Americas

Washington, D.C., April 17, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on lawmakers to protect press freedom by rejecting an unamended extension of the warrantless surveillance of electronic communications permitted under Section 702 of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the use of this warrantless surveillance, has itself…

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Thursday submitted a statement to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan body of the U.S. House of Representatives, calling attention to the systematic erosion of press freedom in El Salvador under the ongoing state of exception. The statement, filed during the “The State of Exception in El Salvador: Year…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a government agency that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in the United States. Although the agency is supposed to be independent of the executive branch, recent actions by the FCC and comments by its chairman, Brendan Carr, represent a worrying politicization of the agency. In…

Washington, D.C., April 2, 2026— The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and partners in the Journalist Assistance Network (JAN) condemn Russia’s unabashed attempt to silence independent journalism and the civil society that supports their critical work by designating the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) an “undesirable organization.”  In response, the JAN issued the following statement…

Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, April 1, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to secure the release of U.S. journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped in the capital Baghdad on Tuesday. “The abduction of Shelly Kittleson in broad daylight reflects an alarming breach of journalists’ safety in Iraq that highlights the…

The Committee to Protect Journalists has endorsed an updated reporter privacy protection bill that would strengthen and modernize journalist protections against unreasonable government searches and seizures in connection with their reporting. Introduced in the U.S. Congress by Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Becca Balint on March 27 as S.4268 and H.R. 8093, the Privacy Protection…

Sharmelí Bustíos Patiño was only 14 when her father, 38-year-old Peruvian journalist Hugo Bustíos Saavedra, was killed on November 24, 1988, while covering the war between the Peruvian army and Shining Path fighters in a violent ambush near the town of Huanta. After nearly four decades of fighting to find her father’s killer, Sharmelí found justice in 2023…

Washington, D.C., March 20, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists is heartened by a United States District Court decision on Friday in the case of New York Times v. Pentagon, in which the judge decided in favor of the newspaper, and calls on the Pentagon to heed the court’s decision and abandon last year’s changes to…

Bogotá, March 20, 2026—Ecuadorian authorities must swiftly and comprehensively investigate the shooting of journalist José Vinces Oviedo in the southern city of Huaquillas and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. “We urge authorities to swiftly and credibly investigate the shooting of journalist José Vinces Oviedo in Huaquillas, determine whether the attack…

Washington, D.C., March 20, 2026—A decision by the US broadcast regulator to approve the merger of Tegna and Nexstar broadcasting companies — in clear violation of its own norms and regulations — is a concerning sign of government sponsored media concentration in the United States, the Committee to Protect Journalists warned on Friday. The Federal…