Attacks on the Press in 2011: India
Although the motives remained unconfirmed in late year, the murders of Chhattisgarh’s Umesh Rajput and Mumbai crime reporter Jyotirmoy Dey reminded colleagues of the risk of violence. India remained on CPJ’s Impunity Index, a ranking of countries in which journalists are murdered regularly and authorities fail to solve the crimes. Violent clashes between insurgents and…
India’s challenge: Intolerance vs. intellectual freedom
Because of criticism from Hindu fundamentalists, the showing of a documentary by filmmaker Sanjay Kak at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune has been indefinitely postponed. The conservative student organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parisha protested Kak’s film, “Jashn-e-Azadi” (How we celebrate freedom), which is critical of the Indian army’s role in Kashmir.…
Oprah’s guards not only ones to assail Indian journalists
Oprah Winfrey’s first visit to India brought delighted coverage by the Indian media. Her meetings and tweetings with Bollywood stars, her bright orange sari, and her trips to slums and to the Taj Mahal were lovingly detailed by newspapers and TV outlets in that country.
Q&A: Press Council of India’s Katju on media safety
Retired Supreme Court Justice Markandey Katju is shaking things up at the Press Council of India, where he was appointed chairman in October. The statutory body, mandated to look at media freedom and address complaints against the print media since 1966, has often been criticized for ineffectiveness, its role limited to admonishing news outlets.
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, February 2011 CPJ’s Attacks on the Press launched Global and regional institutions with a responsibility to guard press freedom are largely failing to fulfill their mandate as journalists worldwide continue to face threats, imprisonment, intimidation, and killings, according to Attacks on the Press, a yearly survey released on…
Attacks on the Press 2010: Asia Developments
ATTACKS ON THE PRESS: 2010 • Main Index ASIA Regional Analysis: • Partisan Journalism And the Cycle of Repression Country Summaries • Afghanistan • Burma • China • Indonesia • Nepal • Pakistan • Philippines • Sri Lanka • Thailand • Vietnam • Other nations BANGLADESH An unidentified man threatened photojournalist Shahidul Alam on March…
J.S. Tissainayagam Award Acceptance Speech
J.S. Tissainayagam Acceptance Speech CPJ 2010 International Press Freedom Awards Dinner November 23, 2010 Waldorf Astoria, New York Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies for being late – late by one year that is, to collect my award. Late or not however, it is great honor to be here in New York this evening among you….
Internet Blotter
Turkey lifted its ban on YouTube and then re-asserted it within the same week. Digital technology is helping get news out of North Korea. Small digital cameras and tiny SD memory cards make it easier to smuggle images out. In China, meanwhile, Amazon’s Kindle 3G e-reader is reportedly being used to get the news in.…
Free speech in India: Between the bullet, baton, and gavel
Freedom of speech and expression in India is balanced precariously between the ever-present threat of direct, physical attacks from both security forces and social vigilante groups on the one hand, and the reassurance of protection from higher judicial authorities on the other. But the scales seem tipped in favor of the former.
Press under fire in Puntland, CPJ tells leader
Dear Mr President: The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about deteriorating press freedom conditions in Puntland, including detentions, censorship, harassment, and direct attacks by police officers. Many of these disturbing attacks have targeted the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and one of its reporters, although several local reporters say they are seeing an overall pattern of harassment.