Features & Analysis

2012

  
Benedict Uwalaka after his attack. (Premium Times)

Signs of justice for battered Nigerian photojournalist

Hardly ever do Nigerian journalists get justice for assaults suffered in the line of duty. But things may be set to change with the case of Benedict Uwalaka, a photojournalist with Leadership Newspapers, who on August 9 was brutally assaulted at a government hospital in Lagos State. The first step toward justice came 22 days…

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Sandhya Eknelygoda speaks for Sri Lanka’s disappeared

When I first met Sandhya Eknelygoda in May 2010 in her home outside Colombo, she was a distressed mother of two young boys whose husband had gone missing. He was last seen four months earlier, just prior to the elections that returned President Mahinda Rajapaksa to power after the end of the decades-long war with…

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A protester holds a poster depicting jailed journalist Shi Tao. (AP/Miguel Villagran)

As Wang is freed, Chinese journalist Shi Tao still held

Chinese dissident Wang Xiaoning was released today after serving a 10-year prison term on charges of “incitement to subvert state power,” a case built in good part on client information supplied by Yahoo. Wang had used his Yahoo email account and the discussion forum Yahoo Groups to spread ideas the government deemed dangerous. His case…

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An analyst looks at malware code in a lab. (Reuters/Jim Urquhart)

Dear CPJ: Some malware from your ‘friend’

We talk a lot about hacking attacks against individual journalists here, but what typifies an attempt to access a reporter’s computer? Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, received an email last week that reflects some characteristics of a malware attack against a journalist or activist. There was nothing particularly notable about the targeting. (Like many reporters,…

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Indian police detain a Kashmiri protester in Srinagar. (AP/Mukhtar Khan)

News media expand, but freedom lags in Kashmir

Early this month, newspaper offices in Indian-controlled Kashmir received a note warning journalists to be more supportive of the Kashmir independence movement, according to the leading national daily, The Times of India, citing a news agency in the state’s summer capital, Srinagar. No militants took responsibility this time, but in mid-March insurgent groups issued a joint…

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Chut Wutty's son stands near a picture of his father during a commemoration ceremony. (Reuters/Samrang Pring)

A journalist’s account of a Cambodian activist’s death

Here’s a quick pointer to a piece in the Daily Beast by freelance reporter Olesia Plokhii, who worked at The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh until May this year. Plokhii’s moving story, “Death of a Forester,” describes the death of Chut Wutty, a Cambodian activist who was shot a few feet away from Plokhii and…

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Thousands gathered in December 2011 to protest the alleged vote rigging in parliamentary elections. (AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Criminalization of speech a serious setback for Russia

Shortly after the May 7 presidential inauguration of Vladimir Putin, the Russian parliament passed four major bills in record time–all of them meant to counter the protests that first erupted in the country in December 2011.

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Residents of India's northeast crowd a railway station as they flee ethnic violence. (AP/Anupam Nath)

India’s clumsy Internet crackdown

Indian Internet advocates and journalists are in an uproar this week over the news that the government has blocked access to around 300 websites, pages, and social media accounts in an effort to quell communal violence in the turbulent northeast. The rationale is that inflammatory online content has fanned tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in…

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Journalists view the stage for the coming Republican National Convention. (Reuters/Scott Audette)

Resources, tips for journalists covering conventions

With up to 15,000 journalists expected in Tampa, Fla., for next week’s Republican National Convention, some reporters and photographers will undoubtedly encounter problems concerning access to news events and coverage of related protests. Several journalism organizations have compiled resource materials and tips for journalists headed to the GOP gathering, which starts August 27, and the…

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Is Pakistan’s Ansar Abbasi being banned?

Ansar Abbasi, editor of investigations for Pakistan’s leading media group Jang, is apparently facing a de facto ban from his own employers. Other TV channels also report being told not to air his views. Abbasi has charged cable operators with spreading immoral, anti-Islamic messages through Indian movies and other popular culture broadcasts. In response, he…

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2012