State Secrets

25 results arranged by date

French investigative journalist Ariane Lavrilleux

French intelligence agents search home, detain journalist Ariane Lavrilleux over leaks investigation

Berlin, September 20, 2023—France’s domestic intelligence agency should immediately release freelance journalist Ariane Lavrilleux from custody, drop all criminal investigations against her, and refrain from questioning her about her sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, September 19, police officers with the General Directorate for Internal Security, accompanied by an investigating…

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Chinese journalist Huang Qi is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on January 22, 2015. Today, Huang was sentenced to 12 years in prison. (AFP/Fred Dufour)

Chinese court sentences journalist Huang Qi to 12 years in prison

Taipei, July 29, 2019 — The Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court today sentenced Huang Qi, publisher of the human rights news website 64 Tianwang, to 12 years in prison on charges of “deliberately leaking state secrets,” and “illegally providing state secrets to foreign countries,” according to a statement published on the court’s website.

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Turkish High Court denies journalist’s petition for release from pretrial detention

Istanbul, May 18, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a decision made Tuesday by Turkey’s Constitutional Court to reject a petition for release by journalist Mehmet Baransu, who has been held in pretrial detention since March 2015 on charges of obtaining classified documents.

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Can Dündar (right), editor of Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gül, speak to reporters before their May 6, 2016, sentencing hearing in Istanbul. (Özgür Öğret)

Prison sentences for leading Turkish journalists

New York, May 6, 2016 – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Turkish court’s sentencing today of two journalists for the opposition daily Cumhuriyet.

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A screenshot from an online video feed of Turkey's NTV television station shows police detaining the man suspected of attempting to shoot Cumhuriyet journalist Can Dündar outside his trial in Istanbul, May 6, 2016.

Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 1

Leading Turkish journalists sentenced to five years in prisonThe Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Turkish court’s sentencing today of two journalists for the opposition daily Cumhuriyet.

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Can Dündar, left, and Erdem Gül speak to reporters before standing trial in Istanbul, March 25, 2016. (AP)

Turkish judge rules trial for journalists facing life sentences to be closed to public

Istanbul, March 25, 2016 – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Istanbul court’s decision to bar the public from the trial of Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, journalists for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet. Representatives from CPJ and other press freedom groups attended the first session of the trial today.

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CPJ examines press freedom under Obama

Upcoming report looks at leak investigations and surveillanceNew York, September 30, 2013– The Committee to Protect Journalists will release its first comprehensive report on press freedom conditions in the United States. Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor and now the Weil Family Professor of Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication,…

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In NSA surveillance debate, tech firms urge transparency

Some of the Internet companies at the heart of the outcry over U.S. government surveillance today joined with human rights and press freedom groups, including CPJ, in calling for greater government disclosure of electronic communications monitoring.

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In a Hong Kong mall, a television monitor shows Snowden. (Reuters/Bobby Yip)

Snowden travels trace a path of government hypocrisy

Edward Snowden’s global travels have highlighted the chasm between the political posturing and actual practices of governments when it comes to free expression. As is well known now, the former government contractor’s leaks exposed the widespread phone and digital surveillance being conducted by the U.S. National Security Agency, practices at odds with the Obama administration’s…

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A protest against pending state secrets legislation in South Africa. (Chris Yelland)

Mission Journal: Secrets bill spurs South African press

Irrespective of whether South Africa actually implements the most draconian parts of state secrets legislation now under consideration, the media in the continent’s most open democracy already feel under threat. The prospect of 25-year jail sentences for journalists publishing “classified” information has galvanized disparate news outlets and journalists groups to work together like never before. 

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