Features & Analysis

  
Carmen Aristegui speaks to the press outside MVS Radio in Mexico City on March 16. The investigative journalist was dismissed after demanding that the station reinstate two reporters it fired last week. (AFP/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui fired from Mexican radio station

She exposed government corruption with investigative reporting that made international headlines, helped launch the Mexicoleaks whistleblower website, and was voted second most powerful woman in the country last year by Forbes Mexico, but Carmen Aristegui, one of the country’s most popular radio journalists, has been fired from MVS Radio after demanding that the privately owned…

Read More ›

US ‘no-negotiation’ hostage policy should be changed

Thirty years ago, when I was snatched off the street in Beirut by radical Shiites calling themselves “Islamic Jihad,” the world took my plight and that of other Westerners kidnapped in Lebanon’s long war to heart. During the nearly seven years I was held, countless demonstrations were staged on our behalf by churches, journalists, hometowns…

Read More ›

A vigil for Syrian prisoners is held in Aleppo in January. On March 15 a series of events will mark journalists killed or imprisoned while covering the uprising. (Reuters/Amar Abdullah)

How many more? CPJ remembers journalists killed covering Syria

On March 15 the fourth anniversary of the start of the Syrian uprising will be marked. No one knew in the early days of unrest how events would escalate, let alone how the entire region and the journalists covering it would be so deeply impacted.

Read More ›

CPJ joins call to renew mandate of human rights rapporteur in Iran

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with 35 human rights groups, today joined a call for member states of the U.N. Human Rights Council to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran at the council’s 28th session.

Read More ›

Preparations for the Circumvention Tech Festival in Valencia, Spain, where journalists, technologists, and human rights defenders gathered to share skills and advice. (Geoffrey King)

How CPJ is working to ensure journalists can protect themselves

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Internet Advocacy team was in Valencia, Spain, for the first Circumvention Tech Festival: a mashup of journalists, activists, technologists, and human rights defenders united by a desire to fight censorship and surveillance. More than 500 registered participants from 40 countries shared their skills, strategies, and experiences in combating…

Read More ›

In landmark case, Russia charges alleged mastermind in Domnikov murder

In an unprecedented move, investigators in Moscow officially filed charges today against Sergei Dorovskoi, a former deputy governor of Lipetsk region who is accused of being behind the murder of Igor Domnikov, according to Novaya Gazeta.

Read More ›

Supporters of Radio Publique Africaine director Bob Rugurika crowd around the station's offices to celebrate his release on bail last month. Rugurika's release comes as Burundi debates an easing of press laws. (AFP/Esdras Ndikumana)

Press law debate and journalist’s release signal hope for Burundi’s media

Burundi journalists may have more space to report freely ahead of the country’s controversial elections this year after the legislative assembly pushed for amendments to a draconian press law and a radio director was released on bail.

Read More ›

Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continues to be published after the deadly attack on its staff, but the show of solidarity for freedom of expression is subsiding. (AFP/Martin Bureau)

Je suis Charlie sentiment fades amid calls to tame free speech

Je suis Charlie. Two months after that phrase was used around the world to show solidarity with the victims of the January 7 attack against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, flowers are still left at the site of the killings on Rue Nicolas Appert in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. The street has reopened to…

Read More ›

Transcripts of alleged wiretap recordings are handed out in Skopje on February 27. Claims that journalists as well as ministers were under surveillance have highlighted press freedom conditions in Macedonia. (Reuters/Ognen Teofilovski)

Press apathy over Macedonia wiretaps is symptom of failing democracy

Journalists and professional press organizations were given just one day’s warning on February 25 that Zoran Zaev, leader of Macedonia’s opposition party the Social Democrats, would be revealing what he described as a “bomb”–conversations of journalists allegedly wiretapped by the government–at his weekly press conference.

Read More ›

A poster advertises a screening of Timbuktu at the Pan-African Film Festival in Burkina Faso. The Oscar-nominated film on Islamic militancy was barred from a Paris suburb. (AFP/Ahmed Ouoba)

Ban of India’s Daughter and other films silences debate on key issues

What do Delhi, Beijing, and Villiers-sur-Marne have in common, but Ouagadougou does not? The first three recently banned access to films their governments deemed inappropriate. But a film festival in the fourth, the capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa, is stepping up security to show an acclaimed but controversial movie about Islamic militancy in…

Read More ›