From safety of New York, reporting on distant home
Nigerian journalist and ex-pat Omoyele Sowore is the focus of this New York Times Piece on exiled journalists in New York City. Since 2001 CPJ cites 649 journalists who have been driven into exile, 592 or which still have not returned to their home country. Despite some being thousands of miles from home, the rapid…
What we have learned from fighting impunity
Press freedom groups worldwide are banding together today, the International Day to End Impunity, to demand justice for hundreds of journalists murdered for their work. On this day, the Committee to Protect Journalists and dozens of other members of the International Freedom of Information Exchange are remembering journalists killed, and urging governments to take action…
Honoring reporting in defiance of censorship
New York, November 23, 2011–Four intrepid reporters and editors from Bahrain, Belarus, Mexico, and Pakistan were honored Tuesday evening at the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 21st Annual International Press Freedom Awards benefit dinner, an annual recognition of courageous journalism. The event, held at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, raised nearly $1.4 million for CPJ’s work denouncing…
Awardees to their colleagues: Buck the system
The Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria might seem like an odd venue to stage a call for resistance. Nine hundred people in tuxedos and gowns. Champagne and cocktails. Bill Cunningham snapping photos. This combination is generally more likely to coax a boozy nostalgia than foment a revolution. But the journalists honored last night at…
A call to continue the struggle against impunity
Last night, hundreds of journalists and members of New York’s press freedom community met at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan for the Committee to Protect Journalists’ XXI annual International Press Freedom Awards. At the event–celebrating the extraordinary courage of five journalists from across the globe–guests and award recipients unanimously expressed their commitment to fighting…
South Sudan journalist speaks out after illegal detention
Detained without charge for 18 days, tortured, and released without explanation, South Sudanese journalist Peter Ngor plans to fight back. “I am going to sue them [in] court. What they did to me was completely, utterly wrong,” said Ngor, the editor of a new, private, English-language daily called Destiny. Still, Ngor believes that his illegal…
South Africa lower house passes information bill
New York, November 22, 2011–The South African National Assembly today passed an information bill which would sanction unauthorized possession and publication of classified state information with a prison term of up to 25 years, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the upper house of parliament to reject the bill, which has…
