Thorning’s chance to press China for media freedom
Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is in China this week to meet with top leaders, according to international news reports. CPJ’s Advocacy and Communications Associate Magnus Ag and Senior Asia Program Researcher Madeline Earp co-wrote an op-ed calling on Thorning–as she is called in the Danish press–to raise the issue of press freedom. An edited…
In Cryptocat, lessons for technologists and journalists
Alhamdulillah! Finally, a technologist designed a security tool that everyone could use. A Lebanese-born, Montreal-based computer scientist, college student, and activist named Nadim Kobeissi had developed a cryptography tool, Cryptocat, for the Internet that seemed as easy to use as Facebook Chat but was presumably far more secure.
Mission Journal: Putin imposes harsh climate on Russia
Record-high temperatures swept most of Europe this summer, but in Moscow the weather, much like the political climate, was chilly. I spent three months in the capital at the invitation of the Russian Union of Journalists, and witnessed how Vladimir Putin’s third term in office kicked off with the passage of restrictive laws, harassment and…
Signs of justice for battered Nigerian photojournalist
Hardly ever do Nigerian journalists get justice for assaults suffered in the line of duty. But things may be set to change with the case of Benedict Uwalaka, a photojournalist with Leadership Newspapers, who on August 9 was brutally assaulted at a government hospital in Lagos State. The first step toward justice came 22 days…
Sandhya Eknelygoda speaks for Sri Lanka’s disappeared
When I first met Sandhya Eknelygoda in May 2010 in her home outside Colombo, she was a distressed mother of two young boys whose husband had gone missing. He was last seen four months earlier, just prior to the elections that returned President Mahinda Rajapaksa to power after the end of the decades-long war with…
As Wang is freed, Chinese journalist Shi Tao still held
Chinese dissident Wang Xiaoning was released today after serving a 10-year prison term on charges of “incitement to subvert state power,” a case built in good part on client information supplied by Yahoo. Wang had used his Yahoo email account and the discussion forum Yahoo Groups to spread ideas the government deemed dangerous. His case…
Dear CPJ: Some malware from your ‘friend’
We talk a lot about hacking attacks against individual journalists here, but what typifies an attempt to access a reporter’s computer? Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director, received an email last week that reflects some characteristics of a malware attack against a journalist or activist. There was nothing particularly notable about the targeting. (Like many reporters,…
News media expand, but freedom lags in Kashmir
Early this month, newspaper offices in Indian-controlled Kashmir received a note warning journalists to be more supportive of the Kashmir independence movement, according to the leading national daily, The Times of India, citing a news agency in the state’s summer capital, Srinagar. No militants took responsibility this time, but in mid-March insurgent groups issued a joint…
A journalist’s account of a Cambodian activist’s death
Here’s a quick pointer to a piece in the Daily Beast by freelance reporter Olesia Plokhii, who worked at The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh until May this year. Plokhii’s moving story, “Death of a Forester,” describes the death of Chut Wutty, a Cambodian activist who was shot a few feet away from Plokhii and…
