Gershkovich was arrested in March on espionage charges, which both he and his employer, the Wall Street Journal, deny
The US House of Representatives voted unanimously on Tuesday for a resolution calling for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for three months.
The vote was 422-0 in favor of the nonbinding measure.
Continue reading...Exclusive: methodology used by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism risks undermining media in global south, says Ressa
Nobel peace laureate Maria Ressa has claimed Oxford University’s leading journalism institute is publishing flawed research that puts journalists and independent outlets at risk, particularly in the global south.
One of the world’s most prominent and respected journalists, Ressa said she resigned last year from the advisory board of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ), because of deep concerns about how it compiles an annual Digital News Report.
Continue reading...Communication sent to Beijing government says media mogul’s prosecutions relate to his criticism of China
A group of UN experts have expressed “grave concern” over the arrest and detention of Jimmy Lai, a former media mogul in Hong Kong who has been charged with violating the territory’s national security law.
In a joint communication sent to the Chinese government, the experts from the UN working group on arbitrary detention and several special rapporteurs focused on human rights said Lai’s arrest and multiple prosecutions related to “his criticism of the Chinese government and his support for democracy in Hong Kong”.
Continue reading...Cresenciano Bunduquin is the latest to be killed in a country that is one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist
A radio broadcaster was shot dead outside his home in the central Philippines on Wednesday, police said, the latest in a long list of journalists killed in the country.
Cresenciano Bunduquin, 50, was killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro province, Colonel Samuel Delorino told Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Niloofar Hamedi appears in court over her reporting on woman whose death sparked mass protests
A revolutionary court in Iran has begun the trial of a journalist behind closed doors on charges linked to her coverage of a Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death in custody last year sparked months of unrest, her husband has said.
Mahsa Amini’s death while held by the “morality police” for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code unleashed a wave of mass anti-government protests for months, posing one of the boldest challenges to the country’s clerical leaders in decades.
Continue reading...Lawyers acting for pro-democracy activist argued that proceedings could be biased due to judge selection
Hong Kong’s high court has rejected an attempt by lawyers acting for the jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai to have his national security trial dismissed.
The court ruled on Monday that the argument the trial may appear to be biased had “no merits”, and gave the proceedings, which are scheduled to start in September, the green light.
Continue reading...Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi reported on death of Mahsa Amini and face charges of conspiring with foreign powers
Supporters of the two award-winning Iranian female journalists who were among the first to report on the death of Mahsa Amini, the young Kurdish woman who died last year in police custody, have demanded that their trials due to start next week are held in public.
Niloofar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who both have a prestigious record of on-the-ground reporting on social affairs in Iran, have been kept in jail since first being arrested eight months ago and are accused of conspiring with hostile foreign powers, a charge that potentially carries the death penalty.
Continue reading...Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested on espionage charges is being held in Moscow prison with no date set for trial
A Moscow court has extended the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges at the end of March.
During a brief hearing on Tuesday, the court ordered that Gershkovich should remain in jail until 30 August, Russian news agencies reported. His pre-trial detention had initially been scheduled to expire next week. He is being held in the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow, and could face a sentence of up to 20 years if found guilty.
Continue reading...Taipei criticises ‘unfair and unjust’ decision to deny observer status despite support from US, UK, France and other countries
The World Health Assembly has again rejected Taiwan’s request to join its annual gathering amid routine objections from China and despite strong support from a coalition of countries including the US, UK, France and Australia.
The assembly – the forum through which the World Health Organization is governed – on Monday decided not to extend an invitation for Taiwan to attend the 21-30 May event in Geneva as an observer. China and Pakistan spoke against the bid, while the Marshall Islands, Belize, Nauru and Eswatini – four of Taiwan’s 13 formal diplomatic allies – spoke in support.
Continue reading...Criticism over latest development in long-running libel dispute between the leading Brexit backer and the journalist
The award-winning Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr has been ordered to pay significant legal costs to the prominent Brexit backer Arron Banks.
Banks, who donated a record £8m to the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, originally lost his case against Cadwalladr in his libel action over her remarks in a speech and a tweet.
Continue reading...Union says increased sentence against Khalifa Guesmi under anti-terrorism law represents ‘dangerous authoritarian drift’
A Tunisian appeals court has sentenced a radio journalist to five years in prison for disclosing information about the country’s security services.
Khalifa Guesmi, of the Mosaique FM radio station, had appealed against a one-year term handed down in November before the sentence was increased under an anti-terrorism law.
Continue reading...Israeli forces admit ‘high possibility’ Al Jazeera reporter was shot by sniper at West Bank refugee camp
Family members, friends and colleagues of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was almost certainly fatally shot by an Israeli sniper, have renewed calls for justice on the first anniversary of her killing, during a week of memorials and events celebrating her life.
Abu Akleh, a household name in the Arab world who worked for Qatar-based Al Jazeera, was shot in the head in the slumlike refugee camp on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on 11 May last year while covering an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) raid. International outrage at the reporter’s death was fuelled by scenes of violence at her funeral in Jerusalem, when Israeli police attacked pallbearers, almost causing them to drop the coffin.
Continue reading...Sebastien Lai, son of Jimmy, also criticises Vatican over failure to hold China to account over human rights abuses
The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised Britain and the Vatican for failing to speak out strongly against the crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory.
At a Washington event about the human rights situation in Hong Kong, Sebastien Lai said self-censorship in the former British colony was the anticipated result of the national security crackdown there, but the “hypocrisy” of some governments trying to trade with China was unexpected.
Continue reading...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.
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