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Venezuela’s press freedom crisis heats up CPJ’s Central and South America program and Emergencies Response Team have been in overdrive amid an intensifying press crackdown in Venezuela, which reached a new level when the Maduro government briefly detained Univision reporter and anchor Jorge Ramos and his crew on February 26.

Miami, March 6, 2019–Venezuelan authorities should immediately release a U.S. freelance journalist and a Venezuelan fixer who were detained after counterintelligence agents raided their homes this morning in Caracas, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

When President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, was asked at his confirmation hearing in January whether he would ever consider jailing a journalist, Barr paused for about eight seconds, then said he could “conceive of a situation” where a journalist is jailed as a “last resort.” Such equivocation was troubling to press…

Washington, D.C., March 4, 2019–Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abou Zeid, also known as Shawkan, was today released from prison after spending over five years in detention on anti-state charges, according to a post from his Twitter account. According to news reports, Shawkan said he was officially approved for release on Sunday night but held by police…

Nairobi, March 1, 2019–Authorities in Tanzania should lift a seven-day publication ban on the privately owned newspaper The Citizen and allow journalists to report on matters of public interest freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Information Services Department, which oversees newspaper licenses, temporarily suspended the publication license of The Citizen on February…

Black-and-white portraits of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, set amid unlit red candles, were the first things to greet me when I entered the building housing Aktuality, the news website where Kuciak, an investigative reporter, worked until his murder on February 21, 2018. One flight up is the newsroom where Kuciak’s colleagues continue his work.

New York, February 28, 2019 — The Israeli government must hold to account everyone responsible for killing Palestinian journalists Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein in April 2018, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On February 25, 2019, a U.N. independent commission of inquiry said it “found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers…

RSF Turkey representative in court Erol Önderoğlu, the Turkey representative for the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), was in court in Istanbul on February 25 alongside Şebnem Korur Fincancı, a columnist for the leftist daily Evrensel and president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, and Ahmet Nesin, a writer and a columnist…

“I say we put her email address in all the porn sites. From FSU with love,” one user wrote on 247Sports.com, a CBS message-board about college and professional sports. The FSU stands for Florida State University and the “her” is ESPN investigative journalist Paula Lavigne.

Bangkok, February 28, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the harassment, detention, and assault of two journalists in Myanmar on February 26 and called on the country’s authorities to thoroughly investigate the case and hold those responsible to account.