Johannesburg, November 13, 2018–“We drove down a dirt road and entered the premises of what appeared to be a safe house, through a large gate. Several men in plain clothes stood in the front yard. At least one appeared to be armed with a rifle. Their animosity was palpable… We were ordered out of the…
Joudy Boulos has a million stories she wants to write. But as a Syrian freelance journalist living in Damascus, her ability to report is severely limited by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It is so dangerous that “Joudy Boulos” is a pseudonym the journalist sometimes uses when reporting and to protect her safety.…
Journalists in court An Istanbul court on November 5 convicted Yasir Kaya, a sports journalist formerly with Fenerbahçe TV or FBTV, of “being a member of a [terrorist] organization” and sentenced him to six years and three months in prison, according to reports. Kaya remained free pending appeal, according to the report. CPJ previously documented…
Journalist freed pending trial An Istanbul court on October 31, ordered Ali Sönmez Kayar, a reporter for the socialist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), to be freed pending trial, the independent news website Bianet reported. Kayar, who is charged with “being a member of a [terrorist] organization,” was released under judicial control and is under a…
Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi Arabian dissident, can still remember the time Jamal Khashoggi, the storied Saudi journalist, unfollowed him on Twitter. It was in 2015, and Khashoggi had been tapped to head a new TV network called Al-Arab, a partnership between a member of the royal family and Bloomberg. Abdulaziz started haranguing Khashoggi online,…
It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi’s last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens.
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined five other rights organizations to call on Brazilian presidential candidates to denounce the threats and violence against journalists covering the electoral campaign, and urge their supports to stop harassing reporters.
In an emotional address to Turkey’s parliament today, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a savage and premeditated act and demanded that Saudi officials be brought to Turkey to stand trial. Most of the information about the investigation that has emerged has come through leaks to the Turkish…
Journalists don’t typically get murdered in Western European democracies that are members of the European Union. Which is why the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta last year was so shocking, and the lack of progress on finding the mastermind so disturbing.