Conditions deteriorate for foreign press in China, FCCC finds
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China annual survey, released this week, showed a steady deterioration of working conditions in China for the foreign press. The report, “Access Denied,” documented increased efforts by Chinese authorities to deny or restrict foreign correspondents’ access to large parts of the country in 2017. Increasingly, foreign ministry officials use China’s…
Lots of talk but little progress in Sri Lanka over journalist murders
It was the police line-up from hell. Forget all those “Law and Order” scenes where a victim stands anonymously behind a one-way mirror. Sri Lankan journalist Namal Perera had to stand eyeball-to-eyeball with 42 army intelligence officers in April, each of whom, Perera explained to me while demonstrating his fiercest tough-guy glare, faced him with…
In response to Trump’s fake news awards, CPJ announces Press Oppressors awards
Amid the public discourse of fake news and President Trump’s announcement via Twitter about his planned “fake news” awards ceremony, CPJ is recognizing world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media. From an unparalleled fear of their critics and the…
In China, medical neglect can amount to a death sentence for jailed journalists
Four months after Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo died of liver cancer shortly after his release from jail on medical parole, the writer and journalist Yang Tongyan died under similar circumstances in a Shanghai hospital. Like Liu, Yang had been seriously ill for several years, but Chinese authorities granted him medical parole only three months before…
CPJ joins coalition to establish sports and human rights center
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined a coalition of international sport organizations, civil society, and governments that are establishing an independent Centre for Sport and Human Rights. In a statement published today, the Mega-Sporting Events Platform for Human Rights, which CPJ is part of, outlined its commitment to establishing the center in 2018.
In Pakistan, press safety hubs provide support and training for journalists at risk
When a criminal gang sent threatening messages to Ghulam Mustafa, the reporter said his only option was to stop working for the Pakistani station Geo News. Mustafa acknowledges that laying low for nearly three years was the right decision to ensure his safety, but he said, “Professionally, it was strange that I was not working.…
Q&A: Indian editor explains how threat of legal action is used to silence journalists
On July 5, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and his colleagues Advait Rao Palepu and Shinzani Jain, received a notice from Thaker and co., a law firm representing Adani Power Ltd, that threatened legal action over a story published the month before.
It’s too late for Liu Xiaobo but China could show a little kindness to other jailed journalists
I have no pity for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who dug himself into a deep public relations hole with the unnecessarily cruel treatment of China’s Nobel Laureate and political dissident, who died this week. Liu died of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital, after receiving medical parole in June from prison, where he was diagnosed…