New York, April 9, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that Ukrainian border guards have denied entry to the country to several Russian journalists over the past few days. Reports say that journalists with the newly reshuffled RIA Novosti news agency, TV channels Rossiya and Russia Today, the business daily Kommersant, and…
Phoenix, April 8, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists hails today’s decision by the European Court of Justice invalidating the European Union’s mandatory data retention directive. The court found that the indiscriminate collection of metadata poses a “particularly serious” and disproportional interference with the right to privacy. Mass metadata surveillance is “likely to generate in the…
New York, April 4, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalist mourns the loss of Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and the wounding of AP reporter Kathy Gannon in Khost, Afghanistan. The two were shot by an Afghan police officer who approached their car in an election convoy and opened fire on them in the back seat,…
New York, March 28, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalist condemns today’s attack on the senior Pakistani journalist Raza Rumi in Lahore, which killed his driver. Unidentified gunmen fired on Rumi’s car near the Raja Market neighborhood after he left the studio following his TV show. Rumi and his guard were injured, according to news reports.…
New York, March 21, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply saddened by an attack on Thursday night in Afghanistan in which Sardar Ahmad, a senior reporter for Agence France-Presse’s Kabul bureau, was killed. Four gunmen stormed the Serena Hotel in Kabul during Nowruz celebrations, which marks the start of the Afghan and Persian new…
New York, March 20, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s threats today to close down Twitter. The threats come only days after he vowed to shut down Facebook and YouTube in Turkey.
New York, March 19, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s attack on two senior media executives in Hong Kong by four masked men armed with metal bars. The executives work for Hong Kong Media News, which is preparing to launch a Chinese-language newspaper, and have been identified in reports as Lei Iun-han, director and…
New York, March 17, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a five-year jail term given today to Tofiq Yaqublu, an Azerbaijani journalist with the opposition daily Yeni Musavat, and calls on authorities to overturn the verdict on appeal. Yaqublu, who was convicted of “organizing mass disorder,” was arrested in January 2013 in connection with anti-government…
New York, March 13, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the blocking today of independent and pro-opposition news websites in Russia, including Ezhednevny Zhurnal, Grani, Kasparov, and the website of the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy. The popular blog of anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny and the personal blogging platform LiveJournal were also blocked.
New York, March 13, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by threats made against Balbina Flores Martínez, Mexico correspondent for the international press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders. On Wednesday, Flores received a series of telephone calls in which she was told that someone had been hired to “harm her,” according to news reports.