Obama should address media rights in Southeast Asia
Dear President Obama: We are pleased that you will begin your second term as U.S. president with a trip to Southeast Asia. As you visit Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand from November 17 through 20 while attending the 21st Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit and related meetings in Phnom Penh, we hope that your commitment to human rights and the fundamental right to free expression remains an important aspect of your agenda.
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, October 2012 Tackling Turkey’s press freedom crisis Turkey’s use of broad anti-state charges to jail at least 61 journalists in reprisal for their work has resulted in the country being ranked the worst jailer of journalists, surpassing global press freedom violators such as China and Iran, CPJ found…
Lebanese journalist abducted by rebel group in Syria
New York, October 29, 2012–A rebel group abducted a Lebanese journalist in the northern city of Aleppo on Saturday, bringing to at least five the number of international journalists being held captive by various sides of the conflict. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the journalists’ captors to immediately release them and stop targeting…
Questions about CPJ’s Turkey report? Here, our answers.
Last week’s release of CPJ’s report on Turkey’s press freedom crisis generated widespread domestic media coverage and sparked a robust public debate. The response from Turkish journalists and commentators was largely positive, but there were some negative reactions as well. Turkey’s Justice Ministry has promised a detailed response this week. Here is a summary of…
Mission Journal: First of two CPJ delegations visits Turkey
This week I joined CPJ board Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe, Executive Director Joel Simon, and Turkish researcher Özgür Ögret in Istanbul to present CPJ’s latest report, “Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis,” and convey our main press freedom concerns, including the mass imprisonment of journalists.
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
1. Summary The Committee to Protect Journalists prepared this report to highlight the widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists in Turkey, along with the government’s use of various forms of pressure to engender self-censorship in the press. CPJ’s analysis found highly repressive laws, particularly in the penal code and anti-terror law; a criminal procedure…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
2. Assault on the Press Nuray Mert, one of Turkey’s most prominent political columnists and commentators, had a long history as a government critic, but in the view of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, her comments last year opposing administration policies toward ethnic Kurds went too far. Erdoğan lashed out with a personal attack that…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
5. Test of Political Will On March 25, 2012, the day before the Nuclear Security Summit got under way in Seoul, South Korea, U.S. President Barack Obama met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss a world of troubles. On the agenda were efforts to compel Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside,…
Turkey’s Press Freedom Crisis
Appendix I: Journalists in Prison CPJ research identified 76 journalists imprisoned in Turkey as of August 1, 2012. After examining the government’s evidence, reviewing other public records, and speaking with defense lawyers involved in the cases, CPJ concluded that at least 61 detainees were being held in direct relation to their journalism.