Hu Jia
Police charged Hu, a prominent human rights activist and essayist, with “incitement to subvert state power” based on six online commentaries and two interviews with foreign media in which he criticized the Communist Party. On April 3, 2008, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Hu had advocated for AIDS patients,…
April 2021: The ‘voice of the people’: Anastasia Mejía vows to keep reporting after Guatemala arrest
On August 24, 2020, Anastasia Mejía prepared herself for yet another day of reporting in Joyabaj in central Guatemala. At 49 years old, she had spent the previous 11 years covering the city’s Indigenous Maya K’iche’ community, to which she belongs. Her subject that day was a protest of mostly Maya K’iche’ merchants who wanted…
Imprisoned Uyghur journalist Erkin Tursun appears in Chinese propaganda video
Taipei, April 19, 2021 – Chinese authorities should immediately release journalist Erkin Tursun and stop using imprisoned members of the press in propaganda materials, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On April 9, at a press event in Beijing, Chinese officials aired a video of Tursun, a former TV producer who has been imprisoned…
China detains family members of Radio Free Asia Uyghur editor Eset Sulaiman
Taipei, March 8, 2021 – Chinese authorities should immediately release the relatives of journalist Eset Sulaiman, and stop intimidating members of the press abroad by targeting their family in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In a March 3 report, the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia, where Eset works as a…
CPJ joins call for Guatemalan authorities to drop criminal charges against journalist Anastasia Mejía
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined 50 human rights organizations, media outlets, and individuals in a statement calling on Guatemalan authorities to drop all remaining charges against Indigenous radio journalist Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz. Mejía is facing charges of sedition and aggravated attack for her alleged participation in an August 24, 2020, demonstration, according to…
Sophia Huang Xueqin
Chinese journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin disappeared on September 19, 2021, one day before she was scheduled to board a plane to the United Kingdom to study at the University of Sussex. CPJ could not determine Huang’s whereabouts or health status in late 2022. Huang is a freelance journalist who has covered social issues on her…
Tran Khue
On October 22, 2002, the Foreign Ministry announced that writer Tran Khue, also known as Tran Van Khue, had been placed under administrative detention, or house arrest, for two years, and that his term had begun on October 9, 2001. Administrative Detention Directive 31/CP allows the government to put individuals under house arrest for two…
Lü Jiaping
Beijing police detained Lü, a military scholar in his 70s, his wife, Yu Junyi, and his colleague, Jin, on allegations of inciting subversion in 13 online articles they wrote and distributed together, according to international news reports and human rights groups. A court sentenced Lü to 10 years in prison and Jin to eight years…