How China is stepping up harassment of foreign correspondents
When international journalists rushed to Zhengzhou city in Henan province to cover a deadly flood in July 2021, they were confronted by angry bystanders who accused them of “spreading rumors” and “smearing China.” Many also received harassing messages on social media and intimidating calls, according to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China. This hostility spread after the Henan Communist Youth…
‘Red-tagging’ of journalists looms over Philippine elections
As Philippine presidential candidates wind up their campaigns before the May 9 election, journalists in the country are demanding that whoever succeeds President Rodrigo Duterte put an end to “red tagging” – the labeling of individuals as rebels or supporters of the communist insurgency – that helped put their colleague Frenchiemae Cumpio behind bars. Cumpio, the 23-year-old executive director…
CPJ joins call for Indian government to end attacks on the press
On World Press Freedom Day, Tuesday, May 3, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined nine other press freedom and human rights organizations in a statement calling on the government of India, led by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, to address the rapidly deteriorating state of press freedom throughout the country and in Indian-administered Jammu…
Indian journalist Rana Ayyub on facing death threats and a money laundering probe
Rana Ayyub, is one of India’s most high-profile investigative journalists, with a Washington Post column, a Substack newsletter, a popular Twitter presence with an audience of 1.5 million, as well as a controversial 2016 book alleging that government officials were implicated in the 2002 riots that killed Muslims in Gujarat. But in recent months Indian…
CPJ joins call for Bangladesh authorities to withdraw proposed internet regulations
On March 7, 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists joined 43 other press freedom, digital rights, and civil society groups in a letter calling on Bangladesh’s communications regulator to withdraw new proposed policies that could stifle free expression online. A package of proposed regulations, titled the “Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Regulation for Digital, Social Media…
Afghanistan’s intelligence agency emerges as new threat to independent media
On January 19, the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) publicly called on Afghan media to refrain from publishing and broadcasting what it termed “false news and baseless rumors.” The warning amounted to the first public acknowledgement of something that Afghan journalists already knew: a tough new cop was on the beat. The emergence of…
‘Completely unclear’: Mushtaq Ahmed’s lawyer seeks answers on how the Bangladeshi writer died in jail
One year after renowned Bangladeshi writer Mushtaq Ahmed died in jail, the circumstances of his death remain murky. While an investigative committee formed by the Home Ministry claimed he died of “natural causes,” his former lawyer Jyotirmoy Barua believes that Ahmed may have died of health issues that arose after alleged torture. In May 2020, the Rapid Action Battalion,…
A jar of soil, a laptop, a handmade black coat: What Afghan journalists took into exile
In the frantic minutes before Naweeda Qayoumi fled her home in Afghanistan last September, she grabbed an empty plastic Vaseline jar and stepped into the garden to scoop a bit of soil from her homeland. She jammed the jar into the backpack she was taking into her unknown future with her husband, journalist Ghazanfar Hassanzada….
Opinion: The dilemma facing journalists covering the Beijing Olympics
I don’t envy journalists from around the world who are entering China to cover the Beijing Olympics, held February 4 to 20. Perhaps never in history have the rules of the road for covering the games been so murky and the potential dangers so great for journalists who step over an as-yet-undefined red line that…
China finds new ways to intimidate foreign press, FCCC survey finds
On January 31, 2022, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) released findings from its annual member survey about press conditions in the country. The report, “Locked Down or Kicked Out,” found that 99% of foreign correspondents said China’s reporting conditions did not meet what they considered “international standards.” The survey also documented ways Chinese…