Hong Kong’s accelerating media freedom decline
As a former resident of the Special Administrative Region, the classification given Hong Kong when it reverted to China’s control in 1997, I’ve always watched the media there with the appreciative eye of a news consumer. The concept of “One Country, Two Systems,” put forward to explain how the former British colony’s capitalist economy and…
Release Swedish journalists immediately
New York, July 7, 2011–Following Ethiopian state television’s broadcast of a clip presenting jailed and injured Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye as accomplices to terrorists, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ethiopia to immediately release the two journalists.
Ethiopia detains two Swedish journalists
New York, July 5, 2011–Two Swedish journalists reporting on the activities of armed separatists operating in an oil-rich province of eastern Ethiopia have been detained without charge since Thursday in the Horn of Africa nation, according to news reports and government officials.Ethiopian security forces arrested photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye, contributors to the Sweden-based agency Kontinent,…
Belarus police detain and beat a dozen reporters
New York, June 30, 2011–In a new crackdown against the independent press, Belarusian police briefly detained and beat more than a dozen reporters, and broke their equipment at a Wednesday protest rally in Minsk and Brest, according to news reports and CPJ sources in Belarus.
Beketov back on his feet, and a long road awaits
Mikhail Beketov can walk now–using an artificial leg and propping himself on crutches. He’s moving around his house in the Moscow suburb of Khimki. It was here, in his front yard, where the newspaper editor was attacked two years and seven months ago. It was in this yard where assailants left him for dead. The…
A legal attack accompanies assault on Pakistani journalists
Concerned that so many Pakistani journalists have been threatened, abducted, killed, or beaten recently? So are they. When I was in Karachi and Islamabad in late April and early May, I found that they are starting to take steps to protect themselves with increased safety training and protective gear at the larger media houses that…
Mission Journal: Politics influence justice in Senegal
Senegalese journalists say justice is not on their side when they are victims of abuse by powerful officials or security forces. I met recently in Dakar with journalists targeted with criminal acts in apparent reprisal for their work. In these two high-profile cases, CPJ has found evidence of political influence on the judiciary.
Photojournalist shot in Northern Ireland sectarian violence
New York, June 23, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ulster authorities to investigate the shooting of photographer Niall Carson and ensure the safety of journalists covering sectarian violence in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.
