By Peter Nkanga/CPJ West Africa Consultant

Most governments, even repressive ones, at least give lip service to supporting freedom of the press--especially on World Press Freedom Day, May 3. But in Liberia this month, Othello Daniel Warrick, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s chief security aide, shocked local journalists by...

By Mike O'Connor/CPJ Mexico Representative

The Durango state governor was on his way to meet with reporters. Before he arrived, the reporters huddled to decide the question of the moment. It seemed obvious: Why had the former mayor been arrested the day before in what clearly seemed to...

By Sara Rafsky/CPJ Americas Research Associate

One month after their colleague Rodrigo Neto was gunned down on the street after eating at a popular outdoor barbecue restaurant, the journalists of Vale do Aço, Brazil, were indignant. Denouncing a sluggish investigation and the possibility of police involvement in the murder, they...

By Sumit Galhotra/CPJ Steiger Fellow

A British journalist trying to cover the Delhi gang rape trial was asked to leave the courtroom on Tuesday after the prosecution objected to the presence of the international press. Andrew Buncombe, a correspondent for The Independent of London, was ejected from a court in...

By Muzaffar Suleymanov/CPJ Europe and Central Asia Research Associate

Thursday’s court ruling in the western Grodno region of Belarus is not befitting a modern European country, where servants of justice--prosecutors and judges--are expected to ensure protection for press freedom and human rights. Instead, it is reminiscent of medieval Europe,...

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator

Three days into his retirement, Zeng Li (曾礼) died this week at age 61, apparently of intestinal bleeding. Surprisingly, his March 28 farewell letter has spread across China’s social media sites and blogs. The letter is an apology, an explanation of sorts, and an...

By Peter Nkanga/CPJ West Africa Consultant

Mali’s press has endured one attack too many.

Since the coup d’état of March 22, 2012, CPJ has documented a staggering 62 anti-press violations across Mali. Journalists and media houses have become ready targets of attacks, threats,

By CPJ Staff

As Xi Jinping takes office as president of China, the citizenry he governs is more sophisticated, informed, and interconnected than any before, posing unprecedented challenges to Beijing’s policy of media control. At the same time, journalists who endeavor to test the system still do so at...

By Joel Simon/CPJ Executive Director

Istanbul-based McClatchy correspondent Roy Gutman has been honored for his reporting from Srebrenica to Baghdad. But he can’t get a visa for Iran. He blames the U.S. government, at least in part.

The problem, in Gutman’s view, is...

By Frank Smyth/Senior Adviser for Journalist Security

At any given time over the past two years, as wars raged in Libya and then Syria, and as other conflicts ground on in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, a number of journalists have been held captive by a diverse array of...

By John Otis/CPJ Andes Correspondent

It’s by far the dullest space in the newspaper: Every day in El Universo, Ecuador’s leading daily, readers can find eight small photos and news blurbs summing up the activities of the eight presidential candidates. The articles are the same size and blocked...

By Borja Bergareche/CPJ European Consultant

“Let’s have faith in our judiciary system,” Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed told an audience Monday at London’s Chatham House, the foreign affairs think-tank.

A day later, press freedom and human rights advocates are struggling to find such faith, after a court in...

By John Otis/CPJ Andes Correspondent

One result of President Rafael Correa’s high-profile campaign to demonize the country’s private media can be seen on the desk of José Velásquez, news manager at Teleamazonas, a private Quito television station often critical of the government. Among the documents piled high on his...

By Sara Rafsky/CPJ Americas Research Associate

As pundits debate how Barack Obama will tackle guns, climate change, immigration, and the debt ceiling in his newly inaugurated second term, press freedom advocates are left questioning how the U.S. president will handle another, no-less-controversial issue: the treatment of whistleblowers and...

By Sumit Galhotra/CPJ Steiger Fellow

Even though members of the Karnataka state government have provided broad assurances that they will drop charges against Naveen Soorinje, the young journalist remains imprisoned two months after he was arrested for exposing an assault on women by Hindu extremists. Welcome to...

By Frank Smyth/Senior Adviser for Journalist Security

Murder is the leading cause of work-related deaths among journalists worldwide--and this year was no exception. But the death toll in 2012 continued a recent shift in the nature of journalist fatalities worldwide. More journalists were killed in combat situations in...

By María Salazar-Ferro/Coordinator, Impunity Campaign & Journalist Assistance Program

The tortured and decapitated body of 39-year-old María Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September 2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border town ravaged by...

By Danny O'Brien/CPJ Internet Advocacy Coordinator

The Syrian Internet, like the country, appears to have been collapsing into a patchwork of unconnected systems for some time. I spent time talking to Syrians tech activists this week in Tunisia before Thursday's shutdown, and their reports from the front painted...

By Kati Marton/CPJ Board Member

More reporters are jailed in Turkey than in any other country in the world. According to CPJ’s recent survey, at least 61 are imprisoned directly for their work, representing the second biggest media crackdown in the 27 years we have been documenting such...

By Frank Smyth/Senior Adviser for Journalist Security

Here are the facts:

• A journalist is killed in the line of duty somewhere around the world once every eight days.


• Nearly three out of four are targeted for murder. The rest are killed in the...