Europe & Central Asia

For the second time this year, the U.N. Security Council took up the issue of protection of journalists. In a discussion today sponsored by the French and Guatemalan delegations, and open to NGOs, speaker after speaker and country after country hammered home the same essential facts: The vast majority of journalists murdered around the world…

Judith Spiegel, who reports for multiple Dutch outlets in Yemen, and her husband, Boudewijn Berendsen, were released six months after being taken hostage by an unknown group, the Dutch and Yemeni governments said in a joint statement on December 10, 2013.

New York, December 10, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports a Malian website based in Paris has been threatened by Mali’s government after posting an Associated Press (AP) story today implicating Malian soldiers in extrajudicial killings. 

New York, December 9, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the 10-year jail sentence given today to Azerbaijani journalist Nijat Aliyev, and calls on authorities to release the journalist on appeal.

A prime minister says a newspaper has damaged national security and calls for its editor to be brought before Parliament; his government tells the same paper there has been “enough” debate on an issue and sends its security officials into the paper’s offices to smash discs containing journalistic material; lawmakers call for the editor’s prosecution…

It is an extraordinarily difficult time to be a journalist. Nearly every month, the digital security landscape shifts–new surveillance concerns are unearthed and freshly drafted laws are introduced that seek to curb freedom of expression under the guise of national security.

For all the people who have been working on the problem of impunity for so long, the announcement on November 26 that the Third Committee of the United Nation’s General Assembly had passed a resolution on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity, setting November 2 as the “International Day to End Impunity…

A video report by a Euronews cameraman shows him being attacked by police during clashes in Kiev. (YouTube/Euronews) New York, December 2, 2013–At least 51 journalists were attacked while covering protests in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and other cities over the weekend, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists…

As Alan Rusbridger appears Tuesday before the Home Affairs committee of the U.K. Parliament to give evidence regarding the Guardian’s coverage of surveillance activities by the U.S. and U.K. governments, British journalists and analysts say that newspaper’s legal troubles are worrying in large part because they come against the backdrop of increased regulation and scrutiny…