In the evening of March 13, 2020, men in paramilitary uniforms accompanied by local administrative officials in Kurigram District, in northern Bangladesh, raided the home of Ariful Islam, the area’s correspondent for the English-language Dhaka Tribune daily, and arrested him after allegedly finding illegal drugs in the house, according to news reports.
Beginning on March 17, 2020, authorities in Jordan, Oman, Morocco, and Yemen issued decrees suspending newspaper printing and distribution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to news reports and government statements.
New York, March 25, 2020 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today welcomed an announcement that Turkish officials have indicted 20 Saudi nationals on charges of murder and incitement linked to the 2018 killing of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and issued the following statement:
Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli was released from prison on March 17, 2020, after nearly three years in jail, and flown to Berlin, where he was reunited with his wife and daughter. He served half of his six-year sentence on charges that Azerbaijani authorities brought in retaliation for his investigative reporting, as CPJ research shows.
Berlin, March 24, 2020 — Hungarian lawmakers should not pass amendments to the country’s criminal code that threaten journalists with prison sentences for their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
The Sport and Rights Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organizations co-founded by the Committee to Protect Journalists, issued a statement on March 20 calling on global sports organizations to maintain high standards of transparency and press accessibility amid the COVID-19 pandemic as assessments are made around sporting events, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.