Features & Analysis

2017

  
Egyptian photojournalist Mohammed Elshamy was forced to leave his home country for fear of arrest. Elshamy is showcasing his work as part of CPJ's Lens in Exile Instagram series. (Andrei Pungovschi)

Lens in Exile: CPJ Instagram takeover to put focus on photojournalists

To highlight the work of journalists living in exile, CPJ is collaborating with a group of photojournalists, who will take over our Instagram account to share their work, often from the very assignments that forced them to flee. As CPJ’s Journalist Assistance Program Coordinator and someone with a background in photography, it is project that…

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Journalists and press freedom advocates release balloons in front of the courthouse in Istanbul where 17 journalists and board members from Cumhuriyet newspaper were standing trial, July 24, 2017. (Reuters/Murad Sezer)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of July 23, 2017

Journalists to stand trial on charges of obtaining secret information Hatay’s Second Court of Penal Peace yesterday ordered Dihaber journalist Erdoğan Alayumat jailed pending trial on charges “obtaining secret information of the Republic of Turkey with the means of political and military espionage” and ordered Nuri Akman released on probation pending trial, their employer reported.…

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Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, center, meets a CPJ delegation in Kiev in July to discuss the investigation into Pavel Sheremet's murder. (Press service of the Ukrainian president)

CPJ and rights groups call on President Poroshenko to prioritize Pavel Sheremet murder case

CPJ today joined seven other media rights organizations– all part of the Council of Europe’s Platform to protect journalism and promote the safety of journalists–in signing a joint letter to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The letter calls on the president to ensure an effective investigation into the murder of Pavel Sheremet, the prominent journalist murdered…

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A newspaper vendor stacks newspapers on his bicycle in Mumbai. Indian journalists say companies are using the legal notices as an attempt to silence critical reporting. (AP/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Q&A: Indian editor explains how threat of legal action is used to silence journalists

On July 5, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and his colleagues Advait Rao Palepu and Shinzani Jain, received a notice from Thaker and co., a law firm representing Adani Power Ltd, that threatened legal action over a story published the month before.

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A portrait of Javier Valdez at a Mexico City event to pay tribute to the investigative journalist, who was murdered in May. (AFP/Bernardo Montoya)

Memory of Mexico’s investigative reporter Javier Valdez will live on through his work

Two months have passed since Javier Valdez Cárdenas, the Mexican investigative reporter and recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, was murdered. The grief over his killing in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, has left many looking for answers as to why the investigation into his murder appears to have yielded few results so…

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President Erdogan waves to supporters during an event in Istanbul to mark the one-year anniversary of Turkey's failed coup attempt. A news editor was detained on July 15 over a column on the government's response to the failed coup. (Presidency Press Service via AP/Pool)

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of July 16, 2017

Germany says Turkey offered prisoner swap for jailed journalist German daily Bild cited an unnamed German diplomatic source as saying that Turkey offered to exchange imprisoned journalist Deniz Yücel for two former generals who sought asylum in Germany. Germany’s foreign ministry rejected the offer, the anonymous source told Bild. Turkey has not commented publicly on…

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Supporters pay their respects to Chinese Noble laureate Liu Xiaobo at a vigil outside the Chinese Liaison Office of Hong Kong. The jailed activist and journalist died in July. (AFP/Isaac Lawrence)

It’s too late for Liu Xiaobo but China could show a little kindness to other jailed journalists

I have no pity for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who dug himself into a deep public relations hole with the unnecessarily cruel treatment of China’s Nobel Laureate and political dissident, who died this week. Liu died of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital, after receiving medical parole in June from prison, where he was diagnosed…

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Can Dündar in Berlin, November 4, 2016 (Reuters/Axel Schmidt)

Turkish media in exile? Think again

Freedom is like air or water: something you appreciate only when it’s gone. Freedom for Turkish journalists was never as abundant as air or water–but nor was it ever as scarce as it has become in the last year.

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People stand atop a military tank at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, in the early hours of July 16, 2016. (Reuters/Huseyin Aldemir)

A year after attempted coup in Turkey, media landscape purged of critical voices

The history of modern Turkish politics is rife with military intervention–the army has toppled elected governments four times since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the modern Turkish state in 1923, and has strong-armed them into submission countless other times. One of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s greatest accomplishments has been returning the military to the barracks and…

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Reality Winner, center, an intelligence contractor charged with leaking classified National Security Agency material, is shown in a courtroom sketch at a hearing in Augusta, Georgia, on June 8, 2017. A group of Senate Republicans claim that leaks to the media under the Trump Administration are harming national security. (Reuters/Richard Miller)

US Senate report on leaks and national security is deeply flawed

Last week, Republicans on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released a report on leaks to the media. The report, which was led by Chairman Ron Johnson, asserts that “an avalanche” of leaks under the Trump Administration is harming national security. It lists at least 125 news articles and their bylines -…

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2017