2016

  

CPJ joins call for UN to appoint special representative for safety of journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is one of 35 press freedom groups calling on the U.N. General Assembly to appoint a Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General for the Safety of Journalists as soon as possible. A joint letter from the groups proposes that the representative could work closely with the secretary-general to coordinate…

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Iraq withdraws Al-Jazeera’s license

New York, April 28, 2016 – Iraqi authorities should immediately restore Al-Jazeera’s operating license, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Qatari broadcaster reported that Iraqi authorities informed it Wednesday that its license to operate had been withdrawn.

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Foreign press in China say travel to Tibet remains restricted

While foreign media outlets were granted some limited access to the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2015, China still rejected roughly three-quarters of the reporters who sought permission to visit last year, according to a new survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC).

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Attacks on the Press 2016

Attacks on the Press 2016 Edition | Gender and Media Freedom Worldwide Introduction: Breaking the Silence by Joel Simon Some of the information we need to make sense of a complex world is missing. Read More › The Sadness of May the 25th by Jineth Bedoya Lima A Colombian journalist recounts the rape that led…

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Breaking the Silence

On February 11, 2011, as journalists were documenting the raucous celebration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square following the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the story took a sudden and unexpected turn. CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan, who was reporting from the square, was violently separated from her crew and security detail by a mob of men.…

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Compassion, Strength, Hugs

I am a hugger. Maybe it’s my Texas heritage, but the value of wrapping people in a warm embrace at the right time has stayed with me, like a hint of twang, in the 40 years since I left the state. And hugs have been just the right thing many times during the decades that…

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Males Preferred

In October 2015, when I solicited Chinese readers’ views on gender issues in journalism, one comment spoke volumes about the state of the debate in China: “Women can take advantage of their looks and feminine traits to attract well-known and powerful men to accept their interviews.”

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From High Profile to Exile

Heba Alshibani did not set out to become a journalist. She had expected to become an academic, as many members of her Libyan family had before the February 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi. But when the violence did not abate after Qaddafi’s overthrow, Alshibani witnessed events that she felt compelled…

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Harassed and Jailed

It feels strange to be writing about friends in jail. You wonder what kind of a friend you are–free to breathe the air, to walk the streets, to continue to work, while your friends cannot. Why do you deserve this privilege?

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Fighting Words

“When I cried, he slapped me hard and put his hand over my mouth.” That is how a 12-year-old girl in the Central African Republic described an episode in which a man found her hiding in the bathroom of her home in the wee hours of August 2, 2015, dragged her outside, and raped her,…

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