Press groups raise alarm over threats to foreign media in China

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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Spyware can make your phone your enemy. Journalism is your defence | Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud

The Pegasus project poses urgent questions about the privatisation of the surveillance industry and the lack of safeguards for citizens

Today, for the first time in the history of modern spying, we are seeing the faces of the victims of targeted cyber-surveillance. This is a worldwide scandala global web of surveillance whose scope is without precedent.

The attack is invisible. Once “infected”, your phone becomes your worst enemy. From within your pocket, it instantly betrays your secrets and delivers your private conversations, your personal photos, nearly everything about you. This surveillance has dramatic, and in some cases even life-threatening, consequences for the ordinary men and women whose numbers appear in the leak because of their work exposing the misdeeds of their rulers or defending the rights of their fellow citizens.

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Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries dies after shooting

Family announces death of 64-year-old just over a week after attack in Amsterdam, reports say

The Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has died just over a week after he was shot in the head in central Amsterdam, local media have reported, citing a statement released by the veteran journalist’s family.

“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” the statement said, according to RTL Nieuws. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’.”

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At least 140 Cubans reportedly detained or disappeared after historic protests

Activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reportedly in custody

Scores of Cuban activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, have reportedly been detained as Communist party security forces seek to smother Sunday’s historic flare-up of dissent.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said at least 140 Cubans were believed to have been detained or had disappeared in the aftermath of Cuba’s largest demonstrations in decades.

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Georgian cameraman dies after attack by far-right, anti-LGBTQ mob

Government accused of ‘culpable passivity’ after dozens of journalists were attacked covering Pride protest

A Georgian TV cameraman has died after being badly beaten by far-right assailants during a protest against an LGBTQ Pride march, his station said on Sunday, as pressure mounts on authorities over attacks on journalists.

Alexander Lashkarava, a 37-year-old cameraman working for the independent station TV Pirveli, was found dead in his bed in the early hours on Sunday, the channel reported.

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‘A haven for free-thinkers’: Pakistan creatives mourn loss of progressive arts space

‘Tragic’ closure of Sabeen Mahmud’s community venue T2F in Karachi comes as PM Imran Khan accused of fostering censorship and intolerance

Danial Shah turned to Sabeen Mahmud, for help with his first photo exhibition when all other organisations refused to show his work. Shah’s photographs cover political and cultural issues, such as local elections and women’s rights. Some refused to work with him on political grounds, while others did not reply at all.

After a meeting at Mahmud’s community space, T2F, in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, she agreed to host his exhibition. But Mahmud, a 40-year-old human rights activist who oversaw a programme of progressive arts at T2F, did not get to see Shah’s first exhibition. She was murdered a few months after their meeting.

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Two journalists killed in Mexico, meaning three dead so far this year

Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera shot dead Thursday, and Enrique Garcia killed Wednesday, apparently during work as ride-hail driver

Prosecutors in southern Mexico said reporter Gustavo Sánchez Cabrera was shot to death Thursday, and another journalist was killed just west of Mexico City, bring to three the number killed so far this year in the country. Two other reporters have disappeared.

The prosecutor’s office in the southern state of Oaxaca said Sánchez Cabrera was riding a motorcycle with another person on a rural road when gunmen opened fire on them.

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Biden accused of U-turn over Egypt’s human rights abuses

Critics say US president’s realpolitik ignores Sisi regime’s ‘hostage-taking tactics’ against dissidents

“It’s a hostage negotiation and it has been all along,” said Sherif Mansour, describing the arrest of his cousin Reda Abdel-Rahman by Egyptian security forces last August as an attempt to intimidate Mansour into silence.

Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned without trial for nine months. Mansour, an outspoken human rights advocate in Washington with the Committee to Protect Journalists, has since learned that he and his father are listed on the same charge sheet, all accused of joining a terrorist group and spreading “false news”.

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‘Persecuted, jailed, destroyed’: Belarus seeks to stifle dissent

Journalists and activists targeted in most wide-reaching crackdown since days of Soviet Union

Church bells rang in the city of Byarozawka as hundreds of mourners laid Vitold Ashurak to rest. They draped the white-red-white flag favoured by the Belarusian opposition over his body, as local police kept a wary eye on the funeral.

Sentenced to five years in prison after last year’s mass demonstrations against Alexander Lukashenko, the 50-year-old protest leader survived less than one. When Ashurak’s body was returned to his family, his head was entirely covered in bandages – only his mouth was visible, a family friend said.

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Belarus journalist’s father says video confession carried out under duress

Raman Pratasevich, seized from diverted Ryanair flight, appeared to have been beaten, says father

The father of the Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich said it was clear his son was acting under duress and had been beaten when he recorded a video “confessing” to organising mass protests against the regime.

Dmitry Pratasevich said Raman was “very nervous” and “spoke in a way that was unusual for him”.

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‘No safe place’: Associated Press reporter describes Gaza office attack

A rush for escape as Israeli forces bombed the building that housed the US news agency and Al Jazeera

On Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the office which houses Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza, alleging that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building.

Twelve AP staffers and freelancers were working and resting in the bureau when the Israeli military telephoned a warning, giving occupants of the building one hour to evacuate. The AP journalist Fares Akram told how he escaped the building.

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Threats to safety force dozens of Afghan journalists to go into hiding

Network of safe houses set up amid fears of rising violence as Nato forces prepare to pull out in September

Dozens of journalists have moved to safe houses across Afghanistan, and others have been sent abroad, as threats against media workers continue to rise.

New safe houses have been set up in several Afghan cities as evacuations increase, offering some security for targeted journalists.

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UN catalogues ‘chilling tide of abuse’ against female journalists

Misogyny, bigotry and threats ‘cut public trust in critical media’, warns report after major investigation

An epidemic of online violence against female journalists worldwide is undermining their reporting, spilling over into real-life attacks and harassment, and puts their health and professional prospects in jeopardy, the UN has warned.

The avalanche of misogynistic abuse and threats is not only damaging women working in media, it is also weaponised “to undercut public trust in critical journalism and facts in general”, a report commissioned by the UN’s cultural agency Unesco has found.

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Burkina Faso: two Spanish journalists and Irish conservationist killed

Spaniards David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile, and Rory Young, a Zambian-born Irish citizen, ambushed by jihadists

Two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist have been killed after they were ambushed by jihadists while on an anti-poaching mission in Burkina Faso.

On Tuesday, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said 44-year-old David Beriáin, a reporter, and 47-year-old Roberto Fraile, a photographer, were believed to have been murdered on Monday, after they were identified from an image provided by Burkinabe authorities.

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‘Worrying picture’: Journalists in Europe face increasing risk, press freedom group warns

Reporters Without Borders speaks of pressures on press freedom after murder of Giorgos Karaivaz in Athens last week

The murder of a high-profile Greek journalist last week marks the fourth killing of a reporter in Europe in the past five years and has underlined growing concerns about a steady decline of press freedoms in several EU member states.

Related: Greek crime journalist shot dead in Athens in ‘execution-style’ murder

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Greek crime journalist shot dead in Athens in ‘execution-style’ murder

Government says killing of Giorgos Karaivaz, reportedly by two men on a motorbike, has ‘shocked us all’

A prominent Greek crime journalist has been shot dead in what was described as an “execution-style” murder near his home in Athens.

Giorgos Karaivaz, who sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside with his coverage of law and order stories on the private Star TV channel, died of gunshot wounds outside his home in the south of the city.

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Mexican press freedom dispute erupts as Amlo attacks US and domestic critics

President hits back over critical US human rights report but also singles out Mexican press freedom group Article 19 for censure

A growing row over press freedom has engulfed Mexico after the country’s nationalist president maligned a routine US human rights report which highlighted his government’s failure to protect journalists – and the behaviour of some officials against media members.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called Amlo, condemned Mexico’s mention in the state department’s annual human rights report as an unwelcome intervention in Mexican matters.

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‘We choose good guys and bad guys’: beneath the myth of ‘model’ Rwanda

President Paul Kagame – long feted by leaders in the west – is accused of serial human rights abuses in expansive new book

A devastating new book will accuse Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame – long feted by his prominent international supporters as the model of visionary new African leadership – of being a serial human rights abuser, including for his role in a sustained campaign of assassinating his rivals in exile.

Written by Michela Wrong, the author who covered the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when more than 800,000 people – largely ethnic Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus – were killed by Hutu militias over 100 days, Do Not Disturb represents one of the most far-reaching historical revisions of Kagame and his regime.

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Afghan TV station ‘can’t hire women’ over security fears after four killed

Government blamed for not ensuring safety as broadcaster’s female staff told to stay home after attacks by Isis

A radio and television broadcaster in eastern Afghanistan that has had four of its female employees murdered since December has said it will not hire any more women until security in the country improves.

The broadcaster, Enikass Radio and Television, has also told all female employees to work from home. Islamic State (Isis) has claimed responsibility for killing all four women, but Enikass also blames the Afghan government for not providing adequate security.

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All suspects in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder arrested, says police chief

Angelo Gafa says all those who masterminded killing of Maltese journalist now apprehended or charged

Every person involved in the 2017 murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been apprehended, Malta’s national police chief has declared.

Commissioner Angelo Gafa was speaking before a court hearing on Wednesday evening at which two new suspects were arraigned.

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