Legal Action

Dakar, June 20, 2024—Nigerien authorities must decriminalize defamation and ensure that the country’s cybercrime law does not unduly restrict the work of the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday. On June 7, Niger’s head of state Abdourahamane Tchiani, who overthrew the democratically elected president in July 2023, reintroduced prison sentences of one…

When Belete Kassa’s friend and news show co-host Belaye Manaye was arrested in November 2023 and taken to the remote Awash Arba military camp known as the “Guantanamo of the desert,” Belete feared that he might be next. The two men co-founded the YouTube-based channel Ethio News in 2020, which had reported extensively on a conflict that…

Update: A Serbian appeals court announced on September 11 that it has sent the extradition case of Belarusian filmmaker Andrey Gnyot for a third review to the Belgrade Higher Court. Gnyot told CPJ on September 12 that he expects the next hearing “will not happen earlier than a month,” saying that “the most dangerous thing” about the…

CPJ, ICFJ and RSF introduced expert legal opinion arguing the Supreme Court of the Philippines should close cyber libel case New York / Paris / Washington D.C., June 18, 2024 — In an effort to deter the legal persecution of trailblazing journalist and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa and her former colleague Reynaldo Santos, and to…

New York, June 17, 2024—As a Russian court on Monday set the beginning of the trial of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich for June 26, the Committee to Protect Journalists renewed its call to immediately release him and drop all charges against him. “The start of Gershkovich’s trial comes after he has already spent more than…

Taipei, June 14, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Chinese court’s decision on Friday to sentence journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin to five years in prison on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power.” The Intermediate People’s Court in the southern city of Guangzhou handed down the sentence to Huang, who is well known…

Stockholm, June 13, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Kyrgyz authorities to immediately drop all charges against 11 current and former Temirov Live staff, ahead of an unprecedented trial due to open on Friday, and end the harassment of the independent press. “Even as Kyrgyzstan continues its rapid descent into authoritarianism under President Sadyr Japarov,…

Berlin, June 13, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision by a Dutch court to convict three men for the assassination of veteran crime reporter Peter R. de Vries in 2021 and calls for full justice to be delivered. “We welcome the Dutch court’s conviction of three perpetrators for the murder of crime reporter…

New York, June 11, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed alarm on Tuesday that Pakistan’s east Punjab province hastily enacted a defamation law that is likely to greatly restrict press freedom, and the country’s Supreme Court issued notices to 34 media outlets in connection with their programming. On Saturday, June 8, acting Punjab…

Washington, D.C., June 11, 2024—A county judge’s order to Mississippi Today newspaper to turn over privileged documents in relation to a defamation lawsuit by the state’s former governor, Phil Bryant, against the nonprofit and three of its employees is a threat to press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. Mississippi Today appealed on…