For RFI, static in Kinshasa
Like many radio listeners in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, I tune to Radio France Internationale (RFI) on 93.4 FM or 105 FM. But beginning on July 24, the frequencies carried nothing but static. It was no accident. Media reports quoted government spokesman Lambert Mende as declaring a ban on RFI…
Learning to read the tea leaves: Reporting in China
While the general trend in China is toward a more open environment, there is a tendency toward “soft harassment” by police, who threaten retribution to sources and news assistants for helping foreign journalists rather than interfering directly with the journalists themselves.
Only the Gambian president has press freedom
On July 22, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh once again went after journalists in an interview on the country’s only state-run television station. The president made a thinly veiled threat toward six independent journalists currently facing “seditious publication” and “criminal defamation” charges in the country: “So they think they can hide behind so-called press freedom and…
Even after self-censoring, a reporter is murdered in Mexico
The large family of Mexican radio anchorman Juan Martínez Gil gathered around his coffin in the intense tropical heat of Acapulco’s main cemetery on Thursday. His brother Javier, who identified his badly beaten body on Tuesday, was the least consolable. He leaned across the coffin, his tears flowing down his face onto the dark metal. “Juanito, you…
In Madagascar, media torn along partisan lines
“Are you sure about coming back here now?” My cousin in Antananarivo was a bit hesitant about the wisdom of my plan to visit the family while the political crisis was still weighing on the daily lives of Malagasy citizens. I had not been back to my home country in nine years until this summer.…
At Tolo and other Afghan media, pressure from all sides
With elections due on August 20, pressure is mounting on Afghan journalists, and it’s coming from all sides. The International Federation of Journalists helped organize a meeting in Kabul last week to draw the fractious journalists’ community together; there are four or five competing organizations, all vying for recognition, dominance, and funding. In March, the…
Photos by Majid Saeedi, jailed in Iran
Among the dozens of journalists detained in Iran is Majid Saeedi, a freelance photographer working for Getty Images. Jonathan Klein, the photo agency’s co-founder and CEO, describes Saeedi as a “dedicated photojournalist” who was simply trying to document events in Iran. Below are examples of Saeedi’s work, courtesy of Getty.
Natalya’s death: You don’t kill a story by killing a journalist
We were only 30 on Friday: representatives of human rights organizations, a few journalists and academics, a couple of anonymous “concerned citizens.” Standing on the Place de la Liberté (Freedom Square) in Brussels two blocks from the Parliament, a few meters away from a police team that had asked us to limit ourselves to a…