Khashoggi portrait
An image of slain reporter Jamal Khashoggi is displayed as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at an event marking 100 days since his death in Washington on January 10, 2019. (AP/Andrew Harnik)
The Torch

CPJ appeals ruling to find out whether US government failed to warn Khashoggi

The Torch is a weekly newsletter from the Committee to Protect Journalists that brings you the latest press freedom and journalist safety news from around the world. Subscribe here.

In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, CPJ argued that the U.S. intelligence community should confirm or deny the existence of documents that may provide information on its awareness of threats to the life of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Watch yesterday’s Q&A with CPJ’s Washington Advocacy Manager Michael De Dora on the case.

Yesterday, CPJ alongside 59 partners launched the #HoldTheLine campaign in support of journalists Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr., and other independent media under attack in the Philippines. Last month, Ressa and Santos were convicted of cyber-libel, a criminal charge for which they face up to six years in prison. Sign and share the petition to help #HoldTheLine and call for authorities to drop all charges and cases against Ressa, Santos, and Rappler, and read about how the journalists’ conviction didn’t take into account the public interest in this column by CPJ’s Executive Director Joel Simon.

This week, CPJ published a Q&A with Martin G. Reynolds, co-executive director of the California-based Maynard Institute, about the challenges facing Black journalists in the U.S and ways the media can encourage diversity.

Global press freedom updates

  • On Monday, a Russian court convicted and fined journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva in a terrorism trial. Separately, journalist Ivan Safronov was charged with treason, and several  journalists were arrested at protests for his release
  • Unidentified attackers shoot and kill two journalists in Honduras
  • Three photographers arrested while covering protests in Medellín, Colombia
  • Journalists detained in Morocco following CPJ’s call for authorities to stop harassing Omar Radi
  • Malaysian editor charged with contempt of court over reader comments
  • Cuban journalist Jorge Enrique Rodríguez detained amid protests, awaiting trial
  • Bulgarian investigative journalist receives threatening calls
  • CPJ sends letter to U.S. Agency for Global Media encouraging unbiased coverage
  • Kurdish Iraqi security forces arrest freelance photojournalist Qaraman Shukri
  • Kazakhstan decriminalizes defamation, but maintains detentions, criminal penalties for speech offenses
  • In Ghana, private individuals threaten one journalist, police harass two others
  • Mozambican journalist Omardine Omar convicted of civil disobedience, fined

Spotlight





The One Free Press list this month includes 13 journalists from around the world under threat for their reporting.

Each month, the One Free Press Coalition, in partnership with CPJ and the International Women’s Media Foundation, shares a list of journalists facing urgent threats, from imprisonment to physical harm, to those murdered with impunity.

Journalists featured this month include Azimjon Askarov, who has been imprisoned for a decade in Kyrgyzstan; Egyptian journalist Solafa Magdy, imprisoned in Egypt; and Cameroonian reporter Samuel Wazizi, who died last year in military custody. Find the full list here.

What we are reading

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