Attacked

Today, Pakistan’s most watched news channel, Geo News, was ordered off the air and fined by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). Earlier this week, CPJ documented an attack on Zafar Aheer, an editor of the Urdu-language Daily Jang, by six masked men–the latest in a series of attacks, threats, and acts of intimidation…

New York, June 6, 2014–A local newsroom was burned down on Thursday in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine and a telecommunication company stopped broadcasting content from six Ukrainian TV channels, citing threats, according to news reports and press freedom groups. In both cases, separatists with the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) were believed to be…

New York, June 3, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by today’s reports that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Parliament called CNN journalist Ivan Watson a “flunky” and said the foreign press was “literally executing their duties as agents” in connection with the coverage of protests in Istanbul. The move follows the…

New York, June 3, 2014–Pakistani authorities should conduct an efficient investigation into an attack on an editor of a local daily and ensure the assailants are held to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The struggle between Nigerian authorities and militant extremist group Boko Haram was recently thrust into the global spotlight with the abduction of nearly 300 schoolgirls, but journalists in the country have been squeezed between the two sides for years.

New York, May 27, 2014–On Saturday, Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian interpreter and fixer, Andrei Mironov, were killed in mortar fire outside the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to regional and international press reports. A French photojournalist, William Roguelon, was also wounded in the attack, reports said. 

In the stairwell between the newsroom and studios of Nalia Radio and Television (NRT) stand a charred monitor, a burnt vision mixer, and smashed camera lens. They make up a display of equipment damaged when armed men set fire to the station in Sulaymaniyah, a city in eastern Iraqi Kurdistan which is home to much…

At least four journalists were assaulted on May 18, 2014, outside the house of a high-ranking party leader in Tamil Nadu.

Bangkok, May 20, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns military censorship of the media, including the forced broadcasting of martial law orders and announcements, in Thailand. 

One of the strongest memories I have of meeting President Masoud Barzani is the winding drive up to his mountain-top headquarters in the town of Salahuddin outside Erbil. That was in 2008, when a CPJ delegation secured a pledge from the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to “create an atmosphere that is conducive…