Newspaper uses secret room in first-person shooter game Counter-Strike to bypass Russian censorship
A Finnish newspaper is circumventing Russian media restrictions by hiding news reports about the war in Ukraine in an online game popular among Russian gamers.
“While Helsingin Sanomat and other foreign independent media are blocked in Russia, online games have not been banned so far,” said Antero Mukka, the editor-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat.
Continue reading...Even stories on cost of living leave journalists facing assault, threats and arrest under Digital Security Act
Four weeks ago, a reporter in Bangladesh was hauled from his office, badly beaten – and then thrown from the roof of his building, leaving him with fractures in his back, three broken ribs and a machete wound on his head.
The journalist, Ayub Meahzi, believes he was targeted for reporting on alleged local government ties to a criminal group.
Continue reading...Officials claim material on Jimmy Lai constituted political slogans but David Davis calls heavy-handed approach ‘completely daft’
Parliamentary security guards confiscated reports and leaflets about Hong Kong from attenders of an event in Westminster in case they caused political upset, the Guardian has learned, in a move condemned by a senior Conservative MP as “completely daft”.
Officers on the parliamentary estate forced people attending a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong last Monday to hand over copies of a report by the group about press freedom there, as well as leaflets campaigning for the release of the media tycoon Jimmy Lai.
Continue reading...El Faro moves its headquarters to avoid ‘fabricated accusations’ after 25 years reporting on drug wars, crime and corruption
El Faro has survived many pressures in its 25 years reporting on El Salvador’s bloody drug wars, crime and institutional corruption.
“We’ve been harassed. We’ve received death threats from drug cartels, requiring us to contract armed security guards. And we’ve had the police coming to our houses after we revealed their corruption scandals,” said Óscar Martínez, editor of the online investigative outlet. “Some of our journalists have been exiled, but we have managed to continue reporting from San Salvador.”
Continue reading...Russian foreign minister rejects request and says US must not ‘make a fuss’ over arrest of Evan Gershkovich
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, called for Russia to free the detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich in a rare phone call with his Moscow counterpart since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The American’s plea was rejected by Sergei Lavrov, who responded by saying that US officials and media outlets must “not make a fuss” or try to politicise the plight of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter.
Continue reading...Le Monde and Libération correspondents sent home in junta’s latest move against media from former colonial power
Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from Le Monde and Libération, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.
Burkina Faso, where two coups took place last year, is battling a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Continue reading...Shamsuzzaman Shams was taken from his home at 4am and accused of spreading ‘false news’ over article about cost of living crisis
Bangladesh police on Wednesday charged a reporter from a leading newspaper with producing “false news”, stoking fears about media freedom, after an article about high food prices went viral.
Shamsuzzaman Shams was picked up from his home in the industrial town of Savar just outside Dhaka at about 4am by plainclothes police, according to his newspaper, Prothom Alo.
Continue reading...Top opposition figure expelled from parliament after being convicted of defamation over Modi remark
The top Indian opposition figure Rahul Gandhi has said he will keep fighting for democracy after blaming his expulsion from parliament on his demands for an investigation into a key business ally of the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Gandhi was stripped of his parliamentary seat on Friday, a day after he was convicted of defamation in Modi’s home state of Gujarat for a 2019 campaign-trail remark seen as an insult to the prime minister.
Continue reading...Twelve-year sentences for the women condemned as president’s ‘revenge’ while UN report accuses country of possible crimes against humanity
Belarus has handed long jail terms to senior staff at the country’s largest independent news site, which was forced to close after historic demonstrations against strongman Alexander Lukashenko over two years ago.
The verdicts are the latest in a crackdown on journalists, opposition figures and activists who challenged Lukashenko’s claim that he won a sixth presidential term in 2020.
Continue reading...Independent media barred from building to avoid ‘disorder’, as president tightens autocratic grip
Independent and foreign journalists have been barred from attending the first session of Tunisia’s new parliament, which has been largely stripped of its powers by the increasingly autocratic president.
The ban on journalists entering the parliament building is the first since the revolution that ousted the late dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Continue reading...Mada Masr, Egypt’s only remaining independent news outlet, reported alleged corruption among supporters of President Sisi
Three journalists from Egypt’s last remaining independent news outlet have gone on trial in Cairo on charges of misusing social media and offending members of parliament.
Rana Mamdouh, Sara Seif Eddin and Beesan Kassab, who work for the Mada Masr news platform, face up to two years in prison and fines of 300,000 EGP (£8,100) if the court convicts them.
Continue reading...Press members living under the Taliban, and living uncertain lives in Pakistan, must be given clarity say campaign groups
Hundreds of Afghan journalists remain stranded in increasingly “dire” circumstances as frustration mounts over the UK government’s refusal to share the latest entry criteria for its flagship resettlement programme.
This weekend, a coalition of press freedom and free expression organisations, including Index on Censorship, the National Union of Journalists, PEN International and English PEN, have written to home secretary Suella Braverman asking why details of the next phase of the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme (ACRS) have yet to be revealed.
Continue reading...Suggestion to abolish catch-all offence will be among thousands considered at Chinese Communist party summit
China should abolish the catch-all crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a political delegate has proposed before next week’s major Two Sessions legislative meeting.
Zhu Zhengfu, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) advisory body, said the law risked undermining China’s legal system and was open to “selective enforcement” by authorities, according to state media.
Continue reading...Country’s finance ministry claims broadcaster has not fully declared its income and profits
India’s finance ministry has accused the BBC of tax evasion, saying that it had not fully declared its income and profits from its operations in the country.
Indian tax authorities ended three days of searches of the British broadcaster’s Delhi and Mumbai offices on Thursday night. Opposition political parties and other media organisations have criticised the searches as an attempt to intimidate the media.
Continue reading...Searches come weeks after release of documentary critical of PM that was later blocked by government
BBC offices in India have been raided by tax department officials, just weeks after the release of a documentary critical of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, which was later blocked by the government.
According to those working at the broadcaster, more than a dozen officials from the country’s income tax department turned up at the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai, where hundreds of employees are based, to conduct a “survey”. Documents and phones of several journalists were taken and the offices sealed.
Continue reading...Man pleads guilty to manslaughter after his car hit motorcycle carrying John Williams Ntwali
A Rwandan driver has been fined 1 million Rwandan francs ($920) for involuntary manslaughter over the death of a top journalist who was critical of the government.
John Williams Ntwali, editor of the Chronicles newspaper, was killed on 18 January when a speeding vehicle rammed a motorcycle on which he was riding pillion.
Continue reading...Muslim reporter Siddique Kappan had been charged under draconian anti-terrorism laws
Indian journalist Siddique Kappan, who was held in jail for two years without trial, has walked free after being granted bail in a case human rights groups alleged was politically motivated.
Kappan, a Muslim journalist from the southern state of Kerala, was arrested in October 2020 as he was on his way to the northern state of Uttar Pradesh to report on the high-profile case of a Dalit girl who was gang-raped and later died.
Continue reading...Two weeks on from the death of government critic John Williams Ntwali, police have failed to answer questions over the alleged road accident in which they say he was killed
Calls are growing for an investigation into the apparent accidental death two weeks ago of a prominent Rwandan journalist and government critic.
John Williams Ntwali, a regular critic of the authorities, was found dead on 18 January. According to reported police accounts, he was killed when a speeding vehicle rammed a motorcycle on which he was riding pillion in the capital, Kigali. A US senate committee said he had been “silenced”. Human rights organisations have joined other activists in raising doubts about the cause of the death of the 44 year-old editor of The Chronicles newspaper.
Continue reading...Vĕra Jourová says the bloc has a moral duty and the project would not necessarily mean a new station
A senior EU official has called for a “Radio Free Russia” to help independent Russian media distribute content in their home country and evade heavy censorship.
Vĕra Jourová, the European Commission vice-president in charge of values and transparency, said the EU had a moral duty to support democratic ideals in Russia. “We should not give up on the Russian society … regardless of how few or how many want to hear the real news, not Kremlin propaganda,” she said.
Continue reading...Outlet declared ‘undesirable’, with journalists, sources and donors facing threat of prosecution
Russia has declared the news outlet Meduza an “undesirable organisation”, in effect outlawing one of the country’s best-known sources of independent reporting on the Kremlin and war in Ukraine.
Meduza, founded by Russian journalists in Riga, Latvia, in 2014, was declared an undesirable organisation by the general prosecutor’s office on Thursday for “posing a threat to the foundations of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order and national security”.
Continue reading...