India / Asia

  

India must stop restricting journalists in Kashmir

New York, July 9, 2010—National authorities in India must immediately address complaints from local journalists in Indian-controlled Kashmir who say they are being stopped from covering the government crackdown on protests that have killed 15 people.

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A supporter of former presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi holds an anti-Ahmadinejad newspaper during a Tehran rally in June 2009. (Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)

Living in limbo: The ongoing wait of journalists in exile

The e-mails started on July 15, 2009, and have continued ever since—pleas for help from Iranian journalists who fled their country often with little money and scarce provisions to northern Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, and a host of other locales around the world. Many lived in hiding throughout Iran for weeks or months before crossing perilous borders…

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Free speech in India: Between the bullet, baton, and gavel

Freedom of speech and expression in India is balanced precariously between the ever-present threat of direct, physical attacks from both security forces and social vigilante groups on the one hand, and the reassurance of protection from higher judicial authorities on the other. But the scales seem tipped in favor of the former.

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Getting Away With Murder

CPJ’s 2010 Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, April 20, 2010—Deadly, unpunished violence against the press has soared in the Philippines and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail…

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Shubhranshu Choudhary trains villagers to use their phones to disseminate and receive news. (Sakhi/Flickr)

Circumventing India’s radio news ban

Violence against provincial journalists, self-censorship, and the rise of paid news were the leading press freedom concerns cited by editors and journalists that I met with during my recent visit to India. But for Shubhranshu Choudhary, known as Shu, it’s the ban on radio news that most concerns him. He believes the ban is fueling India’s long-simmering Maoist insurgency,…

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Sushma Swaraj, head of India's BJP party, says journalists encourage the "paid news" practice. (AFP)

In India, news for sale

I just returned from India, where I spent a week meeting journalists and discussing press freedom concerns. One issue that emerged during my visit is what is known euphemistically as “paid news.”  Many media outlets routinely sell political advertising dressed up as a news article.

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Attacks on the Press 2009: Asia Developments

ATTACKS ON THE PRESS: 2009 • Main Index ASIA Regional Analysis: • As fighting surges,so does danger to press Maguindanao: • Makings of a Massacre Country Summaries • Afghanistan • Burma • China • Nepal • North Korea • Pakistan • Philippines • Sri Lanka • Thailand • Vietnam • Other developments BANGLADESH India’s Border…

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Authorities assault, fire on journalists in Kashmir

Local news reports said a photojournalist was shot and five other journalists assaulted in the aftermath of a 22-hour battle between militants and local authorities in Srinagar, summer capital of the troubled north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on January 7, 2010.

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Demonstrators demand the release of documentary filmmaker Dhondup Wangchen, jailed in China after interviewing Tibetans. (AFP)

CPJ’s 2009 prison census: Freelance journalists under fire

New York, December 8, 2009—Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ found a total of 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists behind bars…

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Police threaten journalists with arrest in India

Police threatened to arrest two journalists based in Srinagar, capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, on July 10, 2009, for reporting that the family of a missing youth, Asrar Mushtaq Dar, feared he may have “disappeared” in police custody, according to a statement issued by the Kashmir Press Bureau. Dar was later…

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