CPJ Newsletter: ECOSOC accepts our application, we announce IPFA winners, and more!
August edition Pentagon updates Law of War Manual to recognize journalists’ role in covering conflict Frank Smyth, CPJ’s security consultant, was stunned when he read the newly released Law of War Manual from the U.S. Department of Defense in June 2015. The manual included language that allowed journalists to be categorized as “unprivileged belligerents,” which…
Egyptian photojournalist sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison
A Cairo criminal court on July 18, 2016, sentenced Egyptian freelance photojournalist Belal Darder Mohamed to 15 years in prison in absentia on charges of participating in an unlicensed protest and membership in a terrorist organization, according to press reports. The charges were in connection with his work documenting a December 2014 protest by students…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of July 31
Court indicts 12 media workers on terrorism charges An Istanbul court last night indicted 12 journalists on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization — the Hizmet movement, which the Turkish government classes as a terrorist group and alleges orchestrated a failed military coup on July 15 – Turkey’s official Anatolia news agency…
Turkey detains at least 48 journalists in one week
New York, July 29, 2016–Turkish authorities should release and drop all charges against 48 journalists police have detained in the last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police have detained at least 48 journalists in the past week as part of a sweeping purge of the media, according to local press reports.
Mission Journal: Morocco’s new press law undermined by draft penal code
In the small, polished Moroccan capital of Rabat, pictures of King Mohamed VI, who took the throne in 1999, hang in many shops, offices, and hotels. In most of these, he is clean-shaven, smiling, and wearing a suit: a modern monarch. His image is part of the official narrative of the country as a place…
Turkey shutters more than 100 media outlets as purge continues
New York, July 28, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Turkish authorities today to stop its sweeping purge of the media, and to allow all journalists to work freely at this critical time for the country. A decree published yesterday in Turkey’s Official Gazette ordered the closure of more than 100 broadcasters, newspapers,…
CPJ concerned about legal harassment of Bahraini journalist
Today the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 42 other organizations in a joint statement expressing concern at the Bahraini Public Prosecutor’s decision to charge Nazeeha Saeed, an award-winning journalist with Radio Monte Carlo Douliya and France24, with unlawfully working for international media.
China shuts down internet reporting as Xi’s sensitivity begins to resemble lèse-majesté
On July 1, popular internet portal Tencent, in its original news reporting section, published an article on a speech that President Xi Jinping gave the same day at a conference celebrating the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. One line of the article read, “Xi Jinping outburst an important speech.” To…
Nigerian secret police detain publisher
Nine armed agents of Nigeria’s Department of State Service, an elite police force, arrested Jones Abiri, the publisher of the Weekly Source tabloid newspaper, from his offices in Yenagoa, in the oil-rich southern Nigeria state of Bayelsa, on July 21, 2016, according to news reports. The operatives searched Abiri’s office and confiscated documents, the reports…