Saudi control of Arab media, lamented by Khashoggi, shapes coverage of his death
It is a cruel irony that Jamal Khashoggi’s last unpublished column for The Washington Post was a call for press freedom in the Arab world. His homeland, Saudi Arabia, has spent the last three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that never happens.
Nothing to declare: Why U.S. border agency’s vast stop and search powers undermine press freedom
Secondary screenings of journalists crossing U.S. borders risk undermining press freedom as Custom and Border Protection agents search devices such as laptops or phones without warrant and question journalists about their reporting and contacts. As the government ramps up searches of electronic devices, rights groups mount legal challenges to fight invasive searches. A special report…
CPJ Insider: October edition
CPJ, Reuters, Amal Clooney address press freedom violations at the U.N. CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon addressed a panel event, entitled “Press Behind Bars,” at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 28. The event–which also featured human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Stephen Adler, president of Reuters…
Iraqi authorities shut down internet, detain and assault journalists amid protests
Between July 14 and September 6, 2018, at least seven Iraqi journalists were assaulted or detained while covering protests over government corruption and the lack of basic services in several cities across Iraq, and the offices of two local media outlets were set on fire, according to news reports, the journalists’ employers, the local press…
CPJ Insider: September 2018 edition
The Boston Globe receives threats after its call for defending a free press In August, The Boston Globe invited newspapers from all over the country to stand up for journalists and the media with editorials. Hundreds of news organizations participated in the initiative, for which CPJ provided a backgrounder on press freedom in the U.S.…
Nicaragua convicts two men in journalist’s killing in trial criticized as unfair
Bogotá, Colombia, August 29, 2018–A Nicaraguan court on August 27 found two men guilty in the shooting death of journalist Ángel Eduardo Gahona in a trial that the journalist’s widow, defense lawyers, and human rights groups characterized as flawed. CPJ today called on authorities to conduct a transparent investigation and trial to ensure that Gahona’s…
Nigeria’s Fresh FM radio station partially demolished following critical reporting
Fresh FM, a privately owned radio station based in Ibadan city, in Nigeria’s southwestern Oyo state, was partially demolished by bulldozer during the early hours of August 19, 2018, upon the order of the Oyo state government, Samson Akindele, head of news for Fresh FM, and David Ajiboye, station manager for Fresh FM, told CPJ.…
Google complicity in Chinese censorship could endanger press freedom elsewhere
In 2010, after four years of offering Chinese users a heavily censored version of its search engine, Google decided it would no longer block search results at the request of the Chinese state. “Our objection is to those forces of totalitarianism,” Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, told The New York Times at the time, adding that…
CPJ calls for Peru to stop harassing news outlets over investigative reporting
New York, July 17, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Peruvian authorities to end their harassment of two news outlets. A government body issued summonses to the directors of news website IDL-Reporteros and the TV program “Panorama,” and the public prosecutor and police went to the offices of IDL-Reporteros to demand that it…
