Aliya Iftikhar/CPJ Asia Research Associate

Aliya Iftikhar is CPJ's Senior Asia Researcher. Prior to joining CPJ, Iftikhar was a research assistant at the Middle East Institute and interned at the U.S. Department of State. She has worked with Amnesty International and written for Vice News.

Features & Analysis
Newspaper vendors collect copies of the papers in Srinagar, in July 2016. The Kashmir Times, one of the oldest papers in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, is suffering under a nearly 10-year ban on government advertising. (AP/Mukhtar Khan)

Kashmir Times feels the strain of government advertising ban

In a Q&A with CPJ, Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of Kashmir Times, talks about the impact a government advertising ban on the daily has had on the way its journalists are able to report the news.

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Features & Analysis
President Yameen, center, surrounded by his body guards in the capital, Malé, in February 2018. The president was criticized today for comments he made about missing Maldives journalist Rilwan. (AP/Mohamed Sharuhaan/File)

Maldives president’s off-hand comment on missing journalist Rilwan highlights need for fresh investigation

Four years to the day that Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla was last seen by his family, President Abdulla Yameen Abdulla Gayoom declared the Maldives journalist dead.

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Features & Analysis
Election posters hang next to a street in Rawalpindi, ahead of elections on July 25. Pakistan's journalists say retaliation against critical reporting is making them self-censor to try to avoid retaliation. (AFP/Farooq Naeem)

Silence from judiciary over media attacks increases self-censorship, Pakistan’s journalists say

When it comes to the military and the judiciary, Pakistan’s journalists are “between a rock and a hard place,” Zohra Yusuf, of the independent non-profit Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told CPJ. In recent months the judiciary, which has a history of siding with Pakistan’s powerful military, has remained largely silent amid attempts to censor…

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Features & Analysis
Bangladeshi journalists cover proceedings outside a Dhaka court in May 2016. The country's vaguely worded defamation law is creating a climate of self censorship, local reporters say. (AP/A.M. Ahad)

Bangladesh’s defamation law is ‘avenue to misuse power,’ local journalists say

It started with a Facebook post about a goat and ended in a day in jail for Bangladeshi journalist Abdul Latif Morol, when a fellow journalist filed a defamation complaint against him.

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Features & Analysis
Supporters donate money to Maldives broadcaster Raajje TV, which has been subject to large fines for alleged defamation in relation to its critical reporting. (Raajje TV/Mohamed Sharuhaan)

Maldives repeatedly slaps Raajje TV with huge fines under defamation law

One of the largest TV stations in the Maldives, Raajje TV, says authorities are using newly recriminalized defamation law to try to shut it down by levying exorbitant fines.

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Features & Analysis
Journalists protest over the attack on a colleague in Islamabad in 2014. Pakistan's press has set up safety hubs in response to the attacks and threats the media recieve.(AFP/Aamir Qureshi)

In Pakistan, press safety hubs provide support and training for journalists at risk

When a criminal gang sent threatening messages to Ghulam Mustafa, the reporter said his only option was to stop working for the Pakistani station Geo News. Mustafa acknowledges that laying low for nearly three years was the right decision to ensure his safety, but he said, “Professionally, it was strange that I was not working.…

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