Zaffar Abbas
CPJ is honored to present its 2019 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, for extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom, to Pakistani editor Zaffar Abbas. Abbas is the editor of Dawn, Pakistan’s leading daily newspaper. He has an extensive career in journalism, starting in 1981, when he worked as a junior reporter…
CPJ announces 2019 International Press Freedom Award winners
New York, July 16, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists will honor journalists from Brazil, India, Nicaragua, and Tanzania with the 2019 International Press Freedom Awards amid the erosion of press freedom in democracies around the globe. The journalists have faced online harassment, legal and physical threats, and imprisonment in their pursuit of the news. CPJ…
Azory Gwanda “disappeared and died,” says Tanzanian foreign minister
Do you have five minutes? Please take this survey to help us improve this newsletter. Thank you! In a BBC interview Wednesday, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Palamagamba Kabudi said that journalist Azory Gwanda had “disappeared and died” in the country’s eastern Rufiji region. Gwanda, the subject of CPJ’s ongoing #WhereIsAzory campaign, went missing on November 21,…
‘Credible evidence’ to probe Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi’s murder, UN report finds
In Brazil, Glenn Greenwald, founder of The Intercept Brasil, and other staff received threats on email and social media following their publication of a series of stories based on anonymously leaked material about “Operation Car Wash,” the investigation into political corruption that has been ongoing since 2014. CPJ’s North America Researcher Avi Asher-Schapiro spoke with…
CPJ Insider: June edition
In Congress, bipartisan condolences for Khashoggi fiancée and calls for action For a moment, polarized politics took a back seat. Democratic and Republican congressional leaders gathered at an evening reception and lined up to offer condolences to Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who earlier that day shared gut-wrenching testimony…
Journalists covering clashes in Syria ‘deliberately targeted and attacked’
Since May 22, at least three journalists have been injured in attacks by suspected pro-government forces in two separate incidents in northwestern Syria. Following one of those incidents, Alex Crawford, a reporter for U.K. broadcaster Sky News who was reporting in Idlib, wrote that the news crew was “clearly identified as journalists” and was “deliberately…
U.S. prosecution of Assange has potential implications for press freedom
CPJ expressed concern about the potential press freedom implications of the U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. UK authorities arrested Assange April 11 at the Ecuadoran Embassy as part of an extradition agreement with the U.S., according to a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice. The statement said Assange faces a single count…
CPJ Insider: March 2019 edition
Venezuela’s press freedom crisis heats up CPJ’s Central and South America program and Emergencies Response Team have been in overdrive amid an intensifying press crackdown in Venezuela, which reached a new level when the Maduro government briefly detained Univision reporter and anchor Jorge Ramos and his crew on February 26.
In Egypt, New York Times correspondent expelled, local journalist detained on false news charges
New York Times correspondent David D. Kirkpatrick was denied entry into Egypt on Monday. His phone was confiscated and he was held in the airport for seven hours without food or water before authorities forced him onto a flight back to London without explanation. The move against Kirkpatrick comes after authorities detained a local journalist,…
Philippines’ Maria Ressa detained and released over ‘political’ charge
The Philippine government’s legal harassment of the news website Rappler and Maria Ressa, its founder and executive editor, took an alarming turn Wednesday when officers from the National Bureau of Investigation arrested Ressa at Rappler‘s bureau in Manila and held her overnight over a cyber libel case filed against her by the Justice Department. Ressa’s…