CPJ Blog

Press Freedom News and Views

Blog | China, USA

Does the Internet boost freedom? We decide, book says

By Kristin Jones/CPJ Asia Program
Rebecca MacKinnon, shown here in Tunisia last year, asserts in a new book that citizens and governments must decide the power of the Internet. (AFP/Fethi Belaid)

The Internet doesn't bring freedom. Not automatically, anyway.

That's one of the main messages of Rebecca MacKinnon's new book, Consent of the Networked, which had its New York launch at the offices of the New America Foundation last night. In a conversation with CNN managing editor Mark Whitaker, MacKinnon, a CPJ board member, said it's up to concerned citizens, governments, and corporations to make decisions about how the Internet is used. She contrasted the Twitter-powered revolt in Egypt last year with the "networked authoritarianism" of China, where corporations are collaborators in a system designed to preserve Communist Party rule.

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February 2, 2012 5:22 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: Censored, Consent of the Networked, Internet, Rebecca MacKinnon, Social Media
Blog | India

India's challenge: Intolerance vs. intellectual freedom

By Mannika Chopra/CPJ India Consultant
Visitors wait for Salman Rushdie's video conference at the Jaipur Literature Festival, which was called off after Muslim groups protested. (AP/Manish Swarup)

Because of criticism from Hindu fundamentalists, the showing of a documentary by filmmaker Sanjay Kak at the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce in Pune has been indefinitely postponed. The conservative student organization Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parisha protested Kak's film, "Jashn-e-Azadi" (How we celebrate freedom), which is critical of the Indian army's role in Kashmir. In fact, the whole conference, scheduled to start Friday, has been postponed, according to the investigative magazine Tehelka and the BBC.

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January 31, 2012 4:59 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: Censored, Impunity, Salman Rushdie, Sanjay Kak
Blog | Argentina

Cabezas' convicted killers are free, 15 years after murder

By Carlos Lauría/Americas Senior Program Coordinator
Photojournalists raise photos of José Luis Cabezas as thousands gathered in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, February 25, 1997, to protest Cabezas' murder the previous month. (AP/Daniel Muzio)

It was a cold winter morning more than 15 years ago. As part of my daily routine as a foreign correspondent, I opened my laptop to read the Argentine papers. I was shocked by a headline: my colleague José Luis Cabezas, a photographer for the newsweekly magazine Noticias, had been murdered. His bullet-ridden body was found on January 25, 1997, inside a burned car, handcuffed and charred, on the outskirts of the beach resort of Pinamar.

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January 31, 2012 4:12 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Also in Español
Tags: Alfredo Yabrán, Carlos Saúl Menem, Eduardo Duhalde, Impunity, José Luis Cabezas, Killed, Noticias
Blog | China

Chinese press has impact, against the odds

By Kristin Jones/CPJ Asia Program
The sky over Beijing, as it turns out, isn't quite as blue as the government long claimed. (Reuters/David Gray)

In China, state control over the media hasn't become more lax in recent years. Each year brings a new excuse for Communist Party censors to tighten the screws. The year of the rabbit brought the Arab Spring, and fears of a Jasmine Revolution. The year of the dragon brings a major political transition. 

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January 30, 2012 4:06 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: American Political Science Association, Caixin, China Daily, Environment, Southern Metropolis Daily
Blog | India

Can an Indian cartoonist be barred from mocking the state?

By Mannika Chopra/CPJ India Consultant

The case of a cartoonist charged with treason and offending India's national sentiments reflects a growing debate over what constitutes freedom of expression in India. His accusers argue that while it is permissible to make fun of politicians, you cannot make fun of the state. Not everyone agrees.

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January 30, 2012 3:37 PM ET | | Comments (1)
Tags: Anna Hazare, Aseem Trivedi, Cartoonist, Defamation
Blog | Mexico

In Mexico mission, PEN speaks for a silenced press

By Mike O'Connor/CPJ Mexico Representative
Mexican writer Eduardo Lizalde speaks out at a PEN International event. (Reuters/Henry Romero)

The leading American author Russell Banks set the tone on Sunday as he stood among international writers and their local colleagues in Mexico City: "A nation's journalists and writers, like its poets and story-tellers, are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people. When journalists cannot freely speak of what they see and hear of the reality that surrounds them, the people cannot see, hear, or speak it either." Banks is among the leaders of a high-level PEN International delegation that is meeting with top Mexican officials to pressure them to improve law enforcement in the murders of journalists, and to change the law to bring more cases under the federal government's jurisdiction. 

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January 30, 2012 2:55 PM ET | | Comments (1) | Also in Español
Tags: Elena Poniatowska, Impunity, PEN, Russell Banks
Blog | China, Colombia, Mexico, USA

For journalists, cyber-security training slow to take hold

By Frank Smyth/CPJ Senior Adviser for Journalist Security

For centuries, journalists have been willing to go to prison to protect their sources. Back in 1848, New York Herald correspondent John Nugent spent a month in jail for refusing to tell a U.S. Senate committee his source for a leak exposing the secret approval of a treaty with Mexico. In a digital age, however, journalists need more than steadfast conviction to keep themselves and their sources safe. Government intelligence agencies, terrorist groups, and criminal syndicates are using electronic surveillance to learn what journalists are doing and who their sources are.  It seems many journalists are not keeping pace.

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January 27, 2012 3:57 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: Blogger, Christopher Soghoian, Columbia Journalism Review, Columbia University, Internet, Journalist Security
Blog | Colombia

Criminal gangs intimidate, silence Córdoba journalists

By John Otis/CPJ Andes Correspondent
People remain stranded at the North Bus Terminal in Medellin, Antioquia department, on January 5, 2012 during an armed strike imposed by the criminal gang Los Urabeños. (Raul Arboleda/AFP)

At most newspapers, reporting for the society page isn't especially dangerous. But in the northern Colombian department of Córdoba, which is under siege from drug-trafficking gangs, even covering birthday parties can be risky.

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January 26, 2012 12:39 PM ET | | Comments (0) | Also in Español
Tags: Córdoba, Edgar Astudillo, El Meridiano, El Propio, La Voz de Montería, Los Urabeños, Montería
Blog | Sri Lanka

Black January? A foreign plot, says Sri Lankan government

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator
Sri Lankan journalists stage the "Black January" protest, demanding the government punish the culprits responsible for killing journalists. (AP/Eranga Jayawardena)

On Monday, I wrote about two demonstrations scheduled for Sri Lanka this week. Both were meant to commemorate the ugly string of anti-press attacks in recent Januaries, which has included journalists killed and abducted, television stations bombed, websites attacked, and media offices torched. But Wednesday's Black January effort, publicized by the Free Media Movement (FMM) and other media support groups, was sabotaged and had to be moved at the last minute. A source in Colombo gave the following account, the outlines of which were confirmed by other CPJ sources:

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January 25, 2012 3:46 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: Black January, Impunity, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prageeth Eknelygoda, Sandhya Eknelygoda
Blog | Pakistan

Mazhar Abbas: Shahzad was no Pearl

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator
Pakistani journalists protest the killing of journalist Saleem Shahzad. (AFP/Rizwan Tabassum)

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl in Karachi on January 23, 2002. On February 21 of that year, a video of his beheading was released. In the wake of the judicial inquiry into the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad, veteran Pakistani journalist Mazhar Abbas has taken a comparative look at the two investigations with this article from the most recent magazine section of The News on Sunday.

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January 24, 2012 2:22 PM ET | | Comments (0)
Tags: Daniel Pearl, Impunity, Killed, Mazhar Abbas, Saleem Shahzad

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