Hong Kong journalists try range of models to battle press freedom challenges
A new Chinese-language website pledging to provide Hong Kong with “independent, accurate and fair” news is the latest journalism venture to open in the city, in an attempt to counter increasing Chinese control of the media. Citizen News was launched January 1 by a group of journalists, including Kevin Lau Chun-to and Daisy Li Yuet-wah,…
In Egypt, censorship, an arrest, and court hearings for journalists
Restrictions against the press continue in Egypt, with ongoing trials of journalists, some of whom have been in detention for more than three years, allegations that a TV station was ordered to drop a planned broadcast of an interview with a former official, and a reporter detained while trying to cover a sensitive story. Egypt…
CPJ testifies on Turkey’s press freedom record after failed coup attempt
CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova today testified before the Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats Subcommittee of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, at the hearing, “Turkey after the July Coup Attempt.”
Remembering Pavel Sheremet, IPFA honoree, friend to CPJ, and hard-nosed journalist
Pavel Sheremet, who died yesterday when a bomb blew up the car he was driving in Kiev, was a CPJ International Press Freedom awardee in 1998. At the awards ceremony in the glittery Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that November, Sheremet was a no show.
Kyrgyzstan must free jailed journalist Azimjon Askarov, UN committee says
In a milestone decision announced today in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Committee called on Kyrgyzstan to immediately release Azimjon Askarov, a journalist sentenced to life in prison in September 2010. The U.N. body issued its decision after reviewing a complaint filed in November 2012 by Askarov’s lawyer, Nurbek Toktakunov, and a team of experts…
Amid rising violence in Brazil, convictions in journalists’ murders are cause for optimism
Justice delayed is justice denied, goes the legal maxim, and that has all too often been the case in Latin America. But the perseverance of lawyers and prosecutors in Brazil has resulted in a number of recent convictions in cases many thought had been buried or forgotten.
For journalists fleeing Islamic State, Turkey ‘is as dangerous as Syria’
For the past two years, activists and journalists seeking refuge from Islamic State repression in Raqqa would take sanctuary across the border in southern Turkey, setting up safe houses and offices, and darting back to Syria regularly with camera equipment and other vital supplies. But that sanctuary is now under threat.
CPJ condemns murder of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently journalist
New York, December 16, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of Ahmed Mohamed al-Mousa, a member of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. Al-Mousa was killed today by a group of masked men in Idlib, Syria, according to the citizen journalist group, which CPJ honored last month with its 2015 International Press Freedom Award.
In Ethiopia, drawn out Zone 9 trial serves to further punish bloggers
On Friday the Zone 9 bloggers are due to appear in court in Ethiopia for the 39th time since their arrest in April 2014. Endalk Chala, a co-founder of the group which is being honored with an International Press Freedom Award from CPJ this year, provides an overview of the drawn out trial and finds…