CPJ, partners warn of Turkey’s compromised institutions in press freedom mission
Turkey’s press freedom situation is continuing to deteriorate as judicial independence shrinks and the government’s grasp on the internet tightens, a delegation featuring the Committee to Protect Journalists and 10 other international press freedom and human rights organizations said in a statement and a press conference today. From October 6-9, 2020, the delegation met with…
Australia’s Northern Territory denies news website NT Independent access to government events
New York, October 8, 2020 — The Australian Northern Territory government should immediately grant the NT Independent news website equal access to government events and conferences, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Northern Territory government has refused to allow the NT Independent, which covers politics and local news in the territory, access to…
Germany revisits influential internet law as amendment raises privacy implications
On October 1, a new law to regulate content posted on social media platforms took effect in Turkey, The Guardian reported. Turkish journalists already face censorship and arrest because of social media posts, CPJ has found, and the law offers just one more tool to censor news. Yet the legislation was not solely conceived in Ankara; it follows the example of one…
Mapping Venezuela’s shrinking radio landscape
Mapping Venezuela’s shrinking radio landscape Venezuelans navigate an information desert amid COVID-19, humanitarian & political crises By CPJ Central & South America staff and Coral Negrón, CPJ Patti Birch Fellow for Data Journalism As the COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly around the world, few countries were already in such a state of humanitarian crisis as Venezuela….
CPJ joins call for California attorney general to investigate technology used in Belarus censorship
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined free expression and digital rights groups on September 23 in calling on Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, to investigate technology sales by Sandvine Inc. after the company acknowledged that its products were being used to block news and other websites amid anti-government protests in Belarus. The call, co-signed by…
Crimean Tatar civic journalists risk persecution to cover their community in Russian-annexed Crimea
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, some Crimean Tatars–the indigenous population of the Crimean peninsula–had to flee for the Kyiv-controlled part of Ukraine. But most have chosen to remain. As the Russian-appointed new authorities established blanket censorship, squeezing out independent media outlets, a new phenomenon emerged–civic journalism. Members of the Crimean Tatar community–who had not…
Authorities block local news websites amid Belarus protests
Vilnius, Lithuania, September 14, 2020 – Authorities threatened last week to censor another major domestic news website in Belarus, where dozens remain blocked amid nationwide protests, local journalists told CPJ. On September 9, the Ministry of Information warned Tut.by, one of the most popular independent news websites in the country, that its reporting on a…
Turkish courts play whack-a-mole with independent news outlets
In March, 2020, Turkey’s Constitutional Court issued an unexpected decision, overruling a local court that blocked a news website in 2015, according to news reports. But the editor who filed the appeal with the court remains unhappy, he told CPJ via WhatsApp, because the original website remains inaccessible in Turkey — along with the 62 replacements…
Iran shuts down economic newspaper over COVID-19 reporting
Washington, D.C., August 10, 2020 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Iranian authorities’ to reverse their decision to shut down the Tehran-based economic daily Jahane Sanat. The Press Supervisory Board of Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance revoked the operating license of Jahane Sanat for publishing an interview with a member of Iran’s National Coronavirus…
Freelancer Vladimir Sevrinovsky on covering COVID-19 in the North Caucasus: ‘The main misinformation I fight is from the state’
Vladimir Sevrinovsky is a Moscow-based freelance journalist and documentary photographer who has covered social and cultural issues in Russia for independent news site Meduza, independent weekly Russkii Reporter, and Kavkaz.Realii, a regional service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others. Sevrinovsky’s most recent assignment was to report from Russia’s North Caucasus…