“They raided our offices as if we were mobsters. The irony of the situation is that the Hungarian police rarely raid mobsters with such force,” said an employee at one of two NGOs whose Budapest offices were stormed by about 20 officers of the Central Investigations Office–Hungary’s version of the FBI–on September 8.
“The European Commission expressed serious concern about developments in the area of rule of law and fundamental rights (in Turkey).” It is progress report season in Brussels. As every year in early October, the commissioner in charge of enlargement unveils documents that judge the progress of all candidate countries in adopting European Union (EU) laws…
Reuters editor-at-large Harry Evans had a question for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Would he be willing to meet with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Press Institute (IPI) when it visited Turkey?
Journalists investigating the deaths of Russian soldiers that news reports claimed were killed during Russia’s alleged involvement in Ukraine’s conflict have been targeted in a series of attacks since late August, according to a press freedom group. Russia has denied that its soldiers were involved in the conflict, but journalists who spoke to the Committee…
On July 31, 26-year-old reporter, blogger, and civil activist Timur Kuashev disappeared in Nalchik, the regional capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkariya. When such news breaks in the volatile region–where journalists and human rights defenders are slaughtered regularly and with impunity–families prepare for the worst. The next day, a body resembling Kuashev’s turned…
Four years ago, when CPJ launched its Internet Advocacy program, we were met with lots of encouragement, but also some skepticism. “Why do you need a program to defend the Internet?” one supporter asked. “You don’t have a special program to defend television, or radio, or newspapers.” But the Internet is different. Increasingly, when it…
“There are no [independent] Ukrainian journalists left in Donetsk,” said Aleksei Matsuka, chief editor of the regional news website Novosti Donbassa (News of Donbass). “They have fled the region since pro-Russia separatists started targeting and kidnapping reporters,” Matsuka told CPJ during our brief meeting in Kiev.
On Wednesday, we reported that in Ukraine this week, at least two journalists had gone missing, while pro-Russia separatists abducted a fixer and briefly detained a reporter. Also, the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic said it was banning journalists from the conflict area. We noted that press freedom violations “are happening at dizzying speed in eastern…
The British government’s attempt to rush through a bill on data retention before the House of Commons summer recess next week has run into opposition–not from members across the aisle but from Internet companies, civil liberty defenders, and lawyers, who say the law would extend the authorities’ already vast snooping capabilities.
This month, the prosecutor-general of Kyrgyzstan, Aida Salyanova, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that her office is working hard to fight corruption and ensure transparency in government activities. We are not convinced.