Detained

In a letter, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Mozambique’s President Daniel Francisco Chapo to take decisive steps to ensure that the media can operate without fear of reprisal. The letter urges Chapo, who was inaugurated January 2025 following a disputed election last year, to act swiftly in providing the whereabouts of  two missing journalists—Ibraimo Mbaruco, who…

Lusaka, March 27, 2025—“I have learnt that free speech, free talk, is not free,” Zimbabwean journalist Blessed Mhlanga wrote in a letter from prison, which was made public on February 28, his fourth day behind bars. Mhlanga, who works with the privately owned broadcaster Heart and Soul TV, was arrested on February 24 and charged with…

Editor’s Note: On 28 March, an Islamabad court granted Waheed Murad bail and he was released directly from court on a surety bond of 20,000 rupees (US$71), his lawyer Imaan Mazari told CPJ. New York, March 27, 2025—Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Waheed Murad, who was taken away by masked men who…

Beirut, March 25, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the masked Israeli settlers who assaulted Palestinian documentary film director Hamdan Ballal and the Israeli soldiers who arrested him in the occupied West Bank on Monday to be held to account. Ballal, who was freed on Tuesday, was one of four co-directors of “No Other…

Istanbul, March 24, 2025—Turkish authorities should release the journalists taken into police custody during widespread protests and end hostile behavior towards the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. Protests erupted and grew in multiple cities across Turkey following the government crackdown on Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was due to be selected as…

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday joined four press freedom organizations in urging Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and its Department of Justice to end the detention of community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who has been behind bars for more than five years. The groups said in a joint statement, led by CPJ, that the 26-year-old…

Editor’s note: On March 24, FIA officials raided Raftar’s office and seized Farhan Mallick’s work computer and USB drives, according to a post on X by the media outlet, which called the raid a direct assault on independent journalism. New York, March 21, 2025—Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Farhan Mallick, detained in Karachi Thursday by…

Nairobi, March 20, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Somali authorities to investigate the killing of journalist Mohamed Abukar Dabashe in a March 18 bombing by the militant group Al Shabaab in the capital Mogadishu and allow journalists to do their jobs without fear of reprisal. “Mohamed Abukar Dabashe’s death is devastating. Unfortunately, he…

In a joint letter, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 16 other press freedom and human rights organizations called on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ramp up efforts to secure Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release. Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade behind bars and now faces an additional two years in detention—despite Egyptian legal provisions that should have ensured his…

The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces Monday’s court ruling to revoke the house arrest of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora and send him back to prison. “The decision to return journalist José Rubén Zamora to prison is a blatant act of judicial persecution. This case represents a dangerous escalation in the repression of independent journalism,”…