UK / Europe & Central Asia

New York, February 19, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by today’s ruling by the U.K. High Court that said David Miranda was lawfully detained under antiterrorism legislation at Heathrow airport last summer.

Each year, members of the Global Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations gather to discuss threats to journalists around the world and plan action. Usually, we focus on frontline countries where journalists face life and death issues. But as our annual meeting took place in London this year, we couldn’t help but notice the emerging…

Economists and political scientists acknowledge that journalism is vital to development and democracy. By Robert Mahoney

Calls for journalists to exercise a sense of responsibility are very often code for censorship. Yet unethical journalism can also imperil the press. By Jean-Paul Marthoz

Surveillance, restrictive Internet legislation, and cyberattacks compel CPJ to add cyberspace to the list of places trending in the wrong direction. By Maya Taal

The United Kingdom’s tradition of an unfettered news media was marred by several developments in 2013. Parliamentary debate over recommendations from the 2012 Leveson Inquiry to address unethical behavior by media concluded with the creation of a royal charter that critics feared would enable political interference in press regulation and set a bad example for…

Today, a broad coalition of technology companies, human rights organizations, political groups, and others will take to the Web and to the streets to protest mass surveillance. The mobilization, known as “The Day We Fight Back,” honors activist and technologist Aaron Swartz, who passed away just over a year ago. Throughout the day, the campaign…

San Francisco, February 7, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a report that a potential operation by the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) involved covert surveillance of reporters’ communications. GCHQ sought to use journalists to pass both information and disinformation to intelligence targets, according to documents taken from the National…

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…