Radio Free Asia reporter’s brothers in China face anti-state charges
This week, Washington D.C.-based Uighur journalist Shohret Hoshur, sent CPJ a message saying that on May 28 charges had finally been brought against two of his brothers, Shawket and Rexim, who have been detained since August. Hoshur, who works for the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Asia (RFA), is convinced they are being put on trial…
Blogger in Singapore faces financial ruin following defamation suit
“If we want our freedom, we have to fight for it,” wrote blogger Roy Ngerng last year after he was sued for defamation by Singapore’s prime minister. The case was sparked by a blog post in which Ngerng allegedly suggested Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had misappropriated funds in a state pension system. In November,…
In censored Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi filled a journalistic void
On the third anniversary of the arrest of liberal activist and writer Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia, his supporters all over the world are working hard to prevent what may lay ahead: the completion of a 10-year, thousand-lash sentence. To be effective in changing Badawi’s future, it is important to take inspiration from his past,…
UN report promotes encryption as fundamental and protected right
On Wednesday, Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye will present his report on international legal protection for encryption and anonymity to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The report is an important contribution to the security conversation at a time when some Western leaders are calling for ill-informed and impossible loopholes…
Dieu Cay on solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and his fight for press freedom
EDITOR’S NOTE: Held in solitary confinement and stripped of his human rights, Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Van Hai suffered greatly during his six and a half years in prison. The 63-year-old outspoken critic of the repressive Vietnamese government was granted early release from a 12-year sentence last year, thanks in part to campaigning by CPJ. Hai,…
Baku 2015: Press freedom, Azerbaijan, and the European Games
Tomorrow 50 countries are due to take part in the opening ceremony of the inaugural European Games in Baku, but Azerbaijan’s most prominent journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, will not be at the celebrations. The award-winning investigative reporter has been in jail since December on retaliatory charges over her writing on corruption.
Jailed Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan on hunger strike over mistreatment
Incarcerated blogger Ta Phong Tan has been on hunger strike since May 13 to protest the mistreatment of political prisoners at the prison where she is being held in Vietnam’s central Thanh Hoa province, according to news reports. It is believed to be the third time Tan has fasted in protest at poor prison conditions…
In Indonesia, promising steps on Papua access but more work needed
Last month Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, announced his intention to allow international journalists access to restive regions including Papua and West Papua–an issue the Committee to Protect Journalists has long advocated for.
In Venezuela, online news helps journalists get their voices back
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was rumored to be gravely ill four years ago, his socialist government was tightlipped about the diagnosis. Then in June 2011 a source in Havana, Cuba, where Chávez was being treated, told Nelson Bocaranda, a veteran columnist for the Caracas daily El Universal, that the president had cancer.