Nairobi, September 5, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ethiopian authorities to unconditionally release Sheger FM radio editor Tigist Zerihun and reporter Mintamir Tsegaw, who were taken into custody on September 3 following the forced removal of Mintamir’s August 29 report on widespread protests over poor working conditions for healthcare workers, according to multiple news outlets. The Ethiopian Media Authority—the regulatory body responsible for...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Washington, D.C., September 5, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Saudi authorities to justify their detention of freelance Yemeni journalist Mujahid Al-Haiqi at Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah airport last month, or immediately release him. “By arresting Mujahid Al-Haiqi without explanation, Saudi authorities show once again that journalists face tremendous perils in the kingdom, even when...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, September 4, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to free Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Levchenko, who has been sentenced to 16 years in a high security penal colony for treason and extremism. “After capturing Ukrainian journalist Heorhiy Levchenko two years ago in retaliation for his brave reporting on the war from the occupied...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New Delhi, September 4, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists warns that the Nepali government’s decision to block access to social media platforms across the country will seriously hinder journalists’ work and people’s access to news and information. “Nepal’s sweeping ban on social media sets a dangerous precedent for press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Beh...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New Delhi, September 4, 2025—Ahead of the eighth anniversary of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder, the Committee to Protect Journalists urges the Karnataka state government to push for the establishment of a fast-track court to bring her killers to justice. Lankesh, who published and edited Bengaluru-based Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada-language weekly known for its...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, September 3, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Azerbaijani authorities’ addition of seven new charges against 10 incarcerated journalists in relation to a currency smuggling case against the independent outlet Meydan TV, as well as the arrest of photojournalist Ahmad Mukhtar. “The latest financial crimes charges against the prize-winning Azerbaijani outlet Meydan TV...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, September 3, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Iraqi Kurdish authorities to swiftly investigate the motive behind the shooting of journalist Hemn Mamand in Sulaymaniyah on Tuesday. Mamand was shot while leaving a restaurant, hours after broadcasting his talk show “Sarinj – Comment” on Sterk TV, where he discusses human rights, including...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh has spent more than a year imprisoned in Iran, enduring severe psychological torment and relentless interrogations for the simple fact that he is a journalist. Initially detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, his already dire situation deteriorated significantly after a devastating Israeli attack on the facility. Valizadeh was transferred to the dangerously overcrowded and medically inadequate Fashafouyeh Prison, where extreme neglect and inh...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Bangkok, September 3, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports of journalists being assaulted, harassed, and threatened while covering recent nationwide protests in Indonesia, and calls on authorities to swiftly investigate the incidents and hold those responsible to account. At least 16 journalists have reported physical attacks, verbal threats, equipment confiscation, and other...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New Delhi, September 2, 2025—Indian authorities should appeal the acquittal of three men accused of the 2016 murder of journalist Rajdev Ranjan, including the police’s suspected mastermind, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday, following an August 30 ruling in which three other men were found guilty. “The Bihar state government and federal investigators must...| Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 20 other civil society groups calling on Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu to withdraw the proposed Maldives Media and Broadcasting Regulation Bill, warning it poses a grave threat to press freedom and media independence. If passed, the bill would empower a new state-controlled regulator with sweeping powers to suspend media outlets, block...| Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed grave concern about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s arrest and detention yesterday of two journalists covering land rights protests in northern British Columbia.| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, July 24, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely worried about the safety of Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who is being targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign, which he believes is a precursor to his assassination. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has stepped up his...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif was murdered in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent housing journalists outside the main gate of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The attack killed Al Jazeera’s entire team of four staff journalists in the city, as well as two freelancers, one of whom was working for Al Jazeera.| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, September 3, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that recent changes to Kazakhstan’s domestic media accreditation regulations and proposed changes to foreign media accreditation could be used to silence critical journalists. “New and proposed amendments to Kazakhstan’s accreditation regulations are excessive and open too many doors to censorship. Instead of the greater...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old Palestinian correspondent in northern Gaza for the Qatari-based Al Jazeera Mubasher, was killed on March 24, 2025, in an Israeli strike on his car near the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia. | Committee to Protect Journalists
Journalists at El Faro knew the risks when they published a series of interviews with gang members alleging long-standing ties between Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and criminal groups. They didn’t know how quickly the crackdown would escalate. Within days of publication last month, sources close to El Salvador’s attorney general’s office warned that arrest warrants...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, December 14, 2021—The Taliban must immediately and thoroughly investigate the beating and detention of journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi and ensure that members of the press can operate freely and safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On December 11, the director of the Taliban-controlled Kabul Directorate of Refugee Affairs, Abdul Matin Rahimzai,...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, April 18, 2025—Taliban authorities must immediately release independent journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi, who was detained April 14 by General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) agents in the capital Kabul, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. “Taliban intelligence must release journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi immediately and unconditionally,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Istanbul, April 17, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Turkey to drop charges against five photojournalists, whose trial begins on Friday, for allegedly taking part in protests in Istanbul last month. The journalists could be jailed for up to three years for violating the law on gatherings and demonstrations. In the indictment, reviewed by...| Committee to Protect Journalists
China, Israel, and Myanmar lead the world’s top jailers of journalists New York, January 16, 2024—The number of journalists jailed worldwide reached a near all-time high in 2024, according to a new report released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). China, Israel, and Myanmar were the leading jailers of reporters, followed by Belarus and...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging. In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple kinds of incidents of journalists being targeted while carrying out...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Antonio Di Giampaolo has hosted his popular radio news program En el Aire, Spanish for “On the Air,” for nearly 40 years. On May 17, Di Giampaolo planned to broadcast an interview with opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González, but executives at the station Éxitos 93.1 FM in the western city of Maracay nixed the plan with no explanation, according to the journalist. “I had...| Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, November 8, 2021 – Uzbek authorities should allow journalist Agnieszka Pikulicka to enter the country and work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Yesterday afternoon, Uzbek officials at the Zhibek Zholy-Gisht Kuprik (Chernyaevka) border crossing with Kazakhstan denied entry to Pikulicka, a Polish citizen and freelance correspondent for Al-Jazeera and The...| Committee to Protect Journalists
The May 11, 2022, killing of Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh is part of a deadly, decades-long pattern. Over 22 years, CPJ has documented at least 20 journalist killings by members of the Israel Defense Forces. Despite numerous IDF probes, no one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths. The impunity...| Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ defines journalists as people who cover news or comment on public affairs through any medium — including in print, online, via broadcast media, or photographs and video. We take up cases involving staff journalists and freelancers. (Read our FAQs here.) Imprisoned CPJ’s annual census is a snapshot of those incarcerated at midnight on December...| Committee to Protect Journalists
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.| Committee to Protect Journalists
Video journalist Issam Abdallah died near the southern Lebanese village of Alma Al-Shaab at 6.02 p.m. on October 13, 2023, when two shells fired from Israel killed him and injured six other journalists as they were covering cross-border fire between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. Independent investigations by international news organizations and rights groups found evidence indicating that Israeli forces targeted the reporters – a possible war crim...| Committee to Protect Journalists
Update: As of December 31, 2023, at least 77 journalists and media workers were killed; 70 of them Palestinian. More journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel-Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year, according to CPJ data. By December 20, 2023, at...| Committee to Protect Journalists
The Israel-Gaza war has killed more journalists over the course of a year than in any other conflict CPJ has documented. Since the beginning of the war, CPJ has stood in solidarity with the affected journalists and their families. Palestinian journalists have continued reporting despite killings, injuries, and arbitrary detention at the hands of Israeli forces,...| Committee to Protect Journalists
