Features & Analysis

In Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur, journalists in El-Fasher are trapped under siege, enduring violence, hunger, and relentless bombardment alongside the people whose lives they report on.  The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group that evolved from the notorious Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities in earlier Darfur conflicts, have been fighting the Sudanese…

Punishment of hard labor, censorship, and threats of demotion over more than three decades did not stop Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu from doing his work. It was lunch with a diplomat that finally did. Dong, 63, a long-time editor and columnist whose work is well known within China and abroad, was arrested in February 2022…

Tunisian lawyer and commentator Sonia Dahmani, known for her bold defense of human rights and civil liberties, has become a symbol of the country’s escalating crackdown on dissent. Arrested in May 2024, she has been subjected to five separate legal proceedings that could put her behind bars for decades under Decree 54 — a law…

Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented at least 166 cases of journalists injured and two cases of journalists missing. CPJ believes the true number of injured Palestinian journalists is likely higher and continues to investigate additional cases. CPJ counts the journalists’ cases it has been…

Israel’s targeted strikes on two newspaper offices in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which killed 31 journalists and media support workers on September 10, signal that its deadly pattern of attacking reporters and newsrooms on the grounds that they publish “terrorist” propaganda has spread firmly across the Middle East.  Yemen’s 26 September newspaper was the first to…

A new tax law in India that grants authorities sweeping powers to access emails, cloud accounts, and encrypted devices during searches has generated widespread concern among journalists and digital rights advocates, while adding to a raft of tax legislation around the world that could be weaponized against the media.  India’s parliament on August 12 passed…

Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh has spent more than a year imprisoned in Iran, enduring severe psychological torment and relentless interrogations for the simple fact that he is a journalist. Initially detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, his already dire situation deteriorated significantly after a devastating Israeli attack on the facility. Valizadeh was transferred to the dangerously overcrowded and medically inadequate Fashafouyeh Prison, where extreme neglect and inhumane…

Journalist Dil Bhusan Pathak could face up to five years in prison for alleging on his YouTube channel that Jaiveer Singh Deuba, the son of two powerful Nepalese politicians, was linked to questionable deals involving the new Hilton Kathmandu. His case illustrates a disturbing trend in Nepal, where journalists reporting on alleged corruption by high-profile individuals and state institutions…

Radio Azattyq director Torokul Doorov says it is “very difficult” for journalists not to become activists in the face of “unfairness and injustice” in Kazakhstan. “You just want to start screaming,” says Doorov, who joined the Kazakh arm of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2014, and the outlet grew to be one of Kazakhstan’s most influential…

When a South African solar panel company last month dropped its legal battle over a gag order preventing journalist Bongani Hans from reporting on allegations of misleading clients, Hans told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he saw it as “a victory for media and press freedom.” But for Hans and others in the country’s…