2016
By now, Afghan authorities should know media are not the enemy
Several journalists in Kabul–the exact number is unclear–were beaten, harassed, and kept from working by security forces when they rushed to cover a suicide bombing on Monday that killed 14 people and wounded more than eight. In an email message, the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC), an organization with which we work closely, said when…
Reporters Without Borders representative, two others jailed in Turkey
New York, June 20, 2016–Authorities should immediately release and drop all charges against two human rights defenders and a journalist arrested in Istanbul, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A court in Istanbul today ordered Erol Önderoğlu, the Turkey representative of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and two other people arrested…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of June 19
Court indicts TV journalist on terrorism charges for tweets The Bakırköy Second Court of Serious Crimes in Istanbul indicted Hamza Aktan, news editor at the pro-Kurdish television station IMC TV, on charges of “making propaganda for a [terrorist] organization” in connection with nine posts he made to Twitter from 2015 through January 2016, IMC TV…
Syrian journalists critically injured in bomb attack on home
New York, June 17, 2016 – Independent Syrian journalist Hadi Abdullah and cameraman Khaled Eissa were wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED) that destroyed their house in the Syrian city of Aleppo late Thursday night, according to media reports. Eissa is reported to be in critical condition.
Two Chinese writers sentenced for ‘subversion’
New York, June 16, 2016 – Chinese authorities should release Lü Gengsong and Chen Shuqing and drop all charges against them stemming from their writing, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The two were individually sentenced to more than a decade in prison on “subversion” charges today, according to press reports.
Bolivian officials threaten journalists with jail
Bogotá, June 16, 2016 – Enraged over press coverage of a government influence-peddling scandal that helped crush President Evo Morales’s reelection hopes, high-ranking Bolivian officials are lashing out at the country’s independent media and demanding that journalists be sent to prison.
Journalist Jay Torres murdered in Garland, Texas
New York, June 16, 2016–The Committee to Protect journalists is alarmed by the killing of Texas journalist Jacinto Hernández Torres, whose body was found on Monday night in Garland, a northeast suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. The journalist, who went by the name Jay Torres, was a freelance contributor for nearly 20 years…
Bangladesh arrests suspect in attack on publisher, jails second publisher
New York, June 16, 2016 — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes reports of the arrest of a suspected member of a banned Islamist group accused of participating in an October 2015 attack on a publishing house. The arrest of Mohammed Sumon Hossain came amid a broader sweep of thousands of suspected criminals across Bangladesh,…
World Refugee Day: Fear of arrest drives journalists into exile
In August 2014 two journalists living more than 4,000 miles apart slipped across a border to find safety: one with his wife and three children, the other alone. Idrak Abbasov, from Azerbaijan, and Sanna Camara, from Gambia, faced imprisonment because of their reporting. Neither has been able to return home.
Sri Lankan journalist Freddy Gamage back in hospital, still under threat
Back on June 3, we called for “a thorough investigation into an attack” on Freddy Gamage, a muckraking editor and blogger for Meepura.com (and in Sinhala). At the time, the government promised on its official website that it “would never again allow media suppression, which prevailed during the past, to reoccur.” Prime Mister Ranil Wickremesinghe…