Iraqi regulator suspends Reuters’ license for 3 months over COVID-19 report
New York, April 3, 2020 — Iraqi authorities should immediately reinstate the license of the Reuters news agency, and allow all media outlets to cover the COVID-19 pandemic freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Iran bans printing of all newspapers, citing spread of coronavirus
Washington, D.C., March 31, 2020 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over Iranian authorities’ decision to suspend all newspaper printing and distribution in the country, where newsgathering and distribution is already tightly restricted.
Governments around the world crack down on journalists covering COVID-19
This week, journalists covering COVID-19 have been arrested in Venezuela and Niger, and assaulted by police in India. In Thailand, a state of emergency was declared on Thursday to contain the virus, which gives the government more control over the press. Last week, Hamas-controlled security forces assaulted a journalist covering a COVID-19 protest, and authorities…
CPJ Insider, November: Face-to-face with Pakistani border control and a northern Syria crisis
On a strange ‘stop list,’ CPJ staffer is refused entry to Pakistan The man at the Lahore airport customs point looked puzzled. Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, was holding a U.S. passport with a valid, newly issued visa to enter Pakistan. But the computer showed he was on a “stop list” from the Interior…
The worst countries in the world at prosecuting journalist murderers
CPJ released the 2019 edition of its annual Global Impunity Index this week, which lists the worst countries in the world at prosecuting murderers of journalists. Somalia tops the list for the fifth year in a row. During the 10-year period covered by the index, 318 journalists were murdered for their work worldwide. In 86%…
Q&A: Moroccan press freedom advocate and NSO Group spyware target Maati Monjib
Pegasus, the cellphone spyware tool sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, is one of the most powerful surveillance systems governments can buy, experts say. Researchers who study it have detected “45 countries where Pegasus operators may be conducting surveillance operations,” and detailed its capabilities: whoever tricks the target into clicking on a link that…
National Geographic reporter shot in Chihuahua while conducting an interview
A National Geographic reporter was wounded in a shootout in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez last Friday. The attack occurred while a camera crew was conducting an interview with an alleged member of a criminal gang. Mexico is the deadliest country for journalists in 2019, with at least five killed in relation to their work so far;…
Moroccan authorities arrest journalist Hajar Raissouni
Moroccan security forces arrested Hajar Raissouni, a reporter for independent news website Akhbar al-Youm, on August 31, 2019, as she was leaving her doctor’s office with her fiancé in Rabat, according to her employer and Huffington Post Maghreb. Akhbar al-Youm reported that plainclothes agents also arrested her fiancé, the doctor, and two medical staff from…
‘It should not be accepted as normal’: Female journalists on harassment, intimidation in the Netherlands
The Netherlands is generally considered to have a positive press freedom reputation, but when the independent Dutch Association of Journalists released the findings of its survey of over 350 female journalists in May, over half said they had been subjected to intimidation or violence in their work and around 70 percent said these threats were…