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Popular broadcaster Geo News was forced off the air in Pakistan hours before Prime Minister Imran Khan began his official visit to the United States. Earlier this month, Pakistan’s media regulator blocked broadcasts from at least three news outlets that aired speeches by an opposition leader. CPJ’s Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post about Pakistan’s crackdown on the press, which he says is “getting worse by the day.”
In Syria, the family of Alaa Nayef al-Khader al-Khalidi, a freelance photojournalist also known as Wissam al-Dimashqi, was told by a prison official that the journalist had died under torture in Sednaya Military Prison.
Global press freedom updates
- Gambian ex-President Jammeh ordered editor Deyda Hydara’s murder in 2004, truth commission told
- Espionage trial to begin for former Radio Free Asia reporters in Cambodia
- In Mexico, attackers steal investigative reporter Lydia Cacho’s equipment and reporting information, and kill her dogs
- In a Q&A with CPJ, a broadcast reporter talks about the climate for journalists in Puerto Rico amid protests calling for the governor’s resignation
- Killing of a radio journalist highlights dangers for local reporters in Colombia’s border region
- Haitian journalist Kendi Zidor survives shooting attempt
- Ingushetia court orders journalist Rashid Maysigov to remain in pre-trial detention for two months
- Kazakhstan government-backed security certificate raises censorship, surveillance concerns
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