CPJ joins calls for Turkish regulator to reverse ad ban on Evrensel daily
On August 26, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined the International Press Institute and 17 Turkish and international groups in a joint statement calling for Turkey’s Press Ad Agency, the state regulator of government advertisements in print media, to reverse its cancellation of advertisements carried by the leftist daily Evrensel. In the statement, the…
CPJ joins letters urging U.S. government to hold NSO Group accountable on spyware
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined human rights and press freedom organizations in separate actions in August urging the United States government to hold NSO Group accountable for providing Pegasus spyware to governments that have used the tool to secretly surveil journalists around the world. In a joint letter to Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher…
Press freedom groups call for Brazilian presidential candidates to ensure safety of journalists covering elections
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 10 other civil society groups and press freedom organizations this week in a letter to all Brazilian presidential candidates, urging them, their political parties, and parties’ coalitions to commit to ensuring that journalists can report safely and freely during upcoming elections in Brazil. In the letter, the organizations highlighted…
‘It made me more determined’: Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad won’t stop reporting after Salman Rushdie stabbing
After novelist Salman Rushdie, the target of an Iranian fatwa, was stabbed in western New York last week, Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad said she saw messages on social media saying she should be punished next. Alinejad, who has extensively covered human rights in Iran and campaigns against the country’s compulsory hijab rule, is no…
CPJ’s recommendations for protecting journalists and press freedom in Afghanistan
The Committee to Protect Journalists makes the following recommendations to facilitate media freedom and ensure the safety of journalists in Afghanistan: To the Taliban, the de facto authorities in Afghanistan 1. Respect and guarantee the ability of all journalists and media workers to report and produce news freely and independently, without fear of reprisal, in…
Kathy Gannon: Courageous journalism is happening in Afghanistan. We can help.
Journalism in today’s Afghanistan is certainly wounded, but it’s far from dead. The evidence is produced daily, even hourly: This is not journalism as it was before the Taliban took power last August, but it is journalism. It demands our respect and support. Sounding the death knell on journalism in Afghanistan is an insult to…
‘I thought about the efforts and struggles of two decades… and cried’
The founder of a news agency dedicated to covering the lives and concerns of Afghan women on how female journalists are still reporting the news In November 2020, I decided to create an Afghan news agency run by and for women—an online news service that would counter the prevailing patriarchal norms of Afghanistan. The news…
Keeping hope alive
Afghan journalists in exile continue reporting despite an uncertain future “I lost my family, my job, my identity, and my country,” Afghan journalist Anisa Shaheed told CPJ in a phone interview. A former Kabul-based reporter for TOLONews, Afghanistan’s largest local broadcaster, Shaheed is one of hundreds of journalists who fled Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover…
Inside an Afghan news network’s struggle to survive
Threats, insults, beatings, and censorship: Former Ariana News staffers detail dire challenges during a year under Taliban control For veteran journalist Sharif Hassanyar, the final breaking point came in September last year. The Taliban had ousted the elected government of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani almost a month earlier, and the last American soldiers had since…
Afghanistan’s media faces crisis—and opportunity
Twelve months after the Taliban takeover, many Afghan journalists are out of work or on the run. Others try, very carefully, to challenge the powerful. The extreme distress that has gripped Afghanistan’s independent media since the Taliban seized power in Kabul on August 15 last year lands in my inbox—and the inboxes of many of…