Imprisoned 2019

4 results arranged by date

Iranian journalist Pouyan Khoshhal, pictured, fled his home country after being detained for over two months and later sentenced to six years in prison over a single word. (Pouyan Khoshhal)

Iranian journalist imprisoned, fired, and forced into exile over a single word

In October 2018, authorities arrested Pouyan Khoshhal as he drove through the northern Iranian city of Rasht, by the Caspian Sea. The reason for the journalist’s arrest: his use of the word “death” instead of “martyrdom” to describe a Shiite saint in an article for the reformist newspaper Ebtekar.

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Semiha Şahin, an editor at ETHA, is in legal limbo after Turkish authorities failed to fully implement the terms of her house arrest. (ETHA)

‘I could be jailed at any moment’: Turkish editor in limbo over terms of prison release

If somebody is legally under house arrest but in practice not, are they free? Semiha Şahin, an editor at the socialist Etkin News Agency (ETHA), confronts this question—and the legal ambiguity that it poses—every day. A Turkish court released the journalist under house arrest in June, pending the outcome of her trial, but authorities have…

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A demonstrator dressed as a whistle protests outside of a London court holding a hearing on the U.S. extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in October 2019. (Reuters/Henry Nicholls)

For the sake of press freedom, Julian Assange must be defended

Nine years ago this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists took a stand on one of the most polarizing figures in journalism. We wrote President Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, urging them not to prosecute Julian Assange.

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Fighting breaks out as security personnel attempt to re-arrest Nigerian activist and journalist Omoyele Sowore at the Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria, on December 6, 2019. Sowore and other activist-journalists have been jailed in Nigeria and Ethiopia amid a crackdown on free expression. (Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)

Nigeria and Ethiopia jail activist-journalists amid crackdown on free expression

The ongoing detentions of Nigerian publisher Agba Jalingo and Ethiopian editor Fekadu Mahtemework–the only journalists behind bars for their work in their countries, according to CPJ’s latest prison census–don’t tell the whole story of their governments’ crackdowns on freedom of expression.

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