This week's deadly unrest in Mozambique became a global news story in part because reporters and citizen journalists used new media and social networking tools. Clashes between security forces and people protesting rising prices in the capital, Maputo, left at least seven people dead and more than 200 people injured, according to the latest news reports.
My chance encounter last year with Los Paisas, a criminal gang that operates in northern Colombia, began a nightmare that continues today. I was heading to an assignment in a tourist area south of Montería on July 9, 2009, when Los Paisas gang members blocked my car. The gang was meeting with local landowners nearby--and journalists were not welcome.
Jordanian journalists succeeded this week in turning back some of the most repressive aspects of a new law on cyber crimes. The initial version of the law, approved by the cabinet of ministers on August 3, included broad restrictions on material deemed by the state to be defamatory or to involve national security. It also allowed law enforcement officials to conduct warrantless searches of online outlets. Facing domestic protests and international pressure from CPJ and others, the cabinet revised the measure on Sunday.
We're pleased to launch CPJ's official Facebook page in Spanish, CPJ en Español. We hope to engage our followers throughout Latin America in an ongoing conversation about press freedom challenges in the region.
The discussions between Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, and governments such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and India continue to hit the headlines. In each case, disagreements center on providing customer communications to security and law enforcement services. The rumblings from these nations over monitoring powers aren't just limited to RIM: India has announced its intention to put the same pressure on Google (for Gmail), and Skype (for its IM and telephony services).
Cape Town's St George's Cathedral, a rallying point for civil rights action during apartheid, was the site of the public launch on Tuesday of a mass campaign aimed at stopping a secrecy bill seen as a major threat to South Africans' hard-won freedom.
The National Press Club has announced
the recipients of the 2010 John Aubuchon
Freedom of the Press Award, which is given each year to individuals who have contributed
to the cause of press freedom and open government. This year, the international
recipient is Iranian blogger Kouhyar Goudarzi, who is being held in Tehran's Evin
Prison--notorious for its torture of detainees. CPJ wrote
earlier this month about a hunger strike in Evin in which several political prisoners,
including at least five journalists, protested their inhumane treatment.
Goudarzi was one of the protesters. Arrested
in December 2009, Goudzari, a former editor of Committee
of Human Rights Reporters, has been charged with heresy,
propagating against the regime, and participating in illegal gatherings.
With another journalist murdered in Honduras on Tuesday, bringing the total killed since March to eight, the country's press is understandably jittery. In a new documentary jointly produced by the Inter-American Press Association and the Video Journalism Movement, Carlos Mauricio Flores, the executive director of Tegucigalpa-based El Heraldo newspaper says, "We journalists are living in uncertainty and fear."
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