Tech platforms struggle to label state-controlled media
Twitter announced last week that it would start labeling some accounts run by media outlets and their top editors as “state-affiliated,” a descriptor intended to improve transparency about the source of information being shared on the platform. Since disinformation became a flash point in the debate over content moderation on social media, distinguishing propaganda from…
Freelancer Vladimir Sevrinovsky on covering COVID-19 in the North Caucasus: ‘The main misinformation I fight is from the state’
Vladimir Sevrinovsky is a Moscow-based freelance journalist and documentary photographer who has covered social and cultural issues in Russia for independent news site Meduza, independent weekly Russkii Reporter, and Kavkaz.Realii, a regional service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others. Sevrinovsky’s most recent assignment was to report from Russia’s North Caucasus…
COVID-19 lockdowns pose challenges for imprisoned journalists observing Ramadan
This year, the Islamic month of Ramadan, which started on April 24 and will continue through May 23, is particularly challenging for Muslim journalists in jail to observe safely, their family members and friends told CPJ.
For Russia’s Igor Rudnikov, coronavirus makes fight with Kaliningrad even tougher
Igor Rudnikov is the editor-in-chief of the independent Novye Kolyosa newspaper, based in the western Russian city of Kaliningrad. In 2017, agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Rudnikov over his paper’s reporting, as CPJ documented at the time.
Chechen blogger and government critic Tumso Abdurakhmanov: ‘I am constantly at risk’
Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a prominent blogger critical of the Chechen authorities, survived a violent assault in his home in Swedish town of Gävle on February 26, 2020. Two Russian nationals have been arrested in connection with the attack, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. CPJ documented the incident and spoke to the blogger after his…
CPJ joins call for Russian government to drop foreign agent bill
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined nine other international press freedom organizations in signing a statement urging Russia to drop draft legislation that would add individual journalists and bloggers to the country’s list of “foreign agents.”
Laws, cheap web filters arm Russia to block news, says Censored Planet
When Daniil Kislov tried to view the website of Fergana from his computer in Moscow on November 1, his browser showed him the now-familiar notification that the independent news outlet he directs had been blocked by order of Roskomnadzor, the national agency that regulates the internet in Russia, he told CPJ. Fergana has been blocked…
CPJ joins call for Russian authorities to end harassment of journalists covering Moscow protests
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined seven other press freedom organizations in calling on the Russian authorities to end their harassment of journalists covering opposition protests in Moscow. Protests have taken place on four consecutive Saturdays in July and August after the local electoral commission’s decision to ban several opposition politicians from participating in…
For Turkish journalists in Berlin exile, threats remain, but in different forms
For Can Dündar, sitting in the audience of a theater performance near Dortmund in Germany in May was an emotional moment. In an interview with CPJ, he recalled how during the premiere night, he watched the main actor on stage playing a journalist as he was imprisoned in Turkey, had his house searched, his books…