The Astor Award 2018 – The Commonwealth Press Union Media Trust Honours the Memory of Daphne Caruana Galizia

The Commonwealth Press Union Media Trust has awarded the 2018 Astor Award, posthumously, to Daphne Caruana Galizia. The Astor Award, established in 1970 and one of the oldest press freedom awards in the world, is made to an individual or organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence of press freedom within the Commonwealth. The citation for the Award is as follows: "On 16th October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta's crusading scourge of official corruption, cronynism and incompetence, died for her journalism - the victim of an assassin's car bomb.  She…Read more

UK Society of Editors welcomes defeat of Lords data protection amendments

  • Posted on March 28, 2018
  • /Under Legal
The  UK Society has Editors has welcomed the defeat in the House of Commons of ‘perverse’ amendments to the Data Protection Bill. The clauses, 168 and 169, would have seen publishers forced to pay both sides costs of legal actions brought against them in data protection cases regardless or not of whether they won an action in court. The amendments, previously added to the Data Protection Bill in the House of Lords, were removed during the Committee stage of the Bill’s passing in the House of Commons yesterday. Ian Murray, Executive Director of…Read more

Kenyan journalists assaulted by police at Nairobi airport

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities in Kenya to immediately investigate the assault of journalists by police at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi yesterday. According to media reports and journalists who spoke with CPJ, police officers attacked reporters covering an opposition politician's return to the country, causing injuries to at least two journalists. "Authorities in Kenya cannot resolve their political disputes by beating up journalists," said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal from New York. "Kenyan authorities must urgently investigate this attack and put an end to any…Read more

Indian reporter hit by truck, dies after investigating ‘sand mafia’

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Indian authorities to determine the motive and bring to justice those responsible for the death of journalist Sandeep Sharma in central India's Madhya Pradesh state. Sharma, a reporter for the local News World television channel in the state's Bhind district, yesterday was driving on his motorbike to a government event when a truck hit him and ran him over, according to the channel's bureau chief, Vikas Purohit, who witnessed the collision, and a report by NDTV. Purohit told CPJ that he took Sharma to the local…Read more

Quebec court orders Radio-Canada reporter to reveal her sources

  • Posted on March 28, 2018
  • /Under Legal
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned a Quebec Superior Court ruling that ordered a journalist to reveal her sources. The court ruled yesterday that Marie-Maude Denis, an investigative journalist for the French-language public broadcaster Radio-Canada, must reveal her sources in an ongoing court case in which two politicians from the ruling Liberal Party are charged with corruption, according to press reports. The ruling comes a few months after the Canadian parliament unanimously passed a shield law that allows journalists to protect their sources. In his March 22 ruling, Justice Jean-François Émond argued that…Read more

At least two journalists injured as police in India break up rally

The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities in northeast India to investigate the beating of at least two journalists by police who broke up a student rally on March 10.Emmy Lawbei, a reporter for the TV station News18-Assam North East, and Catherine Sangi, a correspondent for the state-run radio station All India Radio, in the state of Assam, told CPJ that police hit them with heavy bamboo canes known as lathis while they were covering a rally by a student organization in Bairabi, a town in the district of Kolasib, on the…Read more

Commonwealth Day Message by Her Majesty The Queen

Towards a Common Future Commonwealth Day, 12 March 2018 We all have reason to give thanks for the numerous ways in which our lives are enriched when we learn from others. Through exchanging ideas, and seeing life from other perspectives, we grow in understanding and work more collaboratively towards a common future. There is a very special value in the insights we gain through the Commonwealth connection; shared inheritances help us overcome difference so that diversity is a cause for celebration rather than division. We shall see this in action at the Commonwealth…Read more

Two Nigerian journalists charged with cybercrime

Nigerian authorities should immediately drop plans to charge Timothy and Daniel Elombah, editor and chief executive respectively, of the independent Elombah news website, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. A federal court in Abuja is scheduled to arraign the brothers on cybercrime and terrorism-related offenses on March 1, their lawyer Obunike Ohaegbu told CPJ. "Timothy and Daniel Elombah are journalists and not terrorists who should be free to continue their journalism without legal harassment or fear of going to jail," said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal from New York. "Authorities should drop…Read more

Ugandan journalist seized in Kampala following investigative report

Ugandan authorities must make every effort to secure the safe release of Charles Etukuri, an investigative journalist for the state-owned New Visionnewspaper, the Committee to Protect Journalists said . Five unidentified men dressed in military camouflage seized Etukuri outside the newspaper's office in Kampala on 13 February, days after he published an investigation into the murder of a foreign national in Uganda, the paper's editor John Kakande and the Independent Media Council of Uganda executive secretary, Haruna Kanaabi, told CPJ. Several eyewitnesses, including two New Vision employees, reported that the men were waiting…Read more

The Gambia rejoins Commonwealth

The Gambia rejoins the Commonwealth family today, almost five years after leaving it. A flag-raising ceremony, at Marlborough House, the London headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat, will mark its return. Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, the chair of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors, Norman Hamilton, members of the Committee, and The Gambian high commissioner, Francis Blain, will attend the ceremony. The decision to begin the process of applying for readmission was made in February 2017 by President Adama Barrow, who came to power following elections in December 2016. Last December, the…Read more