Pegasus

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 10 other civil society organizations in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday calling for the safeguarding of encryption from NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to prevent the surveillance of journalists and other human rights defenders.  In the brief, which was led by…

Mexico City, May 8, 2026—El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s administration must immediately unfreeze the bank accounts and property of El Faro’s shareholders and end its use of the country’s Ministry of Finance as a tool for harassment of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Between February and April 2026, the Salvadoran government…

The Committee to Protect Journalists, together with partners Access Now, Data Rights, and Human Constanta, filed an amicus brief on April 21 to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the use of spyware to silence journalists, activists, and human rights defenders. The brief was filed in support of a group of cases involving the secret surveillance…

Ahead of Hungary’s parliamentary elections on April 12, the Committee to Protect Journalists is calling on all political parties to commit to restoring press freedom, starting with 10 priority issues.  Hungary’s media landscape has declined severely in the last 16 years under the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. His ruling Fidesz party — which faces…

Berlin, April 1, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Hungarian authorities to immediately drop all espionage charges against investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, and ensure that journalists can cover national security issues without intimidation or threats of imprisonment. On March 26, Gergely Gulyás, chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, announced that the government had filed criminal charges against…

Angolan journalist and lawyer Teixeira Cândido wants to know who targeted him with spyware, and he wants justice. “First and foremost, we must seek to find out who the entities are that have acquired these spyware tools,” Cândido told CPJ, as findings published by Amnesty International’s Security Lab show that a malicious link sent in…

The Committee to Protect Journalists and partner organizations expressed strong support on Thursday for independent journalists in Hungary and highlighted the country’s escalating media freedom crisis following a one-day mission to Budapest on October 22. In meetings with journalists, media representatives, legal experts, and civil society, the delegation heard concerns about a severely restricted media…

What journalists called a “witch hunt” atmosphere against government critics in Serbia one year ago has since escalated into a rise in attacks and threats against the press, following a deadly railway station collapse in November 2024 that triggered a widespread anti-corruption movement. Initial protests demanding accountability for the tragedy have turned into a widespread…

New York, May 30, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by a Thursday report by rights group Access Now and research organization Citizen Lab alleging that Pegasus spyware was used to surveil at least five journalists. The report, “Exiled, then spied on: Civil society in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland targeted with Pegasus spyware,”…

Beirut, February 1, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists is highly alarmed by the targeting of journalists with Pegasus spyware in Jordan and repeats its calls for an immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer, and use of such surveillance technologies, as well as a ban on spyware and its vendors that facilitate human rights…