Maduro’s internet blackout stifles news of Venezuela crisis
One of the world’s biggest news stories on March 4 was the daring return to Venezuela of opposition leader and self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó, who faced possible arrest by the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro. But most Venezuelans were unable to follow his homecoming.
Joint letter urges congressional action on Jamal Khashoggi case
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined 10 human rights and press freedom groups in sending a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) leadership urging congressional action in the pursuit of justice for murdered Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
CPJ joins calls to end social media block in Chad
The Committee to Protect Journalists this week joined at least 79 rights organizations to urge African Union and United Nations experts to take action to end the government of Chad’s nearly year-long block on social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The letters, addressed respectively to the African Union Special Rapporteur on Freedom of…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 10, 2019
Court convicts Gün Printing House owner and staff An Istanbul court on March 11 convicted seven employees of the Gün Printing House, including the owner, Kasım Zengin, of anti-state charges and sentenced them to prison, the pro-Kurdish Mezopatamya News Agency reported. The court acquitted 15 other employees who were also on trial.
How many journalists are jailed in China? Censorship means we don’t know
Reporting on China’s harassment of journalists has never been easy. Lately it’s been getting much harder, which suggests that conditions for the press could be worsening. At least 47 journalists were jailed in China at the time of CPJ’s 2018 prison census and I am investigating at least a dozen other cases, but the details…
On International Women’s Day, CPJ highlights jailed female journalists
On International Women’s Day, CPJ has highlighted the cases of female journalists jailed around the world in retaliation for their work. At least 33 of the 251 journalists in jail at the time of CPJ’s prison census are women. At least one of those–Turkish reporter and artist Zehra Dogan–was released in February after serving a…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 3, 2019
Journalist and former CHP politician sentenced An Istanbul court on March 1 convicted Eren Erdem, the former chief editor for the defunct daily Karşı and a former parliamentary deputy in the main opposition party CHP, of “knowingly and willingly helping a [terrorist] organization without being involved in the organization’s hierarchical structure,” and sentenced him to…
Leak prosecutions under Trump chill national security beat
When President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, was asked at his confirmation hearing in January whether he would ever consider jailing a journalist, Barr paused for about eight seconds, then said he could “conceive of a situation” where a journalist is jailed as a “last resort.” Such equivocation was troubling to press…
Mission Journal: One year on, Ján Kuciak murder seen as turning point by Slovak press
Black-and-white portraits of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, set amid unlit red candles, were the first things to greet me when I entered the building housing Aktuality, the news website where Kuciak, an investigative reporter, worked until his murder on February 21, 2018. One flight up is the newsroom where Kuciak’s colleagues continue his work.
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of February 24, 2019
RSF Turkey representative in court Erol Önderoğlu, the Turkey representative for the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), was in court in Istanbul on February 25 alongside Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a columnist for the leftist daily Evrensel and president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, and Ahmet Nesin, a writer and a columnist…