New York, December 7, 2006–The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work increased for the second consecutive year, and one in three is now an Internet blogger, online editor, or Web-based reporter, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that way. It helps them crush press freedoms and keep their population in the dark. That is why the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, has drawn up a league table of the world’s 10 most censored countries. We hope that the list, issued on World Press Freedom Day, will shine a light into the dark corners of the world where governments and their political cronies decide what people will read, see, and hear.
Hu Jintao and Bill Gates will have had a lot to talk about Tuesday, when the Chinese president visited Microsoft’s Redmond campus. With the mainstream Chinese media heavily censored, the Internet has become a vital outlet for independent journalism, critical writing and information. The authorities are ruthless in their suppression of criticism of their rule in any medium. China has jailed more writers and journalists than any other country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
New York, March 28, 2006—Authorities in the breakaway region of Abkhazia released three filmmakers on Saturday after detaining them for three weeks on charges of entering the self-declared republic illegally, according to local and international press reports. Abkhazian authorities handed over journalists Tea Sharia, Georgii Sokhadze and Teimuraza Eliava to Georgian authorities at a bridge…
New York, March 9, 2006—A court in the breakaway region of Abkhazia has sentenced three Georgian filmmakers to three months in prison for espionage and illegally entering the self-declared republic in the northwest Caucasus, according to local and international press reports. The filmmakers were tried and convicted on Tuesday evening by the Sukhumi City Court…
New York, March 7, 2006—Authorities in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia today charged three journalists with entering the self-declared republic illegally to shoot a documentary film, local and international media reported. Journalists Tea Sharia, Georgii Sokhadze and Teimuraza Eliava were arrested March 1 in Abkhazia, a region along the Black Sea in the northwest…
New York, February 23, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by attacks and threats against ethnic Chinese journalists based in or near the U.S. cities of Atlanta, San Francisco, and New York. Journalists for the Falun Gong-affiliated newspaper and Web site Epoch Times told CPJ that they believe they have been targeted in retaliation…
GEORGIA Two years after the Rose Revolution toppled the corrupt regime of Eduard Shevardnadze and ushered in the promise of media reform, independent journalists feared the emergence of a new, subtler wave of repression. Several media owners have close ties to political leaders, journalists said, enabling authorities to exert behind-the-scenes pressure on front-line reporters and…