJ)

Indian court issues fine, threatens jail time over opinion piece

New York, March 11, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today strongly condemned a fine imposed by the Meghalaya state High Court on the publisher and editor of Meghalaya-based daily The Shillong Times.

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Television journalists are seen outside the premises of the Supreme Court in New Delhi, India, August 22, 2017. The Indian government threatened to invoke Official Secrets Act against two news outlets on March 6, 2019. (Reuters/Adnan Abidi)

Indian government threatens to invoke Official Secrets Act against news outlets

The government of Narendra Modi, through Attorney General K K Venugopal, on March 6, 2019, threatened to invoke the Official Secrets Act against daily newspaper The Hindu and news agency Asian News International (ANI) for critical reporting on a fighter jet deal in which the government has been accused of corruption, according to news reports.

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On International Women’s Day, CPJ highlights jailed female journalists

On International Women’s Day, CPJ has highlighted the cases of female journalists jailed around the world in retaliation for their work. At least 33 of the 251 journalists in jail at the time of CPJ’s prison census are women. At least one of those–Turkish reporter and artist Zehra Dogan–was released in February after serving a…

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2019