Alerts

New York, March 7, 2012--A reporter covering a post-election protest in Moscow suffered a concussion after being assaulted by police, the most serious of at least three attacks on journalists reporting on demonstrations on Monday, news reports said. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assaults and calls on police to hold the assailants accountable under the law.

New York, March 7, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in Togo to investigate a report that police assaulted a photojournalist on Friday after he took photos of officers seizing a motorcycle during a protest, according to media reports and local journalists.

Koffi Djidonou Frédéric Attipou, a photojournalist with the weekly Le Canard Indépendant and the biweekly magazine Sika, told CPJ he was covering a protest over government human rights violations when he turned his camera to police confiscating a demonstrator's motorcycle nearby. Togolese police, facing numerous allegations of heavy-handed and abusive tactics, have had a number of recent confrontations with journalists covering their activities, according to news accounts and CPJ research.

New York, March 7, 2012--Authorities in Tajikistan must immediately lift the order blocking domestic access to several news websites and Facebook, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, March 6, 2012--A large crowd attacked a group of about 100 Indian journalists covering local election results in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and damaged their equipment, according to news reports. The journalists were forced to lock themselves in a school for several hours to protect themselves from the violence, news reports said.

New York, March 6, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday's attack in Venezuela on Globovisión journalists covering an opposition political rally that came under gunfire. The station reported that assailants, who wore the red shirts associated with supporters of President Hugo Chávez, threatened the journalists and stole their equipment.

New York, March 6, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of Indian journalist Rajesh Mishra in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Mishra is the second journalist killed in Madhya Pradesh in a month.

New York, March 5, 2012--A Web editor in the southern Chinese city of Foshan was jailed for 10 days after reposting an unconfirmed report that two local officials had been caught with prostitutes, according to Chinese and international news reports.

New York, March 5, 2012--Authorities in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia shut down an independent radio broadcaster and arrested the station's director over coverage of fighting between the government and Al-Shabaab militants, local journalists said.

Around 10:20 p.m. Saturday, armed police arriving in two vehicles raided Codka Nabadda (Voice of Peace) in the port city of Bossasso, confiscated equipment, and sealed the studios, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists. An hour later, police raided the home of the station's director, Awke Abdullahi, and are holding him at the Bossasso Central Police Station. He has not been charged, although it is not legal in Puntland to hold a suspect for more than 48 hours without charge.

New York, March 5, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of a former Somali journalist who was shot on Sunday in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. The victim, Ali Ahmed Abdi, had recently resigned as a manager for a news outlet that has come under attack by Al-Shabaab insurgents.

New York, March 5, 2012--Kuwaiti authorities must lift their suspension of the privately owned newspaper Al-Dar and drop antistate charges lodged in connection with articles that sought to defend the country's Shiite minority, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.