Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 7
Editor detained at courthouse Police in Istanbul’s Çağlayan Courthouse today detained Çağlar Özbilgin, an editor for the leftist news website sendika.org, his employer reported. Özbilgin was there to attend a hearing of his trial on charges of “insulting the president,” but police detained him for a separate criminal investigation into him on suspicion of “provoking…
Expanded surveillance powers could threaten work of journalists in UK
Brussels, May 5, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by news reports that the U.K. government wants to push telecommunication companies to introduce real-time surveillance and the removal of encryption. On Thursday, The Register published leaked draft regulations detailing how telecommunications operators would be required to grant real-time access to individuals under warrant within…
Global censorship of news reaches new levels of complexity
CPJ releases annual assessment of press freedom worldwide New York, April 25, 2017–Despite the promise of new information technologies, governments, non-state actors, and corporations worldwide are censoring vast amounts of information using complex and sophisticated tactics.
Somaliland editor detained after trading himself for colleague’s freedom
New York, April 20, 2017–Somaliland authorities should immediately release Ibrahim Osman Ahmed, editor of Hangool News, who has been held without charge since April 15, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Ibrahim is in custody in Hargeisa Central Police Station after handing himself over to police to secure the release of Abdirahman Arab Da’ud,…
Chechen official and preachers threaten Novaya Gazeta journalists
New York, April 14, 2017–Russian authorities should investigate threats preachers and an adviser to the Chechen president made against the staff of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and should ensure the journalists’ safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Journalists covering Venezuela protests harassed, attacked, and news websites blocked
New York, April 12, 2017–Venezuelan authorities should ensure that journalists can cover protests safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Several reporters have been detained, injured, or had equipment seized while covering ongoing protests over a Supreme Court ruling to strip the opposition-led National Assembly of its lawmaking powers, according to news reports and…
In Brazil, attacker fires at political blogger’s car
Political blogger Márcio Prado was at his home in Rio Grande da Serra, one of the municipalities that ring Brazil’s biggest city São Paulo, in the early hours of April 1, 2017, when he heard gunshots, he told CPJ in a telephone interview. The blogger said he went downstairs to see what was going on…
In Brazil, outdated defamation laws and costly court cases used to pressure critics
Brazilian journalist Erik Silva never imagined that printing information from a municipal government website would see him accused of defamation and lead to a drawn-out court case. But almost a year after writing about the size of salary earned by a municipal accountant in Corumbá, a city of just under 100,000 people on Brazil’s western…