Statements

New York, November 3, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Belarusian court’s Friday sentencing of journalist Alyaksandr Mantsevich to four years in prison for allegedly discrediting Belarus. “Alyaksandr Mantsevich’s four-year prison sentence, the highest provided under the charges laid against him, is yet another example of the Belarusian authorities’ resentful attitude towards independent journalists,”…

New York, October 31, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) to revoke its six-month ban on the  independent news website Mada Masr over its reporting on the Israel-Gaza war and to reverse its decision to refer the outlet for prosecution. On Sunday, the SCMR announced that, after…

Update: News reports late Saturday, October 28, indicated the blackout was easing, but communications have yet to be fully restored. New York, October 27, 2023 – The Israel-Gaza war has entered a new stage with intensified bombing and ground operations by Israeli forces. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is highly alarmed by widespread reports of…

New York, October 23, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Russian court’s decision on Monday to detain U.S.-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva until December 5 on charges of failing to register herself as a foreign agent. In a closed-door hearing on Monday, a court in the western Russian city of Kazan ordered Kurmasheva, an editor…

Washington, D.C., October 22, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the decision to sentence journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi to 13 and 12 years in jail respectively, and reiterates its call for their immediate release. Hamedi, a reporter with the state-run Shargh Daily, and Mohammadi, head of the social issues desk at the state-run…

New York, October 18, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists urgently calls on Israel not to close the local bureau of Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera and to allow the media to report freely on news events in Israel and Gaza during the current conflict. “We are deeply concerned by Israeli officials’ threats to censor media coverage…

Nairobi, Kenya, October 16, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes an October 11 court decision to dismiss the criminal case against Somali journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Osman Bulbul and calls on authorities to desist from arbitrarily detaining journalists. “Mohamed Ibrahim Osman Bulbul endured nearly two months of detention and faced punitive legal proceedings simply because he…

The Committee to Protect Journalists and 12 other press freedom groups on Monday called on Maltese authorities to bring to justice all those responsible for the killing of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and to make the European Union’s smallest state safer for the media. Read the full statement below and read more about press…

Kinshasa, October 13, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo to allow the provisional release of journalist Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala and drop all legal proceedings against him. “Journalist Stanis Bujakera should never have been arrested or charged, but the least DRC authorities can do is not oppose his request…

New York, October 13, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Friday shelling in southern Lebanon from the direction of Israel that killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and injured six other journalists. Those wounded include two other Reuters journalists, Thaer Al-Sudani and Maher Nazeh, two Al-Jazeera TV staffers, Elie Brakhya and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, and Agence France-Press journalists Christina Assi…