UK court brings Julian Assange one step closer to extradition; CPJ calls on US Justice Department to drop charges
A London court on Wednesday ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States. The decision brings Assange one step closer to facing espionage and hacking charges in the U.S., but the extradition still needs to be approved by a British cabinet minister, and Assange’s defense can appeal to her directly. CPJ…
Two Ukrainian journalists’ bodies found in Bucha and Yahidne after Russian withdrawal
After Russian withdrawal, Ukrainian journalists found killed: video technician Roman Nezhyborets’ body was found buried in the northern Ukrainian village of Yahidne, and freelance journalist Zoreslav Zamoysky’s body was found in Bucha, near the capital of Kyiv. Local Ukrainians found the bodies after Russian forces withdrew from those areas. More from CPJ’s coverage of the…
Opinion: How the West can help the media victims of Putin’s war
Russia’s independent journalists are fleeing. That’s not only a tragedy for Russians but also for the rest of us who need to know what the increasingly isolated leader of a nuclear superpower is doing. Since sending tanks into Ukraine on February 24, President Vladimir Putin has threatened to jail anyone who dares question the invasion…
Opinion: The dilemma facing journalists covering the Beijing Olympics
I don’t envy journalists from around the world who are entering China to cover the Beijing Olympics, held February 4 to 20. Perhaps never in history have the rules of the road for covering the games been so murky and the potential dangers so great for journalists who step over an as-yet-undefined red line that…
China finds new ways to intimidate foreign press, FCCC survey finds
On January 31, 2022, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) released findings from its annual member survey about press conditions in the country. The report, “Locked Down or Kicked Out,” found that 99% of foreign correspondents said China’s reporting conditions did not meet what they considered “international standards.” The survey also documented ways Chinese…
Vigils across Mexico: Three journalists killed in two weeks
After the disturbing killings of three Mexican journalists in less than two weeks, journalists in nearly 40 locations around Mexico took to the streets Tuesday night to demand the federal government do more to ensure security for reporters under threat and to end impunity in cases of murdered journalists. The three Mexican journalists killed this…
Journalists at the Beijing Winter Olympics may test China’s tolerance for critical coverage
Can China and the International Olympic Committee maintain a “bubble” of total press freedom inside China’s vast sea of repression? That’s the question facing thousands of journalists as they arrive in the coming weeks to cover the Beijing Winter Olympics, which kick off on February 4. (CPJ’s safety advisory for those attending addresses coronavirus restrictions…
The most-read press freedom stories of 2021
2021 began with protestors threatening journalists covering the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The news at the end of the year isn’t much brighter, with Ethiopia using its emergency law to ramp up arrests of journalists and the first documented death of a journalist in custody in Myanmar since the country’s February coup….
CPJ’s Steven Butler: China’s sentencing of Jimmy Lai over Tiananmen Square vigil is ‘despicable’
Taipei, December 13, 2021 — In response to a Hong Kong court’s decision today to sentence Jimmy Lai, founder of the Next Digital media company and the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, to 13 months imprisonment over his alleged connection to a 2020 vigil marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Committee to Protect…
‘A disturbing sign for press freedom’: A record 293 journalists imprisoned worldwide, the worst in 30 years
There are a record 293 journalists jailed worldwide for doing their job, according to CPJ’s 2021 prison census, the worst number CPJ has recorded since we began keeping track in 1992. Meanwhile, killings of journalists also continue to persist, with 24 documented by CPJ so far this year. The reasons for the relentless climb in…