The Torch

On December 30, exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar revealed that he had been added to the so-called terrorist “gray list,” a database published by the Turkish Interior Ministry that identifies alleged terrorists and offers rewards for their capture. Dündar, who reported on alleged weapon smuggling from Turkey to Syria in 2014, received CPJ’s 2016 International…

In 2022, press freedom was under near constant attack. CPJ recorded the highest number of journalists imprisoned globally for their work in 30 years, with 363 imprisoned as of December 1, 2022. Iranian authorities’ arrests of dozens of journalists amid a brutal crackdown on anti-state protests made it the world’s worst jailer of the press….

In a new feature published this week, CPJ’s Consultant Technology Editor Madeline Earp explains how forensic tools open a new front for using phone data to prosecute journalists. A law enforcement agent scrolling through a journalist’s unlocked phone is already a problematic scenario for press freedom. This risk is supercharged by technology that can copy…

The number of journalists jailed around the world set yet another record this year, with 363 imprisoned as of December 1, 2022, according to CPJ’s 2022 prison census. This is the highest number CPJ has recorded in the 30-year history of the census, overtaking last year’s record by 20%. The notable increase, led by a…

Today, CPJ and 20 other human rights organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration to call for the U.S. Department of Justice to drop its criminal and extradition proceedings against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. CPJ has been urging the U.S. not to…

Foreign journalists have been detained and beaten while covering demonstrations in China against the government’s stringent COVID-19 policies, which have been blamed for interfering with firefighters’ efforts to rescue victims of a deadly apartment building fire. On November 27, Shanghai police assaulted Edward Lawrence, a journalist for British public broadcaster BBC, while he was covering…

While this newsletter usually spotlights cases of journalists under attack globally, we wanted to take this week, ahead of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving, to reflect on what we have been grateful for this past year. Journalists have inspired us continuously throughout 2022, governments have taken steps to protect press freedom, and justice has finally…

Tonight, the Committee to Protect Journalists will honor five remarkable journalists from around the world at CPJ’s 2022 International Press Freedom Awards dinner. This year’s awardees include Cuban freelance journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa who was strip-searched and handcuffed, interrogated for five hours, and both he and his family threatened over his writings in October 2020….

Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27)—which began in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday, November 6—CPJ joined more than 60 civil society organizations in a letter calling Egyptian authorities to immediately release British-Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abdelfattah, who announced an escalation of his hunger strike in prison, “and all those arrested and…

No one has been held to account for nearly 80% of journalist murders during the last 10 years, CPJ’s 2022 Global Impunity Index found, and governments show little interest in tackling the issue. Somalia remains the worst offender on the index for the eighth straight year. Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, respectively, round out…