Security

146 results arranged by date

Associated Press Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carrol, left, speaks during the funeral of Anja Niedringhaus in Hoexter, Germany, on April 12, 2014. (AP/Frank Augstein)

An Afghan conviction, but little sense of victory

Naqibullah, the Afghan police commander who killed The Associated Press’ Anja Niedringhaus, has been given a death sentence after being convicted of murder and treason. He was also given a four- year sentence for shooting the AP’s Kathy Gannon. Naqibullah (who goes by one name, as many Afghans do) opened fire at near-point-blank range on…

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At the UN, let’s talk about journalist murders in plain language

The U.N. Human Rights Council was established in 2006 as a replacement for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which folded in the face of criticism that it gave a platform to many states with poor human rights records. Only time will tell if the U.N. Human Rights Council will be any better. Nevertheless, this…

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Update: Journalists can still safely use TrueCrypt

Journalists who use the popular encryption tool TrueCrypt can relax. There is no evidence of any new or dangerous vulnerability in TrueCrypt, despite a recent scare over its integrity.

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A supporter of Raila Odinga, a presidential candidate who was defeated last week by Uhura Kenyatta. (AFP/Jennifer Huxta)

In tense climate, Kenyan press can draw on solidarity

Amid a tense presidential election, Kenyans have avoided a repeat of the deadly violence that followed the vote in 2007, when half a million people were uprooted and more than 1,000 people were killed. Still, the situation today is fraught. Ethnic identity dominates the nation’s political divisions–and those same loyalties can undermine solidarity in the…

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An image grab from a YouTube video uploaded on December 18 allegedly shows NBC employees, from left to right, Aziz Akyavas, Richard Engel, and John Kooistra in captivity in Syria. (AFP/YouTube)

Do news blackouts help journalists held captive?

At any given time over the past two years, as wars raged in Libya and then Syria, and as other conflicts ground on in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, a number of journalists have been held captive by a diverse array of forces, from militants and rebels to criminals and paramilitaries. And at any given…

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Kenyan Prime Minister and presidential candidate Raila Odinga waves to supporters at a campaign rally in Mombasa on Sunday. (Reuters/Joseph Okanga)

As Kenya votes, journalists must take precautions

Election-related violence is a worry for journalists in many countries, but perhaps nowhere more so than Kenya, where presidential polls will be held March 4. In the aftermath of the nation’s last presidential elections in 2007, over one thousand people were killed in ethnic and political violence, live news broadcasts were banned, and the press…

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As Syria becomes riskier for both staff and freelance journalists, news organizations are more reliant on images from citizen journalists. An example is this image showing devastation in Aleppo, which was taken by the Aleppo Media Center and transmitted by The Associated Press on Sunday. (AP/Aleppo Media Center)

In Syria, the quandary of freelance news coverage

Forces on all sides of the Syrian conflict that have tried to censor news coverage through violence have won a round. By sharply increasing the risk for reporters covering the civil war they have forced news organizations to think twice before sending their staff to the battlefields. In a worrying development they even have led…

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An information void in Mali as journalists are obstructed

Three weeks after France’s military intervention in Mali, the war remains largely “without images and without facts,” as described by Jean-Paul Mari, special envoy for the newsweekly Le Nouvel Observateur. Although journalists have been allowed to follow French and Malian forces into the towns that have been recovered from armed Islamist groups, the real battlefields…

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A Syrian pilot shot down and taken prisoner is interviewed by Al-Jazeera on October 17. (YouTube)

Humanitarian law, ethics, and journalism in Syria

A small number of journalists reporting from Syria have recently interviewed prisoners of war under highly coercive circumstances. In doing so, they have ignored the protections that are due to prisoners under international humanitarian law, or IHL.

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Soldiers with the Malian army speak to journalists. (Reuters/Joe Penney)

In Mali, a war ‘without images and without facts’

The French army is often called la Grande Muette, or “the Great Silent.” The war in Mali confirms the French military’s well-deserved reputation of being secretive about front-line actions. “Locking the information is more in the culture of the French army than of the U.S. army,” says Maurice Botbol, director of La Lettre du Continent.…

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