Detained

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A TV screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a speech at the closing session of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing on March 20. China's censors last month removed from social media any words suggesting Xi is seeking a life term. (AP/Andy Wong)

Censorship, surveillance, and harassment: China cracks down on critics

Hours after the Chinese Communist Party proposed a constitutional change last month to lift presidential term limits, any words or phrases that remotely suggested President Xi Jingping was seeking a life term were blocked from social media. Censors targeted everything from “Emperor Xi,” “The Emperor’s Dream,” and “Dream of Returning to the Great Qing,” to…

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Catholics sing and dance during a December 31, 2017 demonstration to call for the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to step down. At least three journalists covering the rallies in Kinshasa say police harassed them. (AFP/John Wessels)

DRC security forces harass journalists covering Kabila protests

Security forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on December 31, 2017, harassed at least three journalists who were reporting on protests in the capital, Kinshasa, over President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to stand down when his second five-year term in office expired in 2016 and his refusal to hold elections, according to local journalists…

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Maldivian police pictured at a protest in the capital, Malé, on March 2. Three Raajje TV journalists are detained over their coverage of anti-government protests held on March 16. (AFP/Ahmed Shurau)

In Maldives, at least three journalists detained over protest coverage

New York, March 16, 2018–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Maldivian authorities to immediately release three Raajje TV journalists who, according to their pro-opposition station, were detained today over their coverage of anti-government protests in the capital, Malé.

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Delegates attend a plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing in March 2018. Police in the city briefly detained a RFI reporter who was interviewing people about a vote on China's constitutional reform. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)

Chinese authorities briefly detain RFI correspondent in Beijing

Police in Beijing detained French journalist Heike Schmidt, the China correspondent for the French Foreign Ministry-funded outlet, Radio France Internationale, for about an hour on March 9, 2018, and confiscated her tape recorder, according to the journalist’s outlet.

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Police arrest St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk in September 2017. Faulk is one of at least 10 journalists detained in the city late last year when police used the tactic of kettling during protests. (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Journalists covering protests in US risk getting caught up in police kettling tactic

On September 17 last year, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Mike Faulk was covering protests over the acquittal of a former police officer in the killing in 2011 of man named Anthony Lamar Smith. At about 11 p.m., officers formed a line across Washington Avenue near Tucker Boulevard in downtown St. Louis, and officers in full…

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Presidential election campaign banners in downtown Cairo on March 7, 2018. At least four journalists have been detained since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi declared his re-election bid. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)

Censorship tightens in Egypt as el-Sisi prepares for re-election bid

Ahead of elections in Egypt later this month, in which President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is seeking a second term, the authoritarian leader’s government has further clamped down on press freedom, issuing warnings to the media and arresting critical journalists on “false news” charges. Even satirical TV shows have not been spared, with AFP reporting how…

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Police patrol in Addis Ababa. Security officers detained a critical blogger near the Woliso campus of Ethiopia's Ambo University. (Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

Ethiopia arrests critical blogger Seyoum Teshome

Nairobi, March 9, 2018–Ethiopian authorities should immediately release Seyoum Teshome, who publishes the Ethiothinktank blog, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security forces yesterday arrested Seyoum at his home near the Woliso campus of Ambo University, where he lectures, according to witnesses who spoke with Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. The reason for…

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A man carrying a flag for the militant group Boko Haram walks past a group of 82 Chibok girls, who were held captive for three years by the militants, as the girls wait to be released in exchange for several militant commanders, near Kumshe, Nigeria on May 6, 2017. Nigeria's domestic intelligence agency has detained journalist Tony Ezimakor fin relation to an article he wrote about the release of the Nigerian schoolgirls, according to media reports. (Reuters/Zanah Mustapha)

Nigeria’s intelligence agency detains journalist to force him to reveal sources

EDITOR’S NOTE: Immediately after distributing this alert, CPJ learned that Ezimakor was freed just prior to publication. CPJ issued a separate statement concerning his release. Lomé, March 6, 2018–Nigerian authorities should release immediately Tony Ezimakor, the Abuja bureau chief of the privately owned Daily Independent newspaper, and stop trying to compel him to disclose his…

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Iranian motorists drive past the Azadi Tower in the capital Tehran in January 2018. Iranian security forces on February 19 arrested Reza Entessari and Kasra Nouri, reporters with the Sufi news website Majzooban-e-Noor, while they were covering the violent dispersal of religious protests in Tehran, according to news reports. (AFP/Atta Kenare)

Iran arrests two journalists covering crackdown on religious protests

New York, March 1, 2018–Iranian security forces on February 19 arrested Reza Entessari and Kasra Nouri, reporters with the Sufi news website Majzooban-e-Noor, while they were covering the violent dispersal of religious protests in Tehran, according to their employer and the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi speaks at the Military Academy in Cairo, Egypt, February 19, 2018. The Egyptian government has cracked down on the media ahead of a scheduled presidential elections next month, in which President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is running virtually unopposed, according to media reports. (Reuters/The Egyptian Presidency/Handout)

Egypt’s top prosecutor orders authorities to monitor media for “fake news”

New York, February 28, 2018–Egyptian authorities should immediately cease their intimidation campaign against independent news outlets, and let journalists report freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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