ATR

Media owners’ reluctance to draw China’s disfavor imperils the ability of the Hong Kong and Taiwanese press to play a watchdog role. By a CPJ Contributor Popular protests like this one in Taipei on January 1, 2013, helped derail a plan for a wealthy business tycoon with interests in China to buy Taiwan’s largest newspaper.…

Thailand’s clampdown on press and Internet freedoms continued in 2013 as large anti-government street demonstrations undermined political stability. Broadcast journalists were threatened with arrest by authorities for live streaming protest speeches. At least two local and one foreign reporter were assaulted by protesters over perceived pro-government bias in their coverage. Authorities continued to crack down…

As Azerbaijan prepared to assume the 2014 chairmanship of the Council of Europe—the largest European intergovernmental human rights and democracy organization—the authoritarian regime of President Ilham Aliyev shamelessly trampled on press freedom at home. The authorities continued to stifle critical voices, target free expression on the Web, and sentence reporters to lengthy prison terms. A…

While President Almazbek Atambayev urged the state council in March to enforce rule of law and guarantee the protection of human rights, he demonstrated little political will to bring about such changes. Authorities showed no intent to revive the Uzbek-language media that thrived in southern Kyrgyzstan prior to the June 2010 conflict, in which clashes…

While preparing to host the Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia continued to pressure journalists and human rights defenders covering sensitive issues. Authorities intensified their squeeze on Internet speech and upping their anti-press rhetoric. Impunity in anti-press violence remained largely unaddressed; one journalist died as a consequence of a previous brutal attack, and another was murdered in…

Following an established trend, authoritarian Uzbek leader Islam Karimov promised to address journalists’ concerns but did not follow through by ending the repressive climate for the press in the country. The decades-long harassment against government critics has virtually wiped out the media landscape, forcing the domestic and international community to rely on rumors or leaked…

They call themselves citizen journalists, media workers, or media activists. Amid the chaos of conflict, they are determined to gather and distribute the news. By María Salazar-Ferro Journalists Bryn Karcha, center, of Canada, and Toshifumi Fujimoto, right, of Japan, run for cover with an unidentified fixer in Aleppo’s district of Salaheddine on December 29, 2012.…

Although Jordanian journalists continued to enjoy greater freedom than most of their regional colleagues, that freedom was nonetheless restricted. The government continued its attempt to control the online media as it already controls traditional media. As CPJ had warned last year, the Jordanian government used the amended Press and Publications Law to block hundreds of…

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.