The press silenced, Nuevo Laredo tries to find voice
You don’t notice it at first. Not with the people seemingly moving as normal on the sidewalks and the happy recorded music blaring across the plaza in front of city hall to announce the annual cowboy parade. No, at first Nuevo Laredo looks like a regular border town, until the military armored car goes by…
Policing the Internet in India
Amid a raging debate on Internet freedom and censorship in India, members of the government met last week with a clutch of website operators, including representatives of Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. In a meeting scheduled to address a wider plan to leverage social media to empower the government, it’s unclear whether the touchy subject…
In China, real people vs. Internet minders
In the next three months, users of China’s microblog weibo.com — “weibo” is the generic Chinese term for Twitter-like platforms — run by the huge sina.com (the English site is here) news portal, entertainment and blogging site, will have to start providing their real-world identities to the site, instead of simply being able to register.…
Pakistan’s Hamid Mir publicizes a death threat
Geo TV’s most prominent television anchor, and one of the most prominent journalists in Pakistan, has just circulated a detailed email message of threats he has been receiving. Hamid Mir’s open, public response to the threats is a textbook case of how to handle the steady stream of intimidation that journalists face, not just in…
Journalists killed: Inside the numbers
CPJ today released its annual tally of the journalists killed around the world. This is always a somber occasion for us as we chronicle the grim toll, remember friends who have been lost, and recommit ourselves to justice. It’s also a time when we are asked questions about our research and why our numbers are…
In Nairobi, plans to improve aid to exiled journalists
Kassahun Yilma left Ethiopia quickly in December 2009. He didn’t have time to save money for the journey, choose a place to go, arrange housing or a job. He left his wife, his mother, his house and all his friends behind. Yilma didn’t know what lay ahead. He only knew that if he stayed, he…
Impunity still reigns in beating of Oleg Kashin
A year ago, on a November night, two unidentified assailants awaited Oleg Kashin, a correspondent for the Russian business daily Kommersant, by his home on a central Moscow street, a 10-minute walk from the Kremlin. The two had hidden steel rods in bouquets of flowers.
Pursuing justice for Gambia’s Deyda Hydara
December 16 will be the seventh anniversary of the killing of Deyda Hydara, the dean of Gambian journalism. It is also the 20th anniversary of the first issue of The Point, the courageously independent-minded daily that Hydara founded and directed for many years. He was murdered in a drive-by shooting as he drove himself and…
Mission Journal: Secrets bill spurs South African press
Irrespective of whether South Africa actually implements the most draconian parts of state secrets legislation now under consideration, the media in the continent’s most open democracy already feel under threat. The prospect of 25-year jail sentences for journalists publishing “classified” information has galvanized disparate news outlets and journalists groups to work together like never before.
Q&A: Press Council of India’s Katju on media safety
Retired Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju is shaking things up at the Press Council of India, where he was appointed chairman in October. The statutory body, mandated to look at media freedom and address complaints against the print media since 1966, has often been criticized for ineffectiveness, its role limited to admonishing news outlets.