Communications
A year of blogging, threats and silence
In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ data shows nearly half of the 179 held in jail in 2011 worked primarily online. Al Jazeera highlights some of the challenges facing online journalism in the Middle East and around the world in 2011.Click here for the full story.
Pakistan journalists ‘threatened by security’ personnel
After airing a piece critical of the Pakistani military, senior journalists Najam Sethi and Hamid Mir received serious threats from what they described as “both non-state and state actors.” Pakistan was the most dangerous country for journalists in 2011 and the CPJ is working to keep these journalists safe by publishing these threats, bringing them…
“At heart he is still a journalist. But it was his journalism that endangered his life.”
In 2008 Namal Perera was dragged from a car and savagely beaten with metal rods by paramilitary forces in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The attack was so severe that he was forced to flee the country for fear of his life. With few options available to him, he CPJ helped to secure a special rescue fellowship to…
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, November 2011 Honoring those who buck the system CPJ and about 900 supporters recently embarked on an emotional journey with four journalists from Bahrain, Belarus, Mexico, and Pakistan. At the 2011 International Press Freedom Awards in New York’s Waldorf Astoria on November 22, we celebrated their daring reporting…
From safety of New York, reporting on distant home
Nigerian journalist and ex-pat Omoyele Sowore is the focus of this New York Times Piece on exiled journalists in New York City. Since 2001 CPJ cites 649 journalists who have been driven into exile, 592 or which still have not returned to their home country. Despite some being thousands of miles from home, the rapid…
Egypt’s Jon Stewart sees few laughs in military clampdown
Following the collapse of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, Bassem Youssef rose to stardom with a satirical television show similar to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Now as the new government is beginning to look more like the old, he expresses his frustration over the ruling military council’s actions to restrict the press in what…
Why can’t Russian embassy officials behave themselves?
The Iron Curtain may have fallen, but the state of press freedom in Russia remains bleak. In what is a post-Cold War first, the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Luke Harding was expelled from Russia earlier this year. The Telegraph describes what happened to him, and why deportation might have saved him from a worse fate. Click…
Brazilian cameraman killed in drug raid gun battle
Brand TV, a CNN affiliate, cameraman Gelson Domingos da Silva, succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained while covering an anti-drug militia police raid in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. Da Silva is the fourth journalist to be killed this year in Brazil, a nation that has seen a rise in violence against the media and currently…
Journalist Group fears for Syrian media writers
Ongoing strife in Syria continues to take a toll on journalists as more reporters and bloggers have gone missing in recent days. CPJ reports that 3 individuals have vanished in the past week, adding to the growing list of disappeared media workers this year. Democracy Now! as well as the Beirut based NowLebanon.com covered the…
RFE/RL Turkmen correspondent freed from jail
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) correspondent Dovletmurad Yazguliyev has been released from prison in Turkmenistan after being sentenced to 5 years in jail earlier this month. RFE/RL reports that Yazguliyev was freed by presidential amnesty after his case drew worldwide condemnation lead by the CPJ and other rights groups. Click here for the full story.