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The Committee to Protect Journalists and other human rights groups today called on European Union High Representative Josep Borrell and EU foreign ministers in a letter to uphold benchmarks set in 2016 when the EU suspended direct financial support to the Burundian government over its failure to protect human rights, democratic principles, and the rule…

New York, June 21, 2021– The Committee to Protect Journalists today said it will honor Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned founder of Hong Kong’s Next Digital media company and Apple Daily newspaper, with the 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. The award is presented annually by CPJ’s board of directors to recognize extraordinary and sustained commitment…

Mexico City, June 18, 2021 – The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed yesterday’s sentencing of Juan Francisco Picos Barrueta, known as “El Quillo,” one of the murderers of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas, and called on Mexican federal authorities to redouble their efforts to have the alleged mastermind of the killing extradited to and tried in…

March 2018 was a low point for Akhbar al-Youm, an independent daily newspaper in Yemen. Three weeks after the newspaper’s Aden office was set ablaze by unidentified arsonists, seven of its employees were abducted for a month by forces under the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, which controls the southern port city. The attacks forced the publication to relocate from Aden to…

“Many countries are using these technologies to put people in jail,” Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack told CPJ in a recent video interview. He was describing advanced surveillance capabilities, such as those that CPJ has documented being used to target journalists like Omar Radi and Maati Monjib, who were both jailed in Morocco in 2020.  Israeli companies like NSO Group and Cellebrite market equipment to…

Searching for safety, journalists in exile are often trapped in a vicious circle New York, June 17, 2021– The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on governments to provide safe refuge to journalists at risk through special emergency visas, in a feature and recommendations released ahead of World Refugee Day. Drawing on CPJ’s work over…

In 2018, journalist Mohammad Shubaat was in Daraa, Syria, caught between advancing forces aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the closed borders of Israel and Jordan. Despite the dire threat to Shubaat and many of his colleagues, it would take over a year of intense negotiations with some 20 countries by the Committee to…

Washington, D.C., June 16, 2021 — In response to the Hong Kong police force’s raid on the office of the independent newspaper Apple Daily and the arrests of five executives today, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: “The arrests of five executives at the pro-democracy Apple Daily today under Hong Kong’s Orwellian…

Stockholm, June 16, 2021 – Kazakh authorities should swiftly and thoroughly investigate all threats made to employees of the independent newspaper Aq Zhayiq and ensure their safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Since the beginning of the year, unidentified individuals have sent dozens of death threats to Azamat Maitanov, the outlet’s editor-in-chief, and…

Bogotá, June 16, 2021 – Colombian authorities should thoroughly investigate the attempted shooting of journalist Pincen Mora, hold the perpetrators to account, and guarantee his safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On June 8, at about 5 p.m., a group of eight unidentified men on motorcycles stopped at the home and office of Mora,…