New York, March 12, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a decree by Ukraine’s National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting to cable and satellite providers on Tuesday to cut off the transmission of Russian state-controlled TV stations in the country. The order, which was immediately enforced, appears to be a response to Crimean authorities…
New York, March 11, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release this week of five Turkish journalists who were imprisoned after being sentenced to jail in connection with the controversial Ergenekon case. Three of the journalists–Yalçın Küçük, Deniz Yıldırım, and Merdan Yanardağ–were convicted because of their work, according to CPJ research. In the cases…
San Francisco, March 8, 2014–Following requests from both prosecutors and defense attorneys, yesterday the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas dismissed 11 felony counts against journalist Barrett Brown. The charges related to the reposting of a publicly-available hyperlink containing thousands of documents stolen from intelligence contractor Stratfor Forecasting. Brown was never accused…
New York, March 7, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s threats to shut down YouTube and Facebook in order to, in the premier’s words, prevent the negative impact of the Internet on society.
San Francisco, February 7, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a report that a potential operation by the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) involved covert surveillance of reporters’ communications. GCHQ sought to use journalists to pass both information and disinformation to intelligence targets, according to documents taken from the National…
San Francisco, February 6, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Turkish President Abdullah Gül to veto the Internet bill passed Wednesday by the Turkish Parliament. The bill would grant the Turkish government unprecedented control over the Internet by allowing Web pages to be blocked without a court order, requiring mandatory data retention by Internet…
New York, February 5, 2014–Armed assailants today abducted Mexican crime beat reporter Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz in the town of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the kidnappers to release him immediately.
New York, January 29, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the Egyptian prosecutor general’s decision to put 20 Al-Jazeera journalists on trial on criminal charges of incitement, distorting the country’s image abroad, and fabricating news to aid the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government has declared a terrorist organization, according to government daily Al-Ahram and…
New York, January 14, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that veteran U.S. journalist David Satter has been banned from Russia for five years. Satter, adviser to the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, told CPJ that the Russian foreign ministry told him to leave…