Ukraine editor Olga Rudenko on starting Kyiv Independent as Russia amasses troops on border
Olga Rudenko was half a world away from Ukraine on the day that Ukrainian construction tycoon Adnan Kivan abruptly fired the entire staff of the Kyiv Post, the 26-year-old English-language print-to-digital publication known for its tough-minded, corruption-exposing journalism. Rudenko, then deputy chief editor of the Post and in the United States on a fellowship at…
CPJ joins letter calling for release of journalists, others arbitrarily detained in Cameroon
The Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday, February 3, joined 26 other civil society organizations in calling on President Paul Biya to release all those arbitrarily detained in Cameroon for acts of free expression, including at least four journalists. The open letter, published during the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon, notes that the continent’s…
Opinion: The dilemma facing journalists covering the Beijing Olympics
I don’t envy journalists from around the world who are entering China to cover the Beijing Olympics, held February 4 to 20. Perhaps never in history have the rules of the road for covering the games been so murky and the potential dangers so great for journalists who step over an as-yet-undefined red line that…
CPJ joins call for Turkey to release journalist Sedef Kabaş
On February 1, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined the International Press Institute and 25 other international groups in a joint letter calling for Turkish authorities to release journalist Sedef Kabaş immediately. Authorities detained Kabaş, a freelance journalist and former television anchor, on January 22 for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during an appearance…
Iowa, Kansas lawmakers bar media from Senate floors, stymieing newsgathering
Lawmakers’ whispers, eyerolls, and other hints about the course of debate are no longer visible to journalists covering the state Senates in Kansas and Iowa. In a break with decades of precedent, journalists in both states have been barred from the Senate floors, instead relegated to designated media galleries upstairs. Mike Pirner, communications director…
China finds new ways to intimidate foreign press, FCCC survey finds
On January 31, 2022, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) released findings from its annual member survey about press conditions in the country. The report, “Locked Down or Kicked Out,” found that 99% of foreign correspondents said China’s reporting conditions did not meet what they considered “international standards.” The survey also documented ways Chinese…
Opinion: Myanmar’s military junta is killing press freedom
One year since a democracy-suspending coup, press freedom is dying in Myanmar. A military campaign of intimidation, censorship, arrests, and detentions of journalists has more recently graduated to outright killing, an escalation of repression that aims ultimately to stop independent media reporting on the junta’s crimes and abuses. In January, military authorities abducted local news…
Women journalists in India feel more at risk after ‘auction’ apps worsen online abuse
Fatima Khan had just returned home from a reporting assignment when she discovered she’d become of more than 100 women listed as being “for sale” in the notorious app Bulli Bai. The site, named by combining a vulgar, derogatory slang for Muslim women (bulli) with the Hindi word for female servant (bai), operated by pulling…
Syrian journalist Amer Matar on facing his torturer in court
Syrian journalist Amer Matar was regularly blindfolded, handcuffed, and beaten with cables, whips, and fists during the eight months he was held in a Syrian prison. When a German court sentenced one of his torturers – Syrian army colonel Anwar Raslan – to life in prison earlier this month, Matar finally felt that at least…
‘Watershed’ protests demand end to violence against journalists in Mexico
After reporter Maria Guadalupe Lourdes Maldonado López was shot and killed in her car outside her Tijuana home on Sunday, January 23, journalists in Mexico put out a call to action in group chats and across social media platforms. It was time to protest. Maldonado’s death was the third journalist killing in less than a…