CPJ joins call for Bangladesh authorities to withdraw proposed internet regulations
On March 7, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 43 other press freedom, digital rights, and civil society groups in a letter calling on Bangladesh’s communications regulator to withdraw new proposed policies that could stifle free expression online. A package of proposed regulations, titled the “Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Regulation for Digital, Social Media…
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency emerges as new threat to independent media
On January 19, the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) publicly called on Afghan media to refrain from publishing and broadcasting what it termed “false news and baseless rumors.” The warning amounted to the first public acknowledgement of something that Afghan journalists already knew: a tough new cop was on the beat. The emergence of…
‘Completely unclear’: Mushtaq Ahmed’s lawyer seeks answers on how the Bangladeshi writer died in jail
One year after renowned Bangladeshi writer Mushtaq Ahmed died in jail, the circumstances of his death remain murky. While an investigative committee formed by the Home Ministry claimed he died of “natural causes,” his former lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua believes that Ahmed may have died of health issues that arose after alleged torture. In May 2020, the Rapid Action Battalion,…
A jar of soil, a laptop, a handmade black coat: What Afghan journalists took into exile
In the frantic minutes before Naweeda Qayoumi fled her home in Afghanistan last September, she grabbed an empty plastic Vaseline jar and stepped into the garden to scoop a bit of soil from her homeland. She jammed the jar into the backpack she was taking into her unknown future with her husband, journalist Ghazanfar Hassanzada….
Opinion: The dilemma facing journalists covering the Beijing Olympics
I don’t envy journalists from around the world who are entering China to cover the Beijing Olympics, held February 4 to 20. Perhaps never in history have the rules of the road for covering the games been so murky and the potential dangers so great for journalists who step over an as-yet-undefined red line that…
China finds new ways to intimidate foreign press, FCCC survey finds
On January 31, 2022, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) released findings from its annual member survey about press conditions in the country. The report, “Locked Down or Kicked Out,” found that 99% of foreign correspondents said China’s reporting conditions did not meet what they considered “international standards.” The survey also documented ways Chinese…
Opinion: Myanmar’s military junta is killing press freedom
One year since a democracy-suspending coup, press freedom is dying in Myanmar. A military campaign of intimidation, censorship, arrests, and detentions of journalists has more recently graduated to outright killing, an escalation of repression that aims ultimately to stop independent media reporting on the junta’s crimes and abuses. In January, military authorities abducted local news…
Women journalists in India feel more at risk after ‘auction’ apps worsen online abuse
Fatima Khan had just returned home from a reporting assignment when she discovered she’d become of more than 100 women listed as being “for sale” in the notorious app Bulli Bai. The site, named by combining a vulgar, derogatory slang for Muslim women (bulli) with the Hindi word for female servant (bai), operated by pulling…
Exiled Bangladeshi journalist Kanak Sarwar says sister’s detention won’t silence him
For years, exiled Bangladeshi journalist Kanak Sarwar advised his family members not to keep public profiles on Facebook, fearing his critical reporting would lead to harassment by supporters of the Awami League-led government. So he was alarmed when his sister, Nusrat Shahrin Raka, told him in September that someone had created a fake Facebook account…
Why the UN’s push for a cybercrime treaty could imperil journalists simply for using the internet
Cybercrime is on the global agenda as a United Nations committee appointed to develop a treaty on the topic plans for its first meeting amid pandemic-related delays. The process is slated to take at least two years, but experts warn that such a treaty – initially proposed by Russia – could hand new tools to…