Alerts

Dakar, January 30, 2025—Guinea’s High Authority of Communication should reverse its decision to indefinitely suspend the privately owned news site Dépêche Guinée and ensure the public has unrestrained access to diverse media sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “The banning of Dépêche Guinée represents an escalation of the Guinean communications regulator’s censorship efforts and…

Bangkok, January 30, 2025—Malaysian authorities must immediately return Malaysiakini’s executive editor RK Anand’s laptop, and stop harassing the independent news site, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “The police seizure of Malaysiakini executive editor RK Anand’s laptop is a clear and gross violation of press freedom,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative….

Bangkok, January 30, 2025—Philippine authorities must drop the terrorism financing charges pending against journalist Deo Montesclaros and stop using legal threats to intimidate the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On January 10, the northern Cagayan Provincial Prosecutor’s Office sent Montesclaros a legal notice alleging that he provided supplies to the banned New…

New York, January 28, 2025—Pakistan’s Senate on Tuesday passed controversial amendments to the country’s cybercrime laws, which would criminalize the “intentional” spread of “false news” with prison terms of up to three years, a fine of up to 2 million rupees (US$7,100), or both.  The amendments to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) were…

Istanbul, January 28, 2025—A court in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır on Tuesday found journalist Safiye Alagaş guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and sentenced her to six years and three months in prison. Alagaş, who spent a year behind bars in pretrial arrest, remains free pending appeal.  “The evidence brought against Kurdish journalist…

Nairobi, January 24, 2025– The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on South Sudanese authorities to reverse its social media ban and to ensure that the public has open and reliable internet access, which is essential for news gathering amid unrest in the country. “Blocking social media access is a blanket act of censorship and a disproportionate response…

Mexico City, January 24, 2025—Unidentified attackers shot and killed reporter Calletano de Jesús Guerrero while he was in the parking lot of the San Antonio de Padua parish church in Teoloyucan, a town 25 miles north of Mexico City, on Friday, January 17. Guerrero, 57, had been under federal protection since 2014 because of threats…

Istanbul, January 23, 2025–The 25th Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes came to a guilty verdict on Thursday in the retrial of five journalists arrested on terrorism charges in 2016, found guilty in 2018, and released on appeal in 2020. The court acquitted one other journalist. The defendants were charged for alleged ties to the recently…

Dakar, January 23, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Beninese authorities to reverse their January 21 orders suspending six privately owned media outlets — news sites Reporter Médias Monde, Les Pharaons, and Crystal News, the Mme Actu Tiktok account, and Le Patriote and Audace Info newspapers — and to return the press card of Audace Info’s publication director…

Washington, D.C., January 22, 2025—Prominent Sudanese journalist Yahya Hamad Fadlallah has died in a hospital, one month after Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) arrested him and his son at their home in the capital Khartoum on December 11, according to news reports. Fadlallah was tortured by the army, falsely accused of collaborating with the paramilitary Rapid…