Russia blocks two more Central Asian news outlets over Ukraine war coverage
Stockholm, September 18, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to lift blocks on independent Kyrgyz news website 24.kg and exiled Tajik outlet Payom and to stop censoring foreign media for covering Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Having already banned domestic media from reporting anything but state-sanctioned information, Russia’s censorship of international media outlets…
Cameroon governor bans The Post over military coup headline
Durban, September 15, 2023—Cameroonian authorities should immediately lift an indefinite ban against The Post newspaper in the Southwest Region and stop any retaliatory action against the privately owned media outlet and its staff, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On Tuesday, September 12, Southwest regional governor Bernard Okalia Bilai banned The Post until further…
Turkish courts keep 2 reporters in pretrial detention, grant bail to bodyguards charged with attack on a journalist
Istanbul, September 15, 2023—Turkish authorities should not continue imprisoning journalists for their reporting while granting bail to those charged with assaulting them, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On Thursday, September 14, the 2nd Tatvan Court of Penal Peace granted bail to Yücel Baysali and Engin Kaplan, two bodyguards of the mayor of the…
Indian journalist Debmalya Bagchi faces criminal investigation after reporting on illicit liquor dens
New Delhi, September 15, 2023—Authorities in the east Indian state of West Bengal should drop their investigation into journalist Debmalya Bagchi and stop harassing him simply for doing his job, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. On September 6, police arrested Bagchi, a correspondent for the privately owned newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP), after…
Apple warns Latvia-based journalists about possible hacker attacks
New York, September 15, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday issued an urgent call for authorities to investigate allegations that journalists working in Latvia were targeted by state-sponsored hackers. CPJ’s call follows reports on Thursday—a day after the disclosure that the phone of exiled Russian journalist Galina Timchenko had been infected by Pegasus spyware—that…
Venezuelan authorities detain, charge environmental journalist Luis Alejandro Acosta
Editor’s note: The Venezuela Press Workers Union posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 21, that government authorities placed journalist Luis Alejandro Acosta on probation with a 15-day reporting schedule, a ban on publishing information about his arrest, and the obligation to request permission to leave the country. Bogotá, September 14, 2023—Venezuelan authorities must immediately…
Somalia’s Radio Baraawe off air for weeks, director in hiding after shooting
Nairobi, September 14, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Thursday called on Somali authorities to credibly investigate an incident in which security personnel shot at Radio Baraawe and to create safe conditions for its journalists to return to work. On the evening of August 12, Radio Baraawe director Osman Aweys Bahar heard gunshots outside the…
‘Breathtakingly hard’: Iranian journalist Saeede Fathi on 2 months in Evin Prison
Saeede Fathabadi, who goes professionally by Saeede Fathi, was living in Vienna last year when she took a reporting trip to her native Iran to gather footage for a documentary about female athletes in the country. The topic is close to her heart; she used to be a professional basketball player but quit after she was unable…
Iran’s journalists in dire straits one year after protest crackdown
When Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, died in custody last September after morality police detained her for alleged “improper” wearing of her headscarf, Iran’s already embattled press corps paid a heavy price for reporting on her death and the nationwide protests that followed. Scores of journalists were among those arrested as Iranian authorities cracked…
Journalists call on European Parliament to ban spyware
Some 500 journalists have called on members of the European Parliament since September 14 to introduce an absolute ban on surveillance of the press through spyware in the upcoming European Media Freedom Act. Spyware, which secretly takes over electronic devices without being detected, puts journalists around the world at risk of increased harassment and violence and…