Attacks on the Press 2010: United States
Top Developments • U.S. military ignores call for probe into killings of 16 journalists in Iraq. • Under Pearl Act, State Department will track press freedom worldwide. Key Statistic 14: Journalists imprisoned by U.S. military forces for prolonged periods without charge between 2004 and 2010. In two important advances, Congress passed legislation to track press…
Guardian correspondent expelled from Russia
New York, February 8, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Russian authorities today to allow Luke Harding, Moscow correspondent for the U.K. Guardian, to return to Russia and resume his work. Harding, at left, was refused entry to Russia on Saturday.The journalist had temporarily returned to London in the fall to report on U.S.…
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, December 2010 2010: Setting records and strengthening protection of the pressAs the Committee to Protect Journalists nears its 30th anniversary in 2011, the organization has made strides in expanding its reach, solidifying concrete assistance to journalists in emergency situations, confronting impunity and advocating for justice around the world so…
CPJ urges US not to prosecute Assange
Dear President Obama and Attorney General Holder: We write because of deep concern about reports that you are considering the prosecution of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for publishing classified cables and other documents. Based on everything we know about these events, we urge you to avoid such action. Our concern flows not from an embrace of Assange’s motives and objectives. Indeed, we wish that he would fully disclose his sources of financing and support. But the Constitution protects the right to publish information of important interest to the public. That right has been upheld through decades of American jurisprudence and has served the people well.
After running leaked cables, websites face harassment
New York, December 10, 2010–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns harassment of the Lebanese news website Al-Akhbar after it published U.S. diplomatic cables that were first disclosed by WikiLeaks. The website was hacked this week by unknown attackers, while the Tunisian government blocked domestic access to the site. Saudi officials blocked access to the independent…
Internet Blotter
Wikileaks hit by denial-of-service attack, turns to Amazon hosting… …but Amazon drops the site following pressure from a U.S. senator. Google extends its https encryption to YouTube, making video blocking harder. Censorship of the Net directly related to how authoritarian a regime is, claims a study. Venezuala’s telecom regulator proposes stronger takedown powers over Internet…
Iraq war logs: US fails to answer for deaths of journalists
The Guardian quotes CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem in the article “Iraq war logs: US fails to answer for deaths of journalists” carried on October 22. Following Wikileaks’ recent publication of American military documents the Guardian describes how Iraq has been one of the most dangerous recent wars for the…
CPJ Impact
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, August 2010 Honduras report citing official failures draws a responseIn a few short months, seven journalists were gunned down in Honduras. While the country has been beset by crime and political turmoil, it had not been known as a particularly dangerous place for the press. Is someone targeting…
French officer proves ‘allergic’ to photos in Togo
It has been a week since Togolese photojournalist Komi Agbedivlo, better known as “Didier Ledoux,” was verbally abused by a military officer from France as he covered a political demonstration in the capital, Lome. The incident might have gone unnoticed, if not for social media and a year charged with historical symbolism for Togo, which is celebrating 50 years of independence from France. So the…
U.S. Senate passes ‘libel tourism’ bill
This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill shielding journalists and publishers from “libel tourism.” The vote on Monday slipped past the Washington press corps largely unnoticed. Maybe it was the title that strove chunkily for a memorable acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act. Journalists and…