Muvi TV journalists arrested, fined after filming Zambian police raid on politician’s home

Zambian authorities should immediately investigate the arbitrary detention of Muvi TV journalist Innocent Phiri and camera operator Obvious Kapunda, nullify their fine and admission of guilt as it was made under duress, and ensure that police do not harass journalists who are covering the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Around 6:30 p.m. on November 13, police arrested Phiri and Kapunda as they filmed officers preparing to arrest opposition Economic and Equity Party leader Chilufya Tayali at his home in the capital, Lusaka, according to multiple media reports, a statement by the Zambian chapter of the…Read more

RSF calls for independent UN probe into Pakistani journalist’s murder in Kenya

Two weeks after well-known Pakistani TV news anchor Arshad Sharif was shot dead in a car near Nairobi – two wasted weeks marked by contradictory Kenyan police statements and doubts about the impartiality of the Pakistani investigators – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for a UN investigation into Sharif’s brutal murder. Sharif was killed by two shots fired at close range. This is one of the few hard facts to have emerged in the two weeks since his murder in a Nairobi suburb on the night of 23 October. The information comes from a Kenyan…Read more

Delhi police raid The Wire office and homes of its editors over retracted Meta reports

Indian authorities must stop harassing employees of the news website The Wire and let them work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On Monday, officials with the Delhi police crime branch searched the New Delhi office of The Wire and the residences of editors Siddharth Vardarajan, M.K. Venu, Siddharth Bhatia, and Jahanavi Sen, and seized their electronic devices, according to various news reports and Vardarajan, who spoke to CPJ over phone.  The searches were in relation to a police investigation into The Wire based on a complaint from Amit Malviya, an official with the ruling Bharatiya…Read more

Malta: Court sentences hitmen to 40 years each for role in assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia

Following a guilty plea, a court in Malta’s capital, Valletta, on Friday sentenced brothers Alfred and George Degiorgio to 40 years each for their role as hitmen in the assassination of Malta’s leading investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. On Friday, representatives of Article 19 Europe, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, the International Press Institute, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) were present at court in Valletta to monitor proceedings. They were there to hear the unprecedented guilty pleas and subsequent sentencing. This…Read more

Indian authorities prevent Pulitzer-winning Kashmiri journalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo from flying abroad

Indian authorities should allow Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo to travel abroad freely and collect her Pulitzer Prize in New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On Monday evening, immigration officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi stopped Mattoo, who was flying to New York to receive the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in a ceremony scheduled for Thursday, according to the journalist who spoke with CPJ by phone. Mattoo, a freelance photojournalist, was part of a Reuters team that won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for their coverage…Read more

South African court bans Independent Media outlets from publishing leaked intelligence report

A South African court judgment banning the publication of an intelligence report about alleged U.S. efforts to gather intelligence about South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party must be made public and should be overturned on appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.  On October 5, Gauteng High Court judge Daisy Sekao Molefe issued a final order banning the Daily News newspaper and Independent Online (IOL) news website from publishing a leaked November 5, 2020 intelligence report marked “secret” by South Africa’s State Security Agency and ordered that all copies of the…Read more

Zimbabwean journalists assaulted, harassed, and blocked from covering events

Zimbabwean authorities and ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) should investigate the assaults and harassment of journalists covering events of public interest in the past week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “The increasing cases of violence against journalists in Zimbabwe is becoming a serious source of concern and must be strongly condemned,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “Press freedom violations and the rising impunity for crimes against journalists should not be tolerated as the country prepares for a general election in 2023.” Between Thursday, October…Read more

Proposed Ugandan legislation seeks to criminalize ‘misuse of social media’

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday called on Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni not to sign into law a bill that would undermine press freedom by criminalizing speech sent via computer on a broadly defined and vaguely worded range of grounds. On September 8, Uganda’s Parliament passed the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which would impose criminal penalties and fines when a computer is used to commit offenses including the unauthorized dissemination of information, ridiculing or demeaning individuals, promoting hostility among groups of people, publishing “malicious” information, and the “misuse of social media,” according to…Read more

Bangladesh authorities arrest siblings of UK-based journalists

Bangladesh authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Nur Alam Chowdhury Pervez and Abdul Muktadir Manu and cease harassing family members of journalists who report from abroad, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On September 13, officers with the detective branch of the Bangladesh police, in the Noakhali town of the southeast Chittagong division, arrested Nur Alam Chowdhury Pervez, brother of Shamsul Alam Liton, editor of the privately owned United Kingdom-based Weekly Surma newspaper, according to news reports, a report by The Weekly Surma, a Twitter thread by Bangladeshi editor Tasneem Khalil, and a person familiar with the…Read more

South African journalist Karyn Maughan criminally charged over report on former President Zuma

Former South African President Jacob Zuma and his legal team should immediately drop their private criminal prosecution against Karyn Maughan, a reporter with the privately owned News24 site, and allow the press to report on court proceedings without intimidation or fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday. On September 6, Zuma’s legal team notified Maughan in a court summons that it had filed criminal charges against her in connection to her August 10, 2021 News24 report on Zuma’s medical condition, according to multiple news reports, a statement by local press freedom group South African Editors’ Forum, as…Read more