Imprisoned

CPJ has joined 41 other rights groups urging Moroccan authorities to immediately release journalist Taoufik Bouachrine, former editor-in-chief of local independent newspaper Akhbar al-Youm, on the fifth anniversary of his arrest in 2018. Bouachrine is serving a 15-year prison sentence on sexual assault charges that were brought in retaliation for his reporting. The joint statement…

Istanbul, February 21, 2023 – Turkish authorities must stop charging members of the press with terrorism and release all jailed journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On February 8, the Ankara chief prosecutor’s office indicted 10 Kurdish journalists, nine of whom have been under pretrial arrest since late October, on the charge of…

Paris, February 21, 2023–In response to news reports that Belarusian authorities sentenced journalist Yury Hladchuk to 2.5 years in prison in December, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: “The opacity around the trial and sentencing of Belarusian journalist Yury Hladchuk shows that the Belarusian authorities continue to target journalists in the shadows,…

Nedim Türfent knows why he spent six and a half years of his life behind bars as a convicted terrorist in Turkey. The court that sentenced him explained the verdict in official documents: Because he writes “exaggerated and disturbing news stories” about the state.   After his prison term ended in November 2022, “It was…

Five months after the death of a young woman in morality police custody sparked widespread protests, Iranian authorities are charging journalists who covered the uprising with anti-state crimes. In many of these cases, authorities have powerful tools at their disposal to aid in convictions: journalists’ phones and laptops. CPJ counted at least 95 journalists arrested since the start of the protests….

Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro was on the verge of sleep in his Nicaraguan jail cell when he was issued civilian clothes, taken to the airport, and told to sign a handwritten document agreeing to be deported to the United States.  Holmann, the publisher of La Prensa, Nicaragua’s oldest newspaper, had been incarcerated since August 2021….

Miguel Ángel Mendoza Urbina, a veteran sports journalist with over 30 years of experience, made a life-changing decision on April 19, 2018, when anti-government protests erupted in Nicaragua. He realized he could not just focus on sports while his country was in turmoil. Mendoza used his Twitter and Facebook accounts, with a combined following of…

Stockholm, February 15, 2023 – Azerbaijani authorities should release photojournalist Vali Shukurzade and ensure that members of the press do not face trumped-up charges in retaliation for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On the evening of February 4, in the Yasamal district of Baku, the capital, police detained Shukurzade, a freelance…

Paris, February 15, 2023 – In response to news reports that a Russian court on Wednesday sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement of condemnation: “Russian authorities should be ashamed of the six-year prison sentence given to journalist Maria Ponomarenko, whose sole so-called crime…

When Hong Kong journalist Matthew Leung covered a small protest in the northern English city of Manchester last October, little did he know it would become one of the biggest stories in his career—and unleash a diplomatic storm between China and Britain. His photographs, showing a group of men beating a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester…