In the News

Kevin Lau, who was recently dismissed as editor from Ming Pao, a Hong Kong daily newspaper, was attacked with a meat cleaver leaving him in critical condition. The attack comes on the heels of a decline in the press freedom environment in Hong Kong, as profiled in CPJ’s Attacks on the Press essay. Read the…

The Associated Press’ executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, warned that efforts by governments to silence the media are “in effect an attack on a nation’s people.” Read the full article here.

As the trial of the Al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt began, Bloomberg News profiled the widening crackdown on journalism in the country, citing CPJ research.Read the full article here.

Reporters in Egypt are facing terrorism charges, but they say they were just doing their job. NPR host Michel Martin speaks with Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists and NPR’s Leila Fadel about press freedom in Egypt, and other parts of the world. Listen to the full interview here.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, along with six other members of the Global Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, sent a letter to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. The letter calls on the prime minister to do two things: distance himself from the investigation into the Guardian, and urge Parliament to repeal the statute that…

As protests erupted in Turkey to protest a restrictive new internet law, CPJ’s Internet Advocacy Coordinator, Geoffrey King, spoke to The New Yorker about what the law meant for press freedom in the country.Read the full story here.

“The Turkish authorities’ reported decision to deport a foreign journalist and bar him from re-entering Turkey — over tweeting — is a shocking development, incompatible with the country’s international commitments on freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” said Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),…

As #freeAJstaff goes viral, BuzzFeed compiled relevant twitter mentions. They also provided coverage of a protest at the Egyptian Embassy in Nairobi, attended by CPJ’s East Africa Consultant, Tom Rhodes.Read the full story here.

As the opening ceremony for the Sochi Olympics approaches, several outlets reference CPJ’s blog on digital surveillance at Sochi.Read the Yahoo Business article here.Read the Poynter article here.Read the Foreign Policy article here.

Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator, spoke to David Kirkpatrick of The New York Times about the charges filed against 20 Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt. Sherif called the charges an “attempt to criminalize legitimate journalistic work.” Read the full story here.