Attacked

On August 5, the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a strict communication blackout in Jammu and Kashmir after stripping the state of its limited autonomous status under the Indian constitution. A month later as the restrictions continued, CPJ India Correspondent Kunal Majumder traveled to Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, to speak to local…

On August 15, 2019, in Sulmona, central Italy, unidentified individuals burned the car of Claudio Lattanzio, a photojournalist for local daily Il Centro and collaborator with Italian news agency Ansa, according to a report by the daily.

Ask any female journalist about harassment or safety while on assignment and they’ll likely have a story to tell.

In June 2016, an attacker was terrorizing women on a jogging path in Edmonton, Canada. A video journalist at a large Canadian broadcaster was assigned to cover the story on the night shift. Multiple sexual assaults had been reported and the man was still at-large.

Stef Schrader was on vacation in Germany last year when spam messages started to flood her inbox. Seeing random emails from Macy’s—and job alerts for the position of “Chief Idiot”—she realized someone had signed her work email up to dozens of email lists.

Journalists are frequently at risk of being harassed online in an attempt by hostile actors to intimidate or force them into silence. The harassment, most commonly directed at female journalists, often includes threats of violence against the journalist and their family and friends.

Solo work is becoming more common, especially for broadcast and video journalists. However, working alone can make journalists vulnerable to physical assault. For assignments in locations such as neighborhoods with high crime rates, protests, or remote areas, it is advisable that journalists do not work alone.

Journalists have long faced threats in reprisal for their work, and in the internet era, attackers can leverage information published on social media and professional websites to hack, abuse, shame, or defame their target.

Sexual violence can take many forms, including sexual and physical assaults. Any individual can be the subject of sexual misconduct, but journalists are often at risk from a range of people, including sources and members of the public, while they are reporting. That risk is heightened for female or gender non-conforming journalists.

Washington, D.C., August 30, 2019 — Ukrainian authorities must immediately investigate the recent attack on blogger Igor Stakh, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.