Press Freedom News and Views
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Laws, cheap web filters arm Russia to block news, says Censored Planet
November 7, 2019 11:36 AM ET
When Daniil Kislov tried to view the website of Fergana from his computer in Moscow on November 1, his browser showed him the now-familiar notification that the independent news outlet he directs had been blocked by order of Roskomnadzor, the national agency that regulates the internet in Russia, he...
CPJ deepens database of attacks on the press
November 7, 2019 11:10 AM ET
He couldn’t have known it at the time, but when a Moroccan court sentenced editor Mohammed al-Herd on August 4, 2003, to three years in prison, he was emblematic of a new trend, one that would accelerate and continue to the present day....
African Union must act on Cameroon’s human rights violations
October 29, 2019 12:21 PM ET
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 64 other civil society organizations in calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to address serious and systematic human rights violations in Cameroon, including the jailing of journalists....
Q&A: Moroccan press freedom advocate and NSO Group spyware target Maati Monjib
October 29, 2019 1:45 AM ET
Pegasus, the cellphone spyware tool sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is one of the most powerful surveillance systems governments can buy, experts say. Researchers who study it have detected “45 countries where Pegasus operators may be conducting surveillance operations,” and detailed its capabilities: whoever tricks the target...
Restrictive terms of Shawkan’s release from Egyptian jail highlighted to UN
October 25, 2019 1:14 PM ET
On October 10, Mahmoud Abu Zeid turned 33. It was the Egyptian photojournalist’s first birthday out of prison since his August 2013 arrest. But in spite of his celebrated freedom in March, the police monitoring conditions of his probation have, in effect, rendered his release obsolete....
India uses opaque legal process to suppress Kashmiri journalism, commentary on Twitter
October 24, 2019 1:30 AM ET
On August 10, 2018, the Indian government informed Twitter that an account belonging to Kashmir Narrator, a magazine based in Jammu and Kashmir, was breaking Indian law. The magazine had recently published a cover story on a Kashmiri militant who fought against Indian rule. By the end of the...
Legal threats prompt journalists to take creative approaches to investigative stories
October 23, 2019 2:30 PM ET
When BuzzFeed News reporters Jane Bradley and Katie J.M. Baker began investigating claims of sexual misconduct by self-help guru Tony Robbins in early 2018, they did what any journalist would do, and reached out to people who might know about the allegations....
Nigerian military targeted journalists’ phones, computers with “forensic search” for sources
October 22, 2019 9:21 AM ET
Hamza Idris, an editor with the Nigerian Daily Trust, was at the newspaper’s central office on January 6 when the military arrived looking for him. Soldiers with AK47s walked between the newsroom desks repeating his name, he told CPJ. It was the second raid on the paper that day;...
CPJ joins call to end impunity in killing of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
October 16, 2019 11:34 AM ET
Two years after the assassination of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and one year after CPJ joined five other organizations in an international press freedom mission to Malta, CPJ and nine other groups once again demanded an end to impunity for the heinous attack and renewed calls to...
Forced out of jobs and sidelined, Bolivia’s independent journalists see their audience slipping away
October 10, 2019 4:15 PM ET
Amalia Pando was once a ubiquitous presence on Bolivian radio and TV, hosting some of the country’s most popular news and political commentary programs. At age 66, she’s still at it, but her audience is a sliver of what it once was....