Egypt’s state of emergency may act to further silence press
Hours after two bombs ripped through packed Palm Sunday services in Coptic Churches in Alexandria and Tanta on April 9, killing nearly 50 people, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced a three-month state of emergency. The measure is in many ways an extension of what has already been in place in parts of the Sinai…
French outlets Mediapart, Le Canard enchaîné receive threatening letters
New York, April 7, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned threats made against the Paris-based investigative news website Mediapart and satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné (The Chained Duck), and called on French authorities to promptly bring the perpetrators to justice.
In Brazil, attacker fires at political blogger’s car
Political blogger Márcio Prado was at his home in Rio Grande da Serra, one of the municipalities that ring Brazil’s biggest city São Paulo, in the early hours of April 1, 2017, when he heard gunshots, he told CPJ in a telephone interview. The blogger said he went downstairs to see what was going on…
Colombian columnist threatened at gunpoint after reporting on corruption
On March 23, 2017, a man arrived at the home of Colombian columnist, anticorruption activist, and law student Daniel Silva Orrego, threatened him with a gun, and told him to stop his investigations into corruption, according to the journalist and news reports.
Libyan TV channel attacked, burned
New York, March 17, 2017–Armed men attacked the Tripoli office of the Libyan TV channel Al-Nabaa and set the building on fire, according to journalists for the station, news reports, and the Libyan Center for Freedom of the Press, an advocacy group. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities in Tripoli to investigate…
Brazilian reporter’s car set on fire
Someone set veteran Brazilian political reporter Rodrigo Lima’s car on fire outside his office at the daily newspaper Diario da Região on March 3, 2017, according to the journalist, witnesses, and video of the incident. The reporter, who has worked at the newspaper for 17 years, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he believed…
Russian security services detain journalists in border city, order them to leave
New York, March 7, 2017–Russian security services should stop harassing and obstructing journalists and should allow them to work unimpeded, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security services have detained at least three journalists who had traveled to report from the northwestern city of Svetogorsk, on Russia’s border with Finland, in the past two…