Egypt should release Shawkan, photographer detained for two years
New York, August 13, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Egyptian authorities to release freelance photographer Mahmoud Abou Zeid, also known as Shawkan, from prison immediately and drop the baseless allegations against him. By the time of his hearing on Monday, Shawkan will have exceeded the two-year legal limit on pretrial detention, according to…
Q&A: How to cope with perils of being a Chinese news assistant for foreign media
News assistants, or zhongmi (which literally means “Chinese secretaries”), are Chinese citizens working for foreign journalists in China. They play a number of roles including monitoring news leads, conducting research, translating materials, and arranging interviews, as well as acting as cultural liaisons who can explain social and political phenomena to journalists who may not be…
CPJ calls on the Gambia to free journalist, drop charges against him
Dear President Jammeh: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent international press freedom organization, is writing to express its concern about a Gambian journalist who has been held by the National Intelligence Agency since July 17.
US-Vietnam strategic partnership must be contingent on press freedom
Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to Vietnam was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the former adversaries. While Kerry’s speech during his three-day tour emphasized the need for Hanoi to improve its rights record to deepen bilateral ties, it is time Washington dispensed with vaulted rhetoric and predicated future…
Baku court bars press and family from Khadija Ismayilova trial
New York, August 7, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Azerbaijani authorities to ensure due process in the trial against award-winning investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova. When Ismayilova appeared at Baku Court on Grave Crimes for the first substantive hearing in her case today, journalists, international observers, and the reporter’s family were barred from entering…
An international call for China to release ailing journalist Gao Yu
With the health of jailed journalists Gao Yu fading quickly (see ‘I don’t want to die here’: Gao Yu’s health deteriorates in Beijing prison), 15 media support and human rights groups sent a letter today to Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials calling for the 71-year-old reporter’s unconditional release. Gao suffers from heart disease,…
In times of war, Pentagon reserves right to treat journalists like spies
The Pentagon has produced its first Department of Defense-wide Law of War Manual and the results are not encouraging for journalists who, the documents state, may be treated as “unprivileged belligerents.” But the manual’s justification for categorizing journalists this way is not based on any specific case, law or treaty. Instead, the relevant passages have…