In Focus

The Swazi Bridge news site in Eswatini is facing a record-breaking claim for 170 million emalangeni (US$9.8 million) in damages and the threat of terrorism investigations, as part of a growing global trend of using abusive lawsuits to suppress public interest reporting. The Farmers Bank and its director John Asfar alleged defamation by the privately…

Israeli police banned at least 10 Palestinian journalists from Jerusalem’s disputed Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during Ramadan this year, CPJ has found, in what many view as a deliberate effort to censor coverage of the holy site. Intimidatory tactics against the press have increased in the two years since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, journalists…

As paramilitary forces seized control of Sudan’s El-Fasher in late October, its journalists have become both witnesses and victims of the unfolding horrors.  The Committee to Protect Journalists has received reports from several rights groups that 13 journalists and media workers in the North Darfur capital — among the last sources of independent information from…

As a fragile ceasefire pushes through a second week, Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza still face immense risks. Despite a pause in large-scale fighting, attacks, detention and threats to press freedom persist. While seven journalists were released as part of the ceasefire that began on October 10, the Committee to Protect Journalists…

Serbian journalists have increasingly reported being deliberately targeted by police, especially when covering police violence, as President Aleksandar Vučić’s authoritarian government toughens its stance against anti-government protests that began 10 months ago with a deadly railway station collapse. Journalists caught up in the unrest report that police not only fail to protect them from protesters but also deliberately harass, beat, and detain them,…

On March 5, in a crowded Dhaka courtroom, journalist Farzana Rupa stood without a lawyer as a judge moved to register yet another murder case against her. Already in jail, she quietly asked for bail. The judge said the hearing was only procedural. “There are already a dozen cases piling up against me,” she said. “I’m a journalist. One…

The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely worried about the safety of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who is being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has stepped up his online attacks on al-Sharif,…

The Committee to Protect Journalists added its voice to Wednesday’s urgent appeal from more than 100 aid agencies to end to Israel’s starvation of journalists and other civilians in Gaza, as they called on states to “save lives before there are none left to save.” “Israel is starving Gazan journalists into silence. They are not…

Journalists were killed, wounded, shot at, and blocked from entering the southern Syrian city of Sweida as sectarian violence spread across the region last week, according to multiple journalists who spoke to CPJ. An Israeli airstrike also damaged a media outlet in Damascus. “The violence against journalists in Sweida — including injuries, intimidation, and the…

Israel’s 12-day war with Iran provided Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with an opportunity to step up its assault on the press — a trend that has since continued apace. “Media freedom is often a casualty of war, and Israel’s recent war with Iran is no exception. We have seen Israeli authorities use security fears…