Features & Analysis

2017

  
CPJ Advocacy and Communications Manager Kerry Paterson, third from left, joins a side panel on journalist safety and impunity at the UN in New York. (Article 19)

CPJ joins UN discussion on journalist safety and impunity

The Committee to Protect Journalists and other rights groups, including Article 19, today took part in a side panel at the U.N. in New York, on journalist safety and impunity.

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Supporters donate money to Maldives broadcaster Raajje TV, which has been subject to large fines for alleged defamation in relation to its critical reporting. (Raajje TV/Mohamed Sharuhaan)

Maldives repeatedly slaps Raajje TV with huge fines under defamation law

One of the largest TV stations in the Maldives, Raajje TV, says authorities are using newly recriminalized defamation law to try to shut it down by levying exorbitant fines.

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People and soldiers visit the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during a ceremony marking the 95th anniversary of Victory Day in Ankara, Turkey August 30, 2017. Turkish authorities on October 21 released three journalists who they detained last week during house raids that targeted leftist and pro-Kurdish media in Ankara. (Reuters/Umit Bektas)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of October 22, 2017

Two journalists held on terror charges An Istanbul court yesterday ordered two journalists from the socialist Etkin News Agency (ETHA) to be jailed pending trial, alongside 10 other people including politicians and lawyers, their employer reported today.

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A woman casts her vote in Mauritania's referendum in August 2017. Journalists reporting critically on the referendum and the government face harassment. (STR/AFP)

Mauritania cracks down on critical press after referendum

The Mauritanian Radio and Television Broadcast Authority today ordered Mauritania’s five privately owned news stations to shut down for “failing to fulfil their financial agreements” with the country’s broadcast regulator, local media reported.

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Activists march to a court in Istanbul on July 24, 2017, in protest against the trial of journalists and staff from the Cumhuriyet newspaper. According to CPJ research, Turkey is one of worst jailer of journalists. (AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of October 15, 2017

Police conduct house raids, arrest at least 7 journalists Turkish police detained at least seven journalists from leftist and pro-Kurdish media outlets during house raids that took place yesterday in Istanbul and today in Ankara, according to the independent news site Bianet.

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People hold signs saying 'Impunity kills' during a 2013 memorial in Kiev for murdered Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze. The US decision to withdraw from UNESCO will make the world less safe for journalists. (AFP/Sergei Supinsky)

US withdrawal from UNESCO is blow for press freedom

The U.S. government’s decision to withdraw from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which has a mandate to promote “the free flow of ideas by word and image [and] to foster free, independent, and pluralistic media in print, broadcast and online,” will make the world less safe for journalists, a joint statement…

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A women's rights march in Belgrade on January 21, 2017. Women journalists in Serbia say they face threats of sexual violence and online abuse over their critical reporting. (AFP/Andrej Isakovic)

Two-fold risk for Serbia’s women journalists as attackers target their work and gender

“In the past five years I was publically called many things. I was an old hag, a sterile, cheap Soros’ prostitute, a hooker, not f***ed enough, in need of a good prick, and destroyer of the Serbian Orthodox Church,” said Tatjana Vojtehovski, a Serbian television journalist with a large presence on social media. “My response…

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Greg Gianforte. right, with Paul Ryan, before his swearing in ceremony in June. CPJ met with the congressman to discuss press freedom issues on October 5. (Pete Marovich/Getty Images/AFP)

CPJ meeting with Gianforte is disappointingly brief

When Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte agreed to donate $50,000 to CPJ as part of his settlement with Guardian journalist Ben Jacobs, whom he body slammed during a congressional race in May, I reached out to set up a meeting to see if Gianforte was serious about his hope that “some good can come of [the]…

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A worker cleans a EU flag in Berlin on May 19, 2017. The EU parliament is due to vote on October 12 on a proposed review mechanism of surveillance tool exports. (AFP/John MacDougall)

Press at risk as EU-based companies export surveillance software to hostile regimes

In August, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told the daily newspaper Information that the government had authorized sales of online surveillance software to several Middle Eastern countries. While acknowledging the potential for human rights violations that could result from the use of these tools, the minister said that Denmark has an interest in the fight…

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Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno, pictured in Quito in October. The president is urging journalists to embrace their watchdog function. (AFP/Rodrigo Buendia)

Ecuador’s Moreno opens new era in relations with media

Less than a month after taking office, Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno engineered a ceasefire in the decade-long battle between the government and the nation’s independent news media by inviting a group of radio, TV, and newspaper editors to the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito.

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2017