Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 5
Erdoğan says jailed Die Welt correspondent ‘German agent,’ Kurdish separatist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 3 said that Deniz Yücel, the Turkey correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt and a dual citizen of Germany and Turkey jailed in Turkey since February 14, was a “German agent” and a member of the Kurdistan…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of February 26
Shots fired at newspaper office, no one injured An unknown assailant in a moving taxi fired two shots from a handgun at the building housing the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet in Istanbul this morning, Cumhuriyet reported. A police investigation is in progress, the report said.
In China, sources face harassment, jail for speaking to foreign media
Zhang Lifan is a Beijing-based historian specializing in modern Chinese history. He is also an outspoken critic of the Chinese government who is interviewed regularly by the foreign press–even when it leads to harassment from officials. Last month alone, he was quoted in a New York Times article about the government revising the length of…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of February 19
Detention of Die Welt Turkey correspondent complicates relations with Germany The detention of Deniz Yücel, Turkey correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt, has complicated relations with German officials, the socialist daily Evrensel, the German news website Handelsbatt Global, and the pro-Turkish-government Daily Sabah reported. According to a February 21 Handelsbatt Global report, German Chancellor…
Journalists covering Standing Rock face charges as police arrest protesters
For months, environmental protesters have clashed with police and private security companies over plans for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a $3.7 billion project that opponents say will destroy Native American sites and affect the region’s water supply. While mainstream media have covered flashpoints in the protests, a core of mostly freelance, left-wing, and Native American…
‘I wanted to stay and fight for my beliefs’ says jailed Vietnamese blogger forced into exile
Vietnamese journalist and religious activist Dang Xuan Dieu was granted early release January 12 from a 13-year prison sentence on anti-state charges filed over his critical reporting. As with recent early releases of other jailed Vietnamese journalists, Dieu was forced to immediately board a plane and go into exile as a condition for his freedom.
CPJ calls for OSCE to swiftly fill press freedom representative vacancy
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined seven other press freedom organizations in calling on the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to swiftly appoint a new representative on Freedom of the Media. The incumbent representative, Dunja Mijatović, has been an outspoken defender of press freedom, but she is…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of February 12
Publisher closes magazine for cartoon lampooning Moses The publisher of the cartoon magazine GırGır announced today that he was closing down the magazine after its publication of a cartoon depicting Moses irritating his followers wandering in the desert by talking too much and bragging about parting the Red Sea sparked outrage on social media, including…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of February 5
German court upholds partial ban on poem satirizing Erdoğan A court in the German city of Hamburg today upheld a previous court’s ban on comedian Jan Böhmermann’s reciting 18 of 24 verses of a poem satirizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the comedian recited on television last year, according to press reports. Erdoğan pressed…
Surveillance of journalists and court orders puts Canada’s press freedom at risk
On February 6, VICE News reporter Ben Makuch is due to appear in court to appeal an order requesting that he hand over details of his communication with a source. The hearing comes ahead of a day of action being planned in Canada for February 25, when press freedom and privacy activists are due to…