Iceland fishing company goes ‘guerilla’ on journalists who uncovered alleged corruption
When in March of this year a neighbor alerted Helgi Seljan, an investigative reporter for Iceland’s public broadcaster Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV), that she had seen someone lurking around his house, he was alarmed, he told CPJ in a video interview. Seljan said that the neighbor recognized the alleged lurker as Jón Óttar Ólafsson, a former police…
American journalist Nathan Maung describes alleged abuse during Myanmar imprisonment
When armed authorities raided the office of news website Kamayut Media in downtown Yangon, Myanmar on March 8, editor Nathan Maung’s initial reaction was to plead not to be shot. The American journalist and his Myanmar colleague Hanthar Nyein were arrested, blindfolded, and taken to a military interrogation center, where for more two weeks they were interrogated,…
‘The most dangerous situation’: Serbian journalists accused of links to organized crime
In March, when a reporter at Serbian investigative news site KRIK asked President Aleksandar Vučić at a press conference about the government’s alleged links to organized crime, governing party politicians and pro-government media outlets turned the claim back on KRIK. They accused the journalists of being part of a criminal network, which KRIK has forcefully denied, as CPJ…
In five Latin American countries, COVID-19 responses restrict press freedom, CPJ, TrustLaw find
In Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, and Peru, emergency measures in response to COVID-19 restricted the media’s capacity to report freely and the public’s ability to access information, including critical information about public health interventions and the pandemic itself, a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Thomson Reuters Foundation’s TrustLaw program found. The report,…
‘Like an open-air cage’: Police restrict reporters’ access to Canadian anti-logging protests
As demonstrators in the Canadian province of British Columbia protest the logging of one of the province’s last old-growth forests, located in the Fairy Creek watershed on Pacheedaht First Nations territory on Vancouver Island, journalists have been impeded from covering the story. Since May 17, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have enforced an injunction — approved by…
Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich’s parents on their efforts to find and free their son
“It felt like a horror movie.” That is how Dmitry Pratasevich describes learning that his son, Raman Pratasevich, was arrested after Belarusian authorities diverted Raman’s commercial flight from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk on May 23. Raman was the co-founder of NEXTA and the chief editor of Belarus of the Brain, two Telegram channels that rankled authorities…
CPJ joins call for US to investigate Egypt’s alleged role in Khashoggi murder
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined seven other civil society groups in a joint statement calling on the United States government to transparently investigate any role Egyptian officials may have played in the killing of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, and to publicly disclose any findings from that investigation. On June 21,…
CPJ joins call urging Ethiopia to maintain internet access during elections
The Committee to Protect Journalists recently joined 46 other human rights, free expression, and technology organizations in a letter calling on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to guarantee secure and reliable internet access during and following the country’s elections. In the letter, sent on June 18, members of the #KeepItOn Coalition against internet shutdowns also…
CPJ, rights groups call on EU to uphold Burundi human rights commitments, including press freedom
The Committee to Protect Journalists and other human rights groups today called on European Union High Representative Josep Borrell and EU foreign ministers in a letter to uphold benchmarks set in 2016 when the EU suspended direct financial support to the Burundian government over its failure to protect human rights, democratic principles, and the rule…
A ‘slow death’ for Yemen’s media: the country’s journalists report through displacement and exile
March 2018 was a low point for Akhbar al-Youm, an independent daily newspaper in Yemen. Three weeks after the newspaper’s Aden office was set ablaze by unidentified arsonists, seven of its employees were abducted for a month by forces under the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, which controls the southern port city. The attacks forced the publication to relocate from Aden to…