Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of March 15, 2018
Supreme Court says Can Dündar should face retrial Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals on March 9 ruled that Can Dündar, former chief editor of the daily, Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gül, the paper’s Ankara representative, should face a retrial on charges of “obtaining secret information with means of espionage,” Euronews reported.
CPJ joins call for Kyrgyzstan to end restrictive media practices
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined a coalition of 28 other international press freedom organizations to call on Kyrgyz authorities to drop defamation lawsuits and to end the practice of using disproportionate fines, travel bans and other harsh penalties to punish critical media outlets and journalists.
Mission Journal: In Poland, some journalists fear worst is yet to come
Entering the historic site of the Gdansk shipyard, one cannot miss the wooden boards hanging over the famous gate No. 2. Handwritten in 1980, they display the list of demands of the strikers led by Lech Walesa, the founder of Solidarity, the independent trade union movement that pushed for social change in communist Poland. Number…
Equatorial Guinea releases from prison journalist Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé
New York, March 7, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today welcomed news that Equatoguinean cartoonist and blogger Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé is free from prison after serving more than five months in a Malabo jail on false charges of money laundering and counterfeiting.
Nigerian journalist Tony Ezimakor released; colleague remains behind bars
New York, March 6, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed the release today of Tony Ezimakor, Abuja bureau chief of the privately owned Daily Independent newspaper, who was held by Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) since February 28. Ezimakor was released unconditionally from DSS custody in Abuja around 10:30 p.m. local time, according to…
CPJ welcomes call for EU directive against SLAPPs
Brussels, February 22, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today welcomed a call from members of the European Parliament on Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans to introduce a new European Union directive to stop abusive lawsuits against critical journalists.
CPJ calls on Ethiopia to drop case against Zone 9 blogger
Nairobi, February 16, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Ethiopian authorities to drop an incitement charge against Zone 9 blogger Atnafu Berhane. Prosecutors told a court on February 14 they planned to drop the charge today, but the process was delayed by a paperwork error, Atnafu told CPJ. He added that a judge…
Bangladesh’s press say they are losing the courage to report amid threats from all sides
Nazmul Huda pointed his TV camera at garment workers demonstrating for higher wages in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, and at the police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at them. It took a while for police to notice the ETV reporter, and they were furious. After all, they had ordered him to leave…
Venezuela’s anti-hate law provides Maduro with another tool to intimidate the press
In what journalists fear could be a taste of things to come, Venezuela’s new anti-hate law was enforced for the first time against a news organization on January 30, when Yndira Lugo, the editor of Diario Región, was called before government agents for questioning.