Singapore refuses to renew foreign journalist’s visa
New York, November 19, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Singapore government’s refusal to renew British freelance journalist Benjamin Bland’s work visa and its rejection of his application to cover the recently concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting. Bland had planned to report on the summit for the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
CPJ condemns suspension of six newspapers in Gabon
New York, November 12, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the suspension of six private newspapers by the government-controlled media-monitoring body, the National Communications Council, in Gabon. The council announced the suspensions, which range from one to three months, on Tuesday evening on state-run TV. The papers have been suspended for “violating the ethics of journalism”…
Shakeup at China’s leading investigative magazine
You wouldn’t have heard it from her, but Hu Shuli resigned from her post as editor of Caijing magazine on Monday. The battle over political coverage and finances at Caijing (cai is “finance” and jing is “economics”) had been reported for about three months, but the missing component in the coverage was Hu herself—she has…
Toronto’s Citizen Lab uses forensics to fight online censors
A basement in the gray, Gothic heart of the University of Toronto is home to the CSI of cyberspace. “We are doing free expression forensics,” says Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies. Deibert and his team of academics and students investigate in real time governments and…
CPJ to Clinton: Morocco censors, jails journalists
Dear Secretary Clinton: As you prepare for the Forum for the Future in Marrakesh next week, we’d like to bring to your attention a sharp spike in government repression in the host country, Morocco. The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, nonprofit organization that defends press freedom worldwide, has documented an aggressive crackdown on independent news outlets and journalists that has occurred over the last five months and has included judicial harassment, politicized prosecutions, obstruction, and censorship.
Just off Freedom Square in Yemen
Swathed in the traditional black face veil, or niqab, Yemeni women brandish banners with images of disappeared and imprisoned journalists. Every Tuesday, in Yemen’s capital city of Sana’a, Tawakul Karman, chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), leads these women into Freedom Square to demonstrate.
In Iran, a blogging insurgency challenges regime
I’m a cartoonist so even when writing a story or working as radio correspondent, I’m checking out the empty half of the glass. As blogger it’s no different; my inner cartoonist lurks in the dark. I’ve followed the Iranian “Bloggistan” since day one, and started my Persian blog after learning how to type. Funny? Not…
A Tunisian blogger speaks out: ‘The candles are lit’
My country’s government brags unabashedly that it has not passed any laws that require government authorization to establish an electronic publication or a Web site or a blog on the Internet. Those that cheerlead for this government rely on this point to propagate the lie they call “the freedom to publish electronically” in Tunisia.