Asia

Bangkok, August 9, 2019 – An American journalist working in the Philippines was shot and critically wounded on August 6 while retrieving his daughter from school in the northern province of Ifugao, according to his outlet and other press reports.

“You are from the press, you are not allowed,” a local Kashmiri news editor says Indian security forces told him yesterday at one of the dozens of checkpoints set up across the region.

Taipei, August 5, 2019—Hong Kong authorities should investigate reports that police fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets toward journalists and ensure that the media can cover protests without fear of injury or arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, August 5, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed alarm at reports of a communication blackout and the arrest of a journalist in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir state amid an escalating political crisis.

Hopes for greater press freedom when Myanmar moved to quasi-democratic rule were quickly quashed with the jailing in 2017 of two Reuters reporters. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have their freedom again, but journalists and press freedom activists who met with CPJ’s Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn Crispin in Yangon in June said that…

Taipei, July 29, 2019 — The Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court today sentenced Huang Qi, publisher of the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, to 12 years in prison on charges of “deliberately leaking state secrets,” and “illegally providing state secrets to foreign countries,” according to a statement published on the court’s website.

Bangkok, July 26, 2019 — Cambodia should drop incitement charges against two local journalists and stop using legal threats to intimidate and harass reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Bangkok, July 25, 2019 — Philippine authorities should drop pending cyber libel charges against Rappler editor Maria Ressa and cease their legal harassment campaign against her, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Bangkok, July 24, 2019 — Cambodia should drop espionage charges against two former Radio Free Asia reporters and stop using anti-state charges to harass journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Taipei, July 22, 2019 — A group of masked individuals beat journalists, demonstrators, and passersby with sticks and metal rods at Hong Kong’s Yuen Long metro station after an anti-extradition bill protest concluded last night, according to news reports. At least 45 people were injured in the attacks, according to those reports.