A letter to the American hikers being held in Iran
The families of Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd, the three hikers detained in Iran, said today they are concerned about their children’s emotional well-being after nearly four months in prison. They asked supporters to send letters, which they will seek to deliver to them in Evin Prison in Tehran, where the three are…
Free Speech Protection Act could slow ‘libel tourism’
Free press advocates in Britain are looking to a bill stuck in the U.S. Congress for moral support in the fight to reform England’s draconian defamation laws. The U.S. bill, the Free Speech Protection Act 2009, is itself the product of those laws, which have made London the capital of “libel tourism.”
Playing the spy card against WSJ in Pakistan
Last Thursday, Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper published a reckless and unsubstantiated story accusing Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent Matthew Rosenberg of being a spy. It’s an accusation that gravely endangers Rosenberg’s safety. Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson responded with a scathing letter to The Nation’s editor, Shireen Mazari, expressing his disgust at the publication…
Toronto’s Citizen Lab uses forensics to fight online censors
A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and…
Brad Will killing unresolved three years on
Three years ago today, an independent journalist named Bradley Roland Will was killed in Mexico while reporting on a heated protest movement in the capital city of the southern state of Oaxaca. Today, the crime remains unresolved. A man from Oaxaca, Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, who many close followers of the case believe is innocent,…
An Iraqi journalist in America: Gathering my family
Nearly six months after my arrival in the U.S., most of my family has finally joined me in Arizona. Making the trip from Baghdad was my father, who turned 63 in October; my mother, who is 50; and my 16-year-old brother, Anas, who is very eager to discover this big country.
A memorial to killed journalists, a call to action
We’ve launched a new section of our Web site, and we hope you take a few minutes to read some of its pages. There is one, for example, on Russian reporter Natalya Estemirova, who dared to examine human rights crimes in Chechnya. Another is devoted to Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, a Tijuana newspaper editor who…
From a park bench in Havana, Cuban blogger honored in NY
Last night’s scenario was breathtaking: a circular hall with high ceilings, marble columns, tables draped with heavy tablecloths and soft bouquets, and journalism personalities elegant in cocktail dresses and tuxedos. And poised behind a wood podium, a black screen silently reminding all those present of who was not there.
CPJ speaks to jailed Venezuelan journalist Gustavo Azócar
On Monday, Venezuelan Judge José Oliveros announced that he would begin a new trial against journalist Gustavo Azócar, an outspoken Chávez critic, who has spent two months in prison without being sentenced. Oliveros, the local press reported, also upheld a decision to hold the television host and blogger in custody throughout the new trial. The…
Honduran decree lifted, but broadcasters still shuttered
Three days after the Honduran interim government led by Roberto Micheletti lifted a September 27 decree that allowed them to shut down Radio Globo and Canal 36, broadcasters loyal to ousted President Manuel Zelaya, the two stations were still prevented from resuming normal transmissions, according to local and international news reports.