The world’s most censored countries
Could you pick out Equatorial Guinea on the world map? Or Turkmenistan, or Eritrea? Probably not at the first attempt. These countries are usually below the radar of the international media, and the autocrats who run them like it that way. It helps them crush press freedoms and keep their population in the dark. That is why the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based press freedom group, has drawn up a league table of the world’s 10 most censored countries. We hope that the list, issued on World Press Freedom Day, will shine a light into the dark corners of the world where governments and their political cronies decide what people will read, see, and hear.
Attacks on the Press 2005: CPJ Releases Attacks on the Press in Four Cities
New York, February 14, 2006–Highlighting the global nature of its press freedom advocacy work, the Committee to Protect Journalists today released its annual press freedom survey Attacks on the Press in four cities: Bangkok, Cairo, London and Washington, D.C.
A freed’ journalist is sent back to jail
New York, December 5, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged by news that Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac was returned to jail just two days after being released in mid-November. Isaac is one of 15 Eritrean journalists who have been jailed incommunicado and without charge or forced into extended military service following a September 2001…
Journalist freed without charge after four years in jail
New York, November 21, 2005— The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac, who had been jailed without charge since a government crackdown closed the entire independent press in September 2001. Isaac has dual Eritrean and Swedish citizenship. Fourteen journalists remain in Eritrea’s secret jails or otherwise deprived of their…
CPJ demands government account for “disappeared” journalists
New York, September 16, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded today that Eritrea, the worst jailer of journalists in Africa, account for 15 journalists who have been held, some in secret prisons, since the government crushed private media and independent reporting four years ago this month. “Holding these journalists incommunicado without due process is a…