Israeli forces injure 3 journalists at West Bank and Gaza protests
At least three journalists covering protests in the Gaza Strip and West Bank on August 2, 2019 were injured as Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition and rubber bullets, and, in one case, allegedly assaulted a photojournalist working for the Associated Press, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, news reports, and videos and pictures shared by…
Unidentified men take Erick Kabendera from Tanzanian home
Nairobi, July 29, 2019– The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned for the safety of investigative reporter Erick Kabendera who was forcefully removed from his home today, and called on Tanzanian police to disclose whether they have him in custody.
Moroccan independent journalists describe climate of pervasive surveillance, harassment
In March 2015, Hicham Mansouri emailed an anti-malware company, suspicious of possible signs that someone was able to access his device remotely, without permission. He remembers exchanging a few messages with the software company, but the correspondence was interrupted after a few days, when around 10 police officers in civilian clothes arrived at his home…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of May 12, 2019
Journalists beaten, hospitalized in Ankara and Antalya At least six men used baseball bats to beat Yavuz Selim Demirağ, a columnist for the nationalist daily Yeni Çağ, in Ankara on the evening of May 10, the same day that he appeared as a guest on a political talk show on the nationalist Türkiyem TV, his…
Caracas full of uncertainty for journalists covering Venezuela crisis
A year after disputed national elections in Venezuela, and with access to information growing ever-scarcer, the country remains in a political and economic crisis. Conditions for the press have deteriorated further since January, when Juan Guaidó, the head of the opposition-led national assembly, declared himself interim president.
López Obrador’s anti-press rhetoric leaves Mexico’s journalists feeling exposed
During his daily press conference on April 15, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told reporters, “If you go too far, you know what will happen.” López Obrador clarified his remarks the following day, saying he meant that the public would hold reporters who unfairly criticize the government to account. But in a country where…
Challenges facing journalists trying to cover latest violence in Venezuela
The long-running political crisis in Venezuela escalated on April 30, 2019, after a civilian and military uprising was thwarted by the government of Nicolás Maduro, according to news reports. Opposition leaders Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo Lopez, accompanied by members of the armed forces, congregated on a highway in eastern Caracas and called upon the armed…
Turkey Crackdown Chronicle: Week of April 7, 2019
14 trials in one week for Özgür Gündem publisher Over the course of one week, Turkish courts agreed to proceed with 14 cases involving Ziya Çiçekçi, a former publisher of the shuttered pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem, the Mezopotamya News Agency (MA) reported. All but one of the cases involve accusations of “making propaganda for a…
Nazarbayev’s long rule leaves toxic legacy for Kazakhstan’s media
In 2011, I observed an astonishing spectacle in the Respublika newspaper offices in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s financial capital. Journalists were putting a modern-day twist on samizdat, a practice in the Soviet Union whereby dissidents laboriously copied illicit material to circumvent censorship.
Sudan arrests six critical journalists as protests continue
Washington, D.C., January 28, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Sudanese authorities to release at least six journalists who have been detained in recent days after covering widespread antigovernment protests calling on President Omar al-Bashir to resign.