Northern Ireland police investigating graffiti threats to reporter Patricia Devlin
On February 12, 2021, graffiti painted by unidentified people appeared at three locations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, featuring a gun crosshair and the name of Patricia Devlin, a reporter for the Irish newspaper Sunday World, according to a report by her employer and Devlin, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Police have opened an…
When police patrol protests in military gear, journalists face a hostile reporting environment
When St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson was covering protests against police violence in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, he said other reporters often asked him what it was like to get teargassed night after night. These days, he told CPJ, he rarely gets asked that question: “Now all of my journalist friends have been teargassed.” Tear gassings, rubber…
Zimbabwean court bars lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa from representing Hopewell Chin’ono
New York, August 18, 2020 — In response to Harare Magistrate Ngoni Nduna’s ruling today that Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa be barred from representing jailed journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, as reported by the state-run Herald newspaper, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement: “Magistrate Ngoni Nduna’s decision to disqualify Beatrice Mtetwa from…
Journalist Patricia Devlin on working in Northern Ireland: ‘I feel vulnerable and I feel threatened’
Over the past two years, crime and paramilitary and sectarian attacks have risen in Northern Ireland, fueled by economic stagnation, a power vacuum in the regional government, and the fallout from Brexit, according to news reports. In this climate, journalists are also increasingly at risk: freelance reporter Lyra McKee was killed in April 2019, and…
Militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham assaults at least 12 Syrian journalists covering joint Russian-Turkish military patrol in Idlib
On June 10, 2020, several members of the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Al-Qaeda offshoot previously known as Al-Nusra Front, hit and kicked at least 12 Syrian journalists while they were covering a joint Turkish-Russian military patrol on the M4 Highway, which links Latakia and Aleppo, according to four of the journalists who…
Adib al-Atrash
Adib al-Atrash, a stringer for Palestine Post, was arrested by Israeli security forces at dawn from his family home in the West Bank city of Hebron, his fiancée Shatha Zghayer told CPJ, confirming local media reports. Zghayer told CPJ she does not know why he was arrested. Al-Atrash is being held in administrative detention in…
Patrice Booto
Security forces arrested Booto, publisher of the thrice-weekly Le Journal and its sister publication, Pool Malebo. Booto was detained at a police station in the capital, Kinshasa, according to the local press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger (JED). On November 10, Booto was transferred to the state security court, where he was charged the following…
Patrick Mugumya
Ugandan police arrested Patrick Mugumya, a co-owner and director of the privately owned media company Pepper Publications on November 21, 2017, alongside seven of his colleagues. Mugumya also serves as chief procurement officer with the company. The five directors, including Mugumya, who also co-own the company, and three editors with the company’s Red Pepper and…
Muftah al-Qatrani
Al-Qatrani was the director and owner of Al-Anwar, a privately owned media production company in the city of Benghazi. Friends of the 33-year-old journalist found his body in his office with gunshot wounds to the head, according to news reports and the local press freedom group the Libyan Center for Press Freedom. The Libyan Center…
Ardiansyah Matra’is
A rescue team found the body of Matra’is near the Gudang Arang River, two days after his family reported him missing in Merauke, a small town on the southern tip of Papua province, according to news reports. Matra’is, a reporter for the local broadcaster Merauke TV, had been covering plans for a large agribusiness development…