Hold The Line Coalition welcomes acquittal of Maria Ressa and Rappler, calls for dropping of remaining cases
September 12, 2023, Manila—The Hold the Line Coalition (HTL) welcomes Tuesday’s Regional Trial Court verdict acquitting Nobel laureate Maria Ressa and her news outlet Rappler on the final criminal tax charge leveled against them by the regime of former President Rodrigo Duterte. The judgment comes after a legal battle lasting nearly five years. If they…
Defiant Marion County Record hits newsstands following police raid
MARION, Kansas, August 17, 2023—At midday Wednesday, television crews were setting up for live broadcasts outside the Marion County Record; phones were ringing off the hook; and the paper’s owner, Eric Meyer was on a carousel of interviews about the police raid on their offices five days earlier. In the back room, surrounded by old…
CPJ Insider: July 2023 edition
CPJ travels to Poland and Georgia to meet with exiled journalists and demand release of Nika Gvaramia ahead of pardon CPJ’s Emergencies team was on the ground in Warsaw, Poland, and Tbilisi, Georgia, in June meeting with exiled journalists and calling for the immediate release of journalist Nika Gvaramia, the only Georgian journalist on CPJ’s…
In Marcos Jr.’s Philippines, milder tone belies harsh media reality
At a waterfront courthouse in Tacloban City, a long-time hotbed of communist insurgency in the Philippines’ Eastern Visayas island region, heavily armed guards were escorting jailed journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio to trial. The picturesque setting belied the harsh reality of the April 17 hearing. Cumpio could be put behind bars for life if found guilty…
More than 15 years after his killing in Myanmar, journalist Kenji Nagai’s camera returned to family
Bangkok, April 26, 2023–More than 15 years after Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai was shot and killed on the streets of Yangon, Myanmar, while filming the 2007 Saffron Revolution political protests, the camera he held at the time of his death has finally been returned to his family. At a press conference Wednesday, April 26, at…
Fragile Progress: Part 2
Upholding the law Other governments, like those headed by Slovenia’s “pro-Trump populist”80 Prime Minister Janez Janša from 2020-2022 and Greece’s conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, also adopted illiberal practices, from media capture to public denigration of critical journalists.81 Yet the European Union can only act in those areas where its member states have authorized it…
Fragile Progress: Part 5
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU Fighting impunity CPJ’s 2022 Global Impunity Index found that no one has been held to account for nearly 80% of 263 journalist murders over the past 10 years worldwide. Could the EU play a more active role in the fight against impunity,…
Fragile Progress: Source notes
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU 1 Pol Morillas, editor, “Illiberal Democracies in the EU: the Visegrad Group and the Risk of Disintegration,” January 2017 2 CPJ, “Balancing Act,” 2015 https://cpj.org/reports/2015/09/press-freedom-at-risk-europe-summary/ 3 Some sources asked not to be named in this report in order to speak frankly or because they…
Chinese blogger Ruan Xiaohuan sentenced to 7 years in prison
Taipei, March 30, 2023—Chinese authorities must immediately and unconditionally release blogger Ruan Xiaohuan and cease jailing journalists on trumped-up anti-state charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. On February 10, a court in Shanghai sentenced Ruan to seven years in prison for allegedly inciting the subversion of state power, according to multiple news reports…
Turkish authorities arrest employee of Yeni Yaşam newspaper in terrorism investigation
Istanbul, March 23, 2023—Turkish authorities should immediately release Hamdullah Bayram and all journalists, media workers, and others detained in retaliation for outlets’ reporting on Kurdish politics and rights issues, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. In February, authorities indicted 10 Kurdish journalists and accused them of membership in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or…