Pakistan appears to be living up to its designation by Reporters Without Borders and other rights groups as one of the deadliest countries in which to practice journalism. So far, 2014 has witnessed the deaths of four media workers. Last week, three Taliban gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed three employees of Pakistan’s Express News […]
Pakistan: Four Media Workers Dead in First Three Weeks of 2014
Posted January 24th, 2014 at 12:36 pm (UTC+0)
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Bangladesh Journalist Charged With Sedition
Posted January 21st, 2014 at 4:18 pm (UTC+0)
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A Dhaka court has sentenced a controversial newspaper editor to seven years “rigorous imprisonment” for “sedition.” Police arrested Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury on November 29, 2003 — yes, a decade ago — at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as he was about to fly to Tel Aviv to attend a writer’s conference. Choudhury is the editor of […]
UPDATE: Shez Cassim Back Home After Months in UAE Jail
Posted January 14th, 2014 at 5:14 pm (UTC+0)
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As RePRESSed noted in a recent update, Shezanne Cassim, the US citizen who was jailed in the UAE for a parody YouTube video, has been deported from the UAE and is finally back in his home state of Minnesota. “I think there’s a misconception that I broke a law,” he told reporters of the local […]
Island of Nauru Increases Foreign Journalists’ Visa Fees Forty-Fold
Posted January 13th, 2014 at 4:55 pm (UTC+0)
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Nations that don’t care for foreign journalists poking around have come up with a variety of interesting ways to silence them. As RePRESSed noted in an earlier post, China kept New York Times and Bloomberg reporters biting their nails for months before finally renewing their visas. During its own version of the “Arab Spring,” Bahrain […]
UPDATE: Good News for American Jailed in UAE for Spoof YouTube Video
Posted January 7th, 2014 at 4:59 pm (UTC+0)
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The Emirates Center for Human Rights (ECHR) has announced that Shezanne Cassim, the American citizen jailed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for making a spoof video about Dubai’s “Satwa” hip hop culture, is about to be released from jail. Minneapolis, Minnesota lawyer Susan Burns, who represents Cassim’s family, told RePRESSed that it’s official. “State […]
In Bahrain, Taking a Photograph Could Land You in Jail
Posted January 6th, 2014 at 9:20 am (UTC+0)
International rights groups are calling for the release of a prominent photographer in Bahrain, who is being held in prison for documenting anti-government protests in that country. Reporters Without Borders joins the Committee to Protect Journalists in calling for the immediate release of Ahmed Jaber Al-Fardan. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) says that […]
Egypt Ramps Up Crackdown On Al Jazeera, Other Foreign Journalists
Posted January 3rd, 2014 at 7:07 pm (UTC+0)
Rights groups and media organizations are expressing outrage over the arrest of three Al Jazeera English (AJE) journalists Sunday. They were arrested in their makeshift studio in a Cairo hotel, accused of “belonging to a terrorist group and broadcasting false news that harms national security.” Bureau Chief Mohamed Fahmy, Peabody-award winning Australian journalist […]
UPDATE: Good News/Bad News for Times, Bloomberg Journalists in China
Posted January 3rd, 2014 at 12:22 am (UTC+0)
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As reported in an earlier post, about two dozen New York Times and Bloomberg journalists have been waiting anxiously for China to renew their visas and allow them to continue reporting. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that at least two Times reporters are being forced to leave China–Beijing correspondent and former Reuters reporter Chris […]
In Memoriam: Remembering Journalists Killed Covering Syria in 2013
Posted December 30th, 2013 at 9:02 am (UTC+0)
We received sad news from Syria during the holiday season: Molhem Barakat, a young Syrian photographer who freelanced for Reuters and whose iconic photos appeared in many global publications, was killed a few days ago in the line of duty. Believed to be no older than 19–possibly as young as 17–years old, Baraka was […]
Facebook Knows When We Self-Censor and What Makes Us Do It
Posted December 25th, 2013 at 9:55 am (UTC+0)
Self-censorship is defined as censorship imposed from within out of fear of the consequences. Put more bluntly, it’s the practice of keeping our mouths shut. A journalist living and working in a repressive society may refrain from writing about government corruption out of fear of going to jail or worse; a celebrity might decide against […]
