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.
After the disturbing killings of three Mexican journalists in less than two weeks, journalists in nearly 40 locations around Mexico took to the streets Tuesday night to demand the federal government do more to ensure security for reporters under threat and to end impunity in cases of murdered journalists.
The three Mexican journalists killed this month, Lourdes Maldonado López and Alfonso Margarito Martínez Esquivel, both shot dead in Tijuana this week, and José Luis Gamboa, who was stabbed to death in Veracruz earlier this month, underscore the country’s position as one of the world’s deadliest for media workers.
“The ongoing brutality against the journalists in this country is a direct consequence of the authorities’ unwillingness and inability to combat the festering impunity that fuels these killings,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative.Watch CPJ’s latest video documenting some of the powerful images from the protests this week and learn more about what is at stake in Mexico.
- Pakistani journalist Hasnain Shah shot and killed outside Lahore Press Club
- Kazakhstan authorities question and jail journalists in protest aftermath. Also, Kazakh authorities detain five suspects in attack on journalist Amangeldy Batyrbekov. A local journalist covering the country’s mass protests told Nick Lewis, CPJ’s Central Asia correspondent, that “nothing like this ever happened here before.”
- Queer Iranian journalist Maryam Abasian spoke to CPJ about how authorities questioned her sexuality and reporting, and her subsequent decision to flee the country
- Myanmar junta arrests three employees of Dawei Watch news website
- Soldiers briefly hold two journalists reporting on run-up to Burkina Faso coup
- Turkish journalist Sedef Kabaş arrested for ‘insulting’ President Erdoğan
- Kyrgyzstan journalist Bolot Temirov says police planted drugs on him during raid
- CPJ monitoring Yemen ‘with concern’ after Saudi airstrikes kill dozens and shut down internet
- Greek journalists summoned over criminal investigation into corruption reporting
- Cape Verde journalist Hermínio Silves summoned over reporting on alleged police abuses
- CPJ cautiously welcomes UK court decision on Assange, says U.S. must drop charges
Spotlight
A new investigation by A Safer World For The Truth into the attack on Central African Republic journalist Elisabeth Blanche Olofio reveals how local journalists who report in conflict zones are vulnerable to brutal and sometimes lethal violence, and how such attacks are rarely investigated.
“Telling the Story: Remembering Elisabeth Blanche Olofio” is the third in a series of investigations as part of the A Safer World For The Truth, a project lead by CPJ, Free Press Unlimited and Reporters Without Borders. The project investigates cold cases of journalists killed globally and holds governments accountable through the People’s Tribunal on the Murder of Journalists.
Read the most recent report here.
CPJ’s Emergencies Director Lucy Westcott will join a panel discussion on February 2, called “Center for Media at Risk roundtable: The Taliban takeover and the future of Afghan media,” which will discuss efforts to support journalists in the country following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops in August, and what comes next. RSVP here.
What we are reading (and watching)
- He fought for democracy and ended up in exile in Toronto. Now, friends of an Eritrean journalist who died from COVID-19 want to honour him — Nicholas Keung, Toronto Star
- A Hong Kong journalist’s ‘survivor’s guilt’ amid media clampdown — William Yang, Deutsche Welle
- ‘I will not leave my family to die here’: A photojournalist in Yemen’s Marib — Nabil Alawzari, The New Humanitarian
A closer look | CPJ’s most-read features in January
- Journalists at the Beijing Winter Olympics may test China’s tolerance for critical coverage — Steven Butler, CPJ Asia program coordinator
- Exiled Bangladeshi journalist Kanak Sarwar says sister’s detention won’t silence him — Sonali Dhawan, CPJ Asia researcher
- How social media regulation could affect the press — Alicia Ceccanese, CPJ global technology researcher
- Why the UN’s push for a cybercrime treaty could imperil journalists simply for using the internet — Madeline Earp, CPJ consultant technology editor
- ‘The infections were constant:’ Julia Gavarrete among dozens of Salvadoran journalists targeted with Pegasus spyware — Dánae Vílchez, CPJ Central America correspondent
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