Category Archives: Press freedom

Taliban’s return ‘a catastrophe’ for journalism in Afghanistan

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Head of International Federation of Journalists says ‘future is black’ for 1,300 journalists still in country

Journalism in Afghanistan is in danger of disappearing, according to the head of the International Federation of Journalists, who said that reporters trying to continue working under the Taliban have been subjected to beatings and imprisonment.

“The Taliban don’t want to make too many waves right now, but they will want to take control of everything, including the foreign press in Afghanistan,” Anthony Bellanger, the IFJ secretary general, told the Guardian. “And as often happens in such situations, foreign journalists will be considered agents of foreign governments.

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Putin’s crackdown: how Russia’s journalists became ‘foreign agents’

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Will an oppressive new law stifle independent media outlets – or lead to a weakening of the president’s authoritarian regime?

Usually the bad news is dumped late on Friday when most Muscovites are heading out for the evening: a new list of names of journalists and outlets declared “foreign agents”, a label that for some Russians evokes such Soviet-era terms as “enemy of the people” and has sent a chill through newsrooms under threat.

“We are being told that we are the enemy,” said Tikhon Dzyadko, the editor of Dozhd, Russia’s main independent television station and a recent addition to the list. “And I am not an enemy and I am not an agent. It’s a spit in the face.”

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The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas

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Vladimir Putin urged to end crackdown on Russian journalists

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More than a dozen independent media sign open letter calling for halt to ‘foreign agent’ designations

Russia’s leading independent media have appealed to Vladimir Putin and other top government officials to halt a crackdown on journalists under which some of the countries’ top outlets have been declared foreign agents or banned outright over the last year.

More than a dozen media, including Meduza, TV Rain and Novaya Gazeta have signed an open letter to the government calling on it to remove individual journalists and their outlets from its blacklists and repeal laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations” altogether.

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Open letter urges Boris Johnson to act on promise and evacuate Afghan journalists

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The Guardian and other UK media demand action for those who have helped report from Afghanistan

• UK media repeat call for evacuation of Afghan colleagues

Dear prime minister and foreign secretary,

When British media organisations wrote to you earlier this month about the grave Taliban threat to Afghan journalists and translators who had worked with us, you responded almost immediately. You recognised their vital contribution to a free press by reporting on the British mission in Afghanistan and promised colleagues at risk a path to safety. President Biden did the same in the United States.

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Expulsions lead BBC to fear for reporters in authoritarian regimes

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Broadcaster says relations with China and Russia are fraught as its correspondent Sarah Rainsford is forced out of Moscow

BBC news executives vowed on Saturday night to continue to report from Russia and China despite growing fears that both countries are becoming increasingly difficult to cover.

After a surprise Russian move last week that will force correspondent Sarah Rainsford permanently out of Moscow at the end of the month, a senior figure in BBC news said that Russia’s decision not to renew her visa marks a new low in relations. “Efforts are being made to keep communications open but the feeling is that Sarah is sadly right when she says she doesn’t see Russia changing its mind,” he said.

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‘Saddam Hussein’s spies in London laid a trap – and sent my son Farzad to his death’

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Nosrat Bazoft, mother of the Observer reporter executed by the tyrant in 1990, reveals for the first time how the unreported theft of a briefcase of documents on a secret Iraqi weapon may have sealed her son’s fate.

Leaning back in a loose cotton shirt within the lobby of Baghdad’s Royal Tulip Al Rasheed hotel, Farzad Bazoft looks like a man at ease. Despite investigating Iraq’s secret arms programme in the back yard of Saddam Hussein, the Observer journalist knew that the following day he would be gone, back to the safety of London.

Farzad never made it to the UK. The picture chronicles his last night of freedom. Within 24 hours he would be imprisoned in solitary confinement. Then he would be starved and beaten, the start of a chain of events that would culminate, amid international furore, with his execution at the behest of Saddam.

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BBC condemns ‘assault on media freedom’ as Russia expels reporter

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State media call Sarah Rainsford’s expulsion a response to alleged UK barriers for Russian journalists

Russia is to expel a senior BBC journalist in Moscow by refusing to extend her accreditation in a move the broadcaster condemned as a “direct assault on media freedom”.

Sarah Rainsford’s visa is due to expire at the end of August and will not be renewed. The state broadcaster Rossiya-24 first reported the decision on Thursday evening, calling it a response to alleged UK refusals or delays in issuing visas to Russian journalists.

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Polish government’s media bill is latest move to silence its critics

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Analysis: legislation is likely to target US-owned broadcaster as press freedom continues to deteriorate

In 2015, the year that the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland, the country ranked 18th – its highest ever position – out of 164 countries on Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index.

By this year it had fallen to its lowest ever position, 64th, continuing an annual slide that has left it just below Malawi and Armenia, in 62nd and 63rd, and just above Bhutan and Ivory Coast, with a classification from RSF of “problematic”.

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Poland’s coalition under threat as parliament votes on media bill

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Government confident of winning vote despite losing majority after coalition partner walks out

The future of Poland’s three-party coalition government has been thrown into doubt as parliament votes on Wednesday on a controversial media ownership bill that could lead to the country’s largest remaining independent TV station losing its licence.

After a night of protests in Warsaw and 80 other towns and cities against the bill, which opponents see as an attempt to silence an often critical broadcaster, the government said on Wednesday it was confident of winning the vote.

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Press groups raise alarm over threats to foreign media in China

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Reporters from international outlets have suffered worsening intimidation while covering Henan floods

Press groups have expressed alarm at the worsening intimidation of foreign media in China, often driven by government officials and organisations.

As recovery and rescue efforts continue in Henan province after last week’s deadly floods, groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) have condemned recent harassment and threats towards journalists covering the disaster.

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Malawi Pride and press freedoms in Palestine: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia

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‘The pressure is unbearable’: final days of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily

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Newspaper’s closure shows how pro-democracy movement and press freedom are being crushed

On Wednesday morning, the Apple Daily reporter Angel Kwan was at a government press conference for the Hong Kong census when her phone started buzzing with notifications. Six days earlier, hundreds of police had raided her workplace, arrested her bosses and seized dozens of computers. On Monday, the company board had said it would have to shut the paper unless authorities unfroze its finances.

As she stood holding her microphone towards the government official, Kwan did not dare look at her phone and the news it heralded: Apple Daily was shutting down. Today.

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The Guardian view on Hong Kong’s Apple Daily: gone but not forgotten | Editorial

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The outspoken tabloid’s closure is a chilling moment. But as Beijing silences dissent, the spirit of resistance endures

Apple Daily is dead. At midnight on Wednesday, Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy news outlet closed, forced out of business after authorities froze the assets of the 26-year-old tabloid and arrested executives and journalists. Through its outspoken support for protests, it had come to stand for resistance itself: for the freedom to know what is happening, to challenge authorities, and to imagine and demand another Hong Kong.

Beijing is determined to crush that resistance. Each day it turns the screws further. Many have fallen silent already, but Apple Daily was defiant. Its owner, Jimmy Lai, already jailed over a protest, could face life in prison due to further charges under the draconian national security law. The editor-in-chief and chief executive of its parent company have been charged with conspiracy to collude with “external elements” after 500 officers raided its headquarters last week. Authorities say that the case relates to articles calling for sanctions on the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, some published before the imposition of the security law, which is not supposed to be retroactive. This vindictive action marks the criminalisation of journalism. On Wednesday, the company announced it was closing overnight, citing employee safety and staffing levels after officers arrested its lead opinion writer.

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Large crowds queue in Hong Kong for final Apple Daily edition – video

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Large crowds have queued in Hong Kong to buy the final edition of the Apple Daily. The closure of Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper comes one week after five high-profile staff were arrested, the company's office raided and millions of dollars in assets frozen in Beijing's crackdown on the media outlet. Sales of the newspaper began at 1am with some vendors selling out of copies within hours

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Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, symbol of pro-democracy movement, to close

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Tabloid founded by Jimmy Lai and targeted by police raid last week will print final edition on Thursday

Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, will shut down online at midnight on Wednesday and print its final edition on Thursday, in a move observers fear signals the death knell for press freedom in the territory.

The paper and its activist founder, Jimmy Lai, had become symbols of the pro-democracy movement and a thorn in the side of Hong Kong’s government and police, making it a prime target in the government’s efforts to stifle Hong Kong’s media.

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‘The blackest day’: Apple Daily’s demise comes as no surprise

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Analysis: a palpable chill has run through the Hong Kong media, amid warnings about ‘fake news’

The fate of Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s bestselling tabloids, should not come as a surprise. On the day Jimmy Lai, its founder, was sentenced to 14 months in prison in April, a commentary in the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao called for a ban on Apple Daily in order to “close national security loopholes”.

The 72-year-old media tycoon and his 26-year-old newspaper have been among the most high-profile critics of Beijing and the controversial national security law (NSL), which they deem “draconian”, but which the authorities say is “necessary”. The law bars secession, subversion and foreign collusion.

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Hong Kong police arrest editorial writer at Apple Daily newspaper

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Arrest of journalist who publishes under the name Li Ping is the first of a writer at the pro-democracy newspaper

The editorial writer for Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper has been arrested, the latest move in a media crackdown under the national security law that saw hundreds of police raid its newsroom and arrest senior figures last week.

Police confirmed the arrest of a 55-year-old man in Tseung Kwan O on Wednesday morning, “on suspicion of conspiring to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security”.

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Top Nicaraguan journalist flees country amid escalating crackdown

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  • Carlos Fernando Chamorro: ‘They won’t silence journalism’
  • Chamorro’s sister among 19 jailed in pre-election crackdown

Nicaragua’s most prominent journalist has fled the country for a second time after police raided his house during a widening crackdown on opposition figures by the country’s Sandinista rulers.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the editor of the Confidencial website and a member of one of the country’s most influential political families, said on Tuesday he had left the Central American country to “safeguard his freedom”.

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Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

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