Russia, Turkey and Egypt also among worst perpetrators of transnational repression around the globe
A quarter of the world’s countries have engaged in transnational repression – targeting political exiles abroad to silence dissent – in the past decade, new research reveals.
The Washington DC-based non-profit organisation Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries, from 2014 to 2024.
Continue reading...Media group led by Guardian seeks release of document written by Dominic Hampshire in support of Yang Tengbo
Lawyers for an aide to Prince Andrew are fighting to prevent his statement in support of a man accused of being a Chinese spy, who briefly became a trusted business partner and associate of the prince, from being released to the press.
The Guardian is leading a group of media organisations seeking the release of a witness statement written by the prince’s fixer and close friend Dominic Hampshire, originally at the personal request of the businessman Yang Tengbo.
Continue reading...Foreign ministry summons ambassador as Cecilia Sala reportedly tells family she sleeps on floor of prison cell
Italy’s foreign ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador on Wednesday and urged the immediate release of an Italian journalist held in solitary confinement in Tehran.
Cecilia Sala, a 29-year-old freelance journalist for Il Foglio newspaper and a podcaster, reportedly spoke of the harsh conditions of her detainment in the notorious Evin prison, including having to sleep on the floor of her cell without a mattress.
Continue reading...Men were asleep in marked press vehicle, say witnesses, as renewed hostage negotiations reach impasse
Five Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in central Gaza, their employer has said, while Israel has also struck several areas in Houthi rebel-controlled Yemen in air raids.
Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-Lada’a were sleeping in their broadcasting truck, marked as press, when it was targeted in a direct strike by the Israeli military, witnesses told Palestinian media. Another 32 people were killed in other Israeli pre-dawn strikes across the territory, the local health ministry said.
Continue reading...Dong Yuyu was detained in 2022 after meeting Japanese diplomats named agents of ‘espionage organisation’
A veteran Chinese state media journalist has been sentenced by a Beijing court to seven years in prison on espionage charges, his family has said.
Dong Yuyu, a senior columnist at the Communist party newspaper Guangming Daily, was detained in February 2022 along with a Japanese diplomat at a Beijing restaurant.
Continue reading...Detained pro-democracy activist spoke for first time about charges against him under Hong Kong national security law
Jimmy Lai, the detained pro-democracy activist and media mogul who is the target of Hong Kong’s most high-profile national security case, took the stand in court on Wednesday. For the first time since he was detained in December 2020, Lai spoke publicly about the charges against him, for which he faces spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Four years after his arrest, the 77-year-old seemed older and not as strong as he used to be. His first words – swearing an oath on the Bible – were delivered hoarsely.
Continue reading...Mech Dara, charged with incitement, freed on bail after video of him apologising to country’s leaders appears
Mech Dara, one of Cambodia’s most prominent journalists, known for exposing the country’s billion-dollar scam industry, has been released on bail after a video of him apologising to the country’s leaders appeared in pro-government media.
Dara was arrested last month while travelling with his family, and charged with incitement over social media posts.
Continue reading...Abduqadir Mohamed Nur’s reported abduction from home and detention is latest attack on press freedom for critical writing on regime, media union says
A Somali journalist was abducted from his home by intelligence agents early on Friday, according to press freedom campaigners.
The journalists’ union Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) said the detention of Abduqadir Mohamed Nur was a “brazen attack” on the reporter and his news outlet, Risaala Media Corporation, for critical reporting of state security forces.
Continue reading...Hopes of pardon dashed for Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who were cleared of collaboration with US
Two young female journalists who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for reporting on the death of Mahsa Amini have been cleared of charges of collaborating with the United States government but will still spend up to five more years behind bars, the Iranian authorities have announced.
Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi were arrested in 2022 after reporting on the death and funeral of Amini, the young Kurdish woman who died in police custody in 2022, sparking the nationwide Women, Life, Freedom protests.
Continue reading...Regulator says advert by publisher of the Citizen newspaper ‘likely to harm national unity’
Tanzania has suspended the online operations of a top newspaper publisher after one of its publications ran an animated advert depicting the country’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and referencing a spate of recent abductions and killings of dissidents.
The advert, published on X and Instagram on Tuesday by the Citizen, an English-language newspaper, showed a character resembling the president flipping through TV channels. Each channel showed people speaking about loved ones they had lost through disappearances.
Continue reading...WikiLeaks founder says he pleaded ‘guilty to journalism’ in deal for his release and calls for protection of press freedom
Julian Assange has said he chose freedom “over unrealisable justice” as he described his plea deal with US authorities and urged European lawmakers to act to protect freedom of expression in a climate with “more impunity, more secrecy [and] more retaliation for telling the truth”.
In his first public statement since the plea deal in June ended his nearly 14 years of prison, embassy confinement and house arrest in the UK, the WikiLeaks founder argued that legal protections for whistleblowers and journalists “only existed on paper” or “were not effective in any remotely reasonable time”.
Continue reading...Chung Pui-kuen sentenced to 21 months while Patrick Lam gets 11-month term but is released on medical grounds
The former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Stand News has been sentenced to jail on sedition charges for the publication of news reports and other articles that prosecutors said tried to promote “illegal ideologies”.
Chung Pui-kuen, 55, the former editor-in-chief and the former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam, 36, were found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious materials in late August after almost a year of delays. The parent company of the now-defunct Stand News, Best Pencil Ltd, was also convicted.
Continue reading...Country held chair due to rotating presidency despite Orbán government being under EU sanctions procedure
Hungary’s government has presided over EU talks on upholding democratic standards across the continent, in a development one prominent MEP described as “outrageous”.
Viktor Orbán’s government has been under an EU sanctions procedure since 2018 for posing a “systemic threat” to democracy and the rule of law.
Continue reading...Qatari broadcaster has been ordered to close office for 45 days, months after being banned from operating in Israel
Israeli forces raided the office of Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order, the Qatari broadcaster said, with footage showing heavily armed and masked troops entering the premises in Ramallah.
“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, the network reported, citing the conversation which was broadcast live. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said.
Continue reading...Staff from at least 15 media outlets subjected to threats and defamatory letters sent to their families and employers
Journalists from more than a dozen media outlets in Hong Kong have been harassed and targeted in what the city’s largest journalist association said was a “systemic and organised attack” over recent months.
The harassment included death threats, and threatening and defamatory complaint letters being sent to reporters’ families and their employers, as well as landlords and neighbours, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said.
Continue reading...Chris Patten condemns ‘dark day for press freedom’ as Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam convicted over 11 articles
Two journalists from the closed Hong Kong media outlet Stand News have been found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious materials – the first such convictions since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control – after a trial that was closely observed as a bellwether for the city’s diminishing press freedom.
The former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam were arrested on 29 December 2021 after police raided the outlet’s newsroom.
Continue reading...Thai parliament to investigate Prawit Wongsuwon after he repeatedly hit a journalist as she tried to ask him questions
Thailand’s parliament has said it will investigate a senior politician and former army chief after he was filmed slapping a reporter as she tried to ask him questions.
Prawit Wongsuwon lashed out at a journalist from the public broadcaster ThaiPBS on Friday as she asked him about the appointment of Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the kingdom’s new prime minister.
Continue reading...David Neuberger was part of court panel that dismissed appeal of Jimmy Lai and six other pro-democracy activists
David Neuberger, the former president of the UK’s supreme court, has resigned from his role as chair of a legal advisory board to an international media freedom coalition, citing the “concern expressed” over his role as a judge in Hong Kong.
Lord Neuberger said he had been considering his position as chair of the high-level panel of legal experts that advises the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), an international NGO, for several months.
Continue reading...Country’s hard-right culture minister Martina Šimkovičová accused of ‘complete lies’ after removal of respected figures
When Slovakia’s minister for culture fired the director of the country’s oldest and most important theatre last Tuesday, the numerous reasons she cited for her surprise move included “political activism”, an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, and, bizarrely, an incident with a crystal chandelier.
Matej Drlička, whose dismissal from the Slovak National Theatre was followed a day later by that of the director of the Slovak National Gallery, says the real reason is something else: a concerted crackdown on freedom of artistic expression and a systematic assault on the central European republic’s state institutions under the watch of the populist prime minister Robert Fico.
Continue reading...Reporters cautiously optimistic as interim government takes over after years of intimidation and censorship
Bangladeshi journalists are hoping the resignation of the prime minister Sheikh Hasina will bring an era of censorship and fear to an end, as they prepare to hold a new interim government to account.
Arrests, abuse and forced disappearances at the hands of Bangladesh’s security forces have loomed over journalists for most of Hasina’s 15-year rule, preventing them from routine reporting for fear of writing anything that could be perceived as embarrassing for the government.
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