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Istanbul, May 17, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday called on Syrian authorities to release detained Syrian journalist Mahmoud Ibrahim immediately and to disclose his location and that of all imprisoned journalists.
On February 25, Syrian government forces arrested Ibrahim, an editor with Al-Thawra newspaper, which is published by the ruling Baath party, after he attended a court hearing at the Palace of Justice in the western coastal city of Tartus, according to newsreports and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes.
Earlier that day, Ibrahim said in a Facebook post that he was going to attend a first hearing on charges of supporting armed rebellion, violating the constitution, and undermining the prestige of the state. Ibrahim said that he was not guilty and continued to support the “peaceful movement” in the southwestern city of Sweida, where protesters have been calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s departure since August.
CPJ was unable to determine Ibrahim’s whereabouts or health status since his arrest.
The journalist’s family were worried about his health as he required medication for several conditions, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported.
“CPJ is appalled that Syrian authorities have arrested yet another journalist for commenting on news events in their own country. Mahmoud Ibrahim should not be criminalized simply for expressing his opinion,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Syrian authorities must inform Ibrahim’s family of his whereabouts, grant him access to medical care, and release him and all other journalists unfairly jailed for commenting on the government of President Bashar al-Assad.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it believed Ibrahim was arrested under the 2022 Anti-Cybercrime Law. In an August 25 Facebook post, the journalist sent “peace and a thousand peace” from Tartus to Sweida, with heart emojis and photographs of city skylines.
The Sweida demonstrations were initially against inflation but shifted focus to criticize the government, including attacks on the offices of Assad’s Baath party.
In his February Facebook post, Ibrahim said that an unnamed journalist in Tartous had written a security report about him to the authorities, which led to the lawsuit being filed against him in September, as well as the termination of his job contract and a ban on his employment by government institutions.
Ibrahim also said that he had responded in December to a summons by the Tartus Criminal Security Branch, which was investigating him.
On January 1, Ibrahim said on Facebook that his employer had stopped paying his salary and the newspaper’s director did not give him an explanation.
CPJ’s email to Al-Thawra newspaper requesting comment did not receive any response.
CPJ’s email to Syria’s mission to the United Nations in New York requesting comment on Ebrahem’s case, whereabouts, and health did not receive any reply.
Syria held at least five journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census, which documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023. CPJ was unable to determine where any of those journalists were being held or if they were alive.
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Bangkok, May 16, 2024—Myanmar must drop all pending charges against detained Rakhine State reporter Htet Aung and stop using false allegations of terrorism to intimidate and jail reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
Military authorities filed a terrorism charge against Htet Aung in January, in addition to an existing defamation charge, but his family and lawyers were not made aware of this until May, his editor-in-chief at the Development Media Group news agency, Aung Marm Oo, who has been in hiding since 2019 after being charged under the Unlawful Association Act, told CPJ via text message.
The new charge carries a maximum seven-year prison penalty under Section 52(a) of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Htet Aung was also charged with defamation under Section 65 of the Telecommunications Law, which allows for a sentence of up to five years. He faces a potential 12 years in prison if found guilty of both charges.
“Myanmar authorities must cease their senseless legal persecution of Development Media Group reporter Htet Aung and set him free immediately,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar must stop leveling terrorism charges against journalists for merely doing their jobs of reporting the news.”
According to Aung Marm Oo, no details of either charge against Htet Aung have been revealed to his family or lawyers. Htet Aung is being held in pre-trial detention at western Rakhine State’s Sittwe Prison, according to Aung Marm Oo.
Htet Aung was arrested in October while taking photos of soldiers making donations to Buddhist monks during a religious festival in the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe. Hours later, soldiers, police, and special branch officials raided the Development Media Group’s bureau; confiscated cameras, computers, documents, financial records, and cash; and sealed off the building. The agency’s staff went into hiding.
Development Media Group specializes in news from Rakhine State, where in 2017, an army operation drove more than half a million Muslim Rohingyas to flee to neighboring Bangladesh in what the United Nations called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
On the day of Htet Aung’s arrest, Development Media Group published an interview with the wife of a man who was arrested in 2022 and was on trial for incitement and unlawful association in Rakhine State, also known as Arakan State, where insurgents are challenging the military. The woman said her husband was innocent and criticized the regime.
Myanmar was the second-worst jailer of journalists worldwide in CPJ’s 2023 prison census, with at least 43 reporters held behind bars. Several of those journalists are being held on terrorism convictions, CPJ research shows.
New Delhi, May 15, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday welcomed Indian court decisions to grant bail to journalists Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, and Prabir Purkayastha, who are being held under anti-terror laws, and called on the authorities to release all three men and immediately drop charges against them.
“The Indian courts’ decisions to grant bail to journalists Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, and Prabir Purkayastha are welcome news. We urge the Indian authorities to respect the judicial orders and immediately free these journalists, who should never have been imprisoned in the first place,” said CPJ India Representative Kunāl Majumder. “In all three cases, we have observed how authorities have tried to keep these journalists behind bars at all costs, particularly Sultan who has been arbitrarily detained for almost six years in a cycle of release and re-arrest. The Indian government must not target journalists for their critical reporting.”
Sultan was released on Tuesday, May 14, after he was granted bail on May 10 by a court in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, according to a copy of the bail order, reviewed by CPJ, and two sources familiar with the case who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation.
Sultan, India’s longest imprisoned journalist, was first arrested under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2018 on charges of “harboring known militants” after he published a story about a slain Kashmiri militant. Sultan was granted bail in 2022 but authorities held him at a police station for five days before rearresting him under preventative custody. In December, a court quashed that second case and he was freed in February, only to be rearrested hours after he returned home on a prison riot charge.
In a separate ruling, India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Purkayastha, founder and editor-in-chief of the news website NewsClick on the grounds that the police failed to inform him of the reasons for his arrest before taking him into custody, according to newsreports. Purkayastha has been held since October under the UAPA and the Indian Penal Code on charges of raising funds for terrorist activities and criminal conspiracy.
The same court on Tuesday granted bail to Navlakha, a columnist at NewsClick, who has been under house arrest under the UAPA since November 2022, on accusations that he was part of a group who were responsible for violence that erupted in 2017 in the Pune district in the western state of Maharashtra, and of having links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
CPJ research shows that since 2014, at least 15 journalists have been charged or investigated under the UAPA.
New York, May 14, 2024 — Serbian authorities should not extradite Belarusian journalist Andrei Hniot to face criminal charges in Belarus and release him immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Serbian authorities detained Hniot upon his arrival in the country on October 30, 2023, based on a September 21 Interpol arrest warrant issued by the Belarusian Interpol bureau, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists, an advocacy and trade group operating from exile, mediareports, and Denis Zyl, a friend of Hniot and a former journalist, who spoke to CPJ.
Hniot has remained in detention in the central prison in the capital, Belgrade, ever since, where his health has deteriorated significantly, according to CPJ’s review of his letter dated May 11, 2024. In the letter, Hniot said his left foot had been partially paralyzed since April, and he was not receiving appropriate medical treatment.
“I am very worried that he is not receiving medical care,” Zyl told CPJ on Tuesday. “Today, he wrote that he again wrote an application to be provided with migraine pills and was ignored,” Zyl said. “I see that he writes strangely.”
Belarusian authorities charged Hniot with tax evasion, Zyl told CPJ, adding that if the journalist is extradited to Belarus, he could potentially face additional charges for creating or participating in an extremist group, which carries up to 10 years in prison. A tax evasion charge carries up to seven years imprisonment, according to the Belarusian criminal code.
The final decision on Hniot’s extradition is expected “anytime,” Zyl told CPJ.
“As a European Union candidate state, Serbia should not succumb to transnational repressions on behalf of authoritarian regimes like that of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, a known enemy of a free press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Serbia should deny Belarus’ request to extradite journalist Andrei Hniot, immediately release him, and provide him with necessary medical aid. Belarusian authorities should stop their attempts to weaponize Interpol’s wanted person list to retaliate against dissenting voices.”
Hniot, a filmmaker, collaborated with a range of independent news outlets, including Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, during the 2020 protests demanding President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s resignation after the country’s election. In December 2021, the Belarusian authorities labeled the outlet an “extremist” group.
Belarusian authorities have jailed an increasing number of journalists for their work since the 2020 protests.
Hniot is one of the founders of SOS BY, an independent association of Belarusian sportspeople that influenced the cancellation of the 2021 Hockey World Cup in Belarus. The Belarusian authorities later designated SOS BY an “extremist” group.
Hniot’s defense considers his persecution by the Belarusian authorities as politically motivated, and Zyl told CPJ that the whole case was “fake” and “far-fetched.” During an April 1 hearing, Hniot said that he was persecuted as a journalist who was able to gather around him a group of athletes and create content for them, Zyl told CPJ.
“Lethal torture awaits me in Belarus,” Hniot said in court on February 19, as reported by German public broadcaster DW. “In Belarus, there is no law, no protection, and no independent judiciary. Everyone who opposes the authorities is imprisoned, tortured, and humiliated.”
Hniot is accused of failing to pay around 300,000 euros (US$323,600) in taxes between 2012 and 2018, according to mediareports and Zyl.
On November 3, 2023, Hniot’s lawyer, Vadim Drozdov, filed a request to delete Hniot’s data with the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files, according to a report by German public broadcaster DW and Zyl. In February 2024, Interpol temporarily blocked access to Hniot’s data in its database, pending verification that Belarusian security forces were complying with Interpol regulations.
In December 2023, the Higher Court in Belgrade ruled that the conditions for Hniot’s extradition to Belarus were met. On March 12, 2024, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade overturned that decision but did not cancel the extradition and sent the case for review. The process resumed on March 26.
CPJ emailed Interpol, the Serbian Ministry of Interior, and the Belarusian Investigative Committee for comment on Hniot’s case but did not receive any response.
Belarus was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census. Serbia had no journalists behind bars at the time, except for Hniot, who was not included in the census due to a lack of information about his journalism.
Mexico City, May 14, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls upon Guatemalan authorities to grant house arrest to the award-winningjournalist José Rubén Zamora and to begin his trial, after almost two years in pre-trial detention.
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at the Ninth Criminal Court, in the capital Guatemala City, to consider Zamora’s request to be freed under house arrest.
“We urge Guatemala’s judiciary to grant house arrest to José Rubén Zamora after nearly two years in solitary confinement and to give him the chance to prove his innocence in court,” said CPJ Latin America Program Coordinator Cristina Zahar in São Paulo. “His ongoing imprisonment amounts to arbitrary detention and demands immediate action. Zamora must have the right to a fair trial and to practice journalism freely.”
On July 29, 2022, police raided the home of Zamora, founder and publisher of the acclaimed investigative daily newspaper elPeriódico, which was forced to close the following year.
On June 14, 2023, Zamora was convicted of money laundering and sentenced to six years in jail, in a ruling widely regarded as a retaliatory measure for his reporting on government corruption. On October 13, an appeals court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial.
Zamora, 67, remains in pre-trial isolation, which has had detrimental effects on his physical health and well-being. Zamora previously told CPJ that he was subjected to sleep deprivation, which amounts to psychological torture, and that his cell was infested with insects.
After hitting a record low in President Biden’s first year in office, white collar prosecutions from the Department of Justice have slowly started to increase. The only problem is that the worst offenders keep getting away with the worst kinds of behavior. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software […]
Every two weeks for nearly a year, Thoung Han has reported to a Myanmar court where the former electrical department team leader at a bottling plant making Pepsi and other drinks is pursuing legal action against the owner of the American beverage giant’s Myanmar operations.
Thoung Han says he was fired unfairly in 2022 without severance pay from a factory owned by Lotte MGS Beverages, which produces PepsiCo’s products in Myanmar. The lawsuit isn’t just about severance but is also for damages, including for more than 10 million kyat (US$4,770) for defamation, according to a court document seen by RFA.
Thoung Han alleges that he was verbally abused by a Lotte MGS boss and fired for taking a 10-minute lunch break, which he said he needed because he is diabetic. His dismissal letter said he was responsible for an accident that he says had nothing to do with his department.
“He was swearing and told me, ‘You’re not allowed to have lunch … you don’t have respect,’” Thoung Han told Radio Free Asia, referring to his run-in with the Lotte manager. He was speaking shortly before he was due to make his 22nd trip to the court in Hmawbi, where Lotte operates a bottling plant.
Pepsi’s production factory in Yangon’s Hmawbi township. Taken on Sept. 15, 2023. (Myanmar Labor News)
The head of human resources for Lotte MGS, Hein Htet Aung, declined to go into details on any specific complaints, citing the legal case. He said the company was keen to address concerns and was confident the facts would be established in the proceedings.
“While we understand the importance of addressing concerns raised by individuals, it is essential to note that not all allegations may be founded on factual basis,” Hein Htet Aung said in a statement. “Rest assured, we are fully cooperating with the appropriate authorities and legal processes, trusting that the facts will be clarified through the due course of these proceedings.”
PepsiCo’s corporate office did not respond to a request for comment about the situation in Myanmar.
‘Many violations’
The Solidarity Trade Union Myanmar says dozens of people have been fired, often on baseless grounds, from Lotte’s plants. Employees complain of intimidation by management and a failure to make proper severance payments.
Over the past two years, 20 people have approached the union to complain about a lack of compensation after being fired from the factory, said the union’s director, Myo Myo Aye. The union helps workers handle complaints in Myanmar’s manufacturing sector.
Myo Myo Aye said that all but one person, Thoung Han, had withdrawn their complaints.
“Before U Thoung Han’s case, there were many dismissal cases in that factory … but the workers didn’t dare complain,” she told RFA.
This Pepsico handout image shows a billboard advertisement for Pepsi, Aug. 9, 2012 in Yangon, Myanmar. (PepciCo/AFP)
In 2023, the Myanmar Labor Society, which monitors labor complaints and is not connected to the trade union, received seven reports of suspected labor violations at the factory, which also produces 7Up, Sting, and Mirinda soft drinks. The society tracks complaints across Myanmar’s manufacturing sector and publishes an annual report.
In 2023, nine dismissed employees, including Thoung Han, and a legal adviser were threatened by a group of unidentified men who told them they would “do anything to stop this case”, Myo Myo Aye and Thoung Han said.
“They told them, ‘You have to stop the negotiations and not continue the case, because it is attacking the brand name and company. If anything happens to you if you continue, we’re not responsible,’” Myo Myo Aye said.
Neither Myo Myo Aye nor Thoung Han knew the affiliation of the men.
RFA could not independently verify their account. Asked about this complaint and others, Lotte MGS head of human resources Hein Htet Aung cited a company policy of refraining from discussing unsubstantiated claims, particularly given the legal proceedings.
‘Watching’
Other employees have told Solidarity Trade Union Myanmar of verbal abuse, intimidation by management, and the replacement of fired employees by relatives of management, the union said.
The union further alleges that in the factory’s Mandalay branch, a marketing group of over 30 people were fired at once for not reaching production targets. In the last two years, about 60 people have been dismissed from the company, both the union and Thoung Han said.
Thoung Han said a culture of bullying and harassment, and the pressure of unrealistic production targets, had forced some people to resign.
“The company is watching and taking notes and if they don’t like anyone, they’ll come up with any reason to get them dismissed,” Thoung Han said. “If the company doesn’t like someone, they do something to make them feel bad, uncomfortable, so they’ll resign, so there’s no need for compensation.”
A bus painted with Pepsi’s logo picks up passengers in a street of the Burmese capital, Feb. 1, 1997. (Reuters)
Military rulers shunned international business for decades as they pursued an isolationist “Burmese way to socialism”. By the time the generals began opening the impoverished economy in the 1990s, international sanctions over the suppression of democracy stifled business.
PepsiCo’s left Myanmar in 1997 but returned in 2012, at the beginning of nearly a decade of tentative economic and political reforms. But hopes for democracy and growth fueled by record foreign investment were shattered by a 2021 military coup.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kiana Duncan for RFA.
A manufacturing company in Tennessee has become the latest in a long line of companies to be fined for violating child labor laws. The number of child labor violations in this country has now hit the highest point we’ve seen in over two decades. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party […]
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Lusaka, May 6, 2024 — The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday expressed alarm that South Africa’s spy agency wants to subject Moshoeshoe Monare, the editor-in-chief of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), to additional security vetting and an invasive lie-detector test ahead of the country’s crucial May 29 general election.
A senior official at the State Security Agency (SSA) telephoned Monare, who is also the public broadcaster’s Group Executive of News and Current Affairs, on April 18 and said he had to undergo top-level security vetting, including apolygraph test, according to anSABC TV interview with Monare on April 29, a City Pressnews report, and a joint statement by local media freedom organizations condemning the request as intimidatory and a threat to press freedom.
The SSA’s vetting request, made on behalf of the SABC, followed aleaked audio recording, reviewed by CPJ, of President Cyril Ramaphosa telling the African National Congress’ election committee on April 11 that local media had “no right to be negative” towards the governing party and that its election campaign messages must dominate television and radio.
“The SABC’s top management and board must guard the broadcaster’s hard-won editorial independence and avoid complicity in any attempt to make it the mouthpiece of the governing African National Congress,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program in New York.
“It reeks of convenience that just a week after President Cyril Ramaphosa aired grievances about media coverage of the ANC, the State Security Agency under his control suddenly aims to subject SABC top editor Moshoeshoe Monare to the same security clearance as spy chiefs, including evaluating loyalty to the State. Authorities must back off.”
An April Ipsos opinion poll estimated support for the ANC in the upcoming election to be about 40% — a steep drop from the 57.5% of votes the party won in 2019 and a reflection of increasing discontent over poverty, unemployment, and corruption under ANC rule. The party has been in office since its landslide win in the historic 1994 election that ended white minority rule and brought Nelson Mandela to the presidency.
Monare said in the SABC interview that he was vetted in 2020 for the post and answered questions as per his employment contract, which did not specify a polygraph. He said he found it strange that almost two years later, a mere month before the election, an intelligence agent suddenly informed him that he had to undergo a polygraph test.
A polygraph test is one of the government’s requirements for issuing Top Secret-level security clearance to senior intelligence leaders, including evaluating whether the person is “loyal to the State,” according to a 2020 statement to Parliament by the then-minister of state security.
Monare said he had no objection to vetting, but wanted the SSA to explain the rationale for the polygraph and which individual had requested it. Monare said that neither the former SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe – who appointed him – nor other senior colleagues had undergone polygraph tests during their vetting. Mxakwe did not reply to a CPJ request for comment.
According to Intelwatch, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening oversight of state and private intelligence actors, the SABC board – appointed by the president on the recommendation of Parliament – has the discretion to decide which staff members will be subjected to vetting under the National Strategic Intelligence Act.
However, invasive polygraph tests should be reserved only to protect South Africa against the most severe national security threats, not as part of routine employment processes, Intelwatch’s Professor Jane Duncan, a board member, and Heidi Swart, researcher and journalism coordinator, told CPJ via email.
“It is difficult not to conclude that vetting is being used to probe those journalists [because] the ANC is concerned [they] may report negatively ahead of the upcoming national election,” said Duncan and Swart.
Presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya told the media that Monare was not being targeted ahead of the election and that Ramaphosa would never sanction intimidation or harassment of journalists, as this would be contrary to the constitutional bill of rights, which protects press freedom.
In its statement, the SABC said there was “nothing sinister” about the vetting and all its executives were subjected to this because the broadcaster was a national key point, a phrase used to describe critical infrastructure deemed essential for South Africa’s economy, national security, or public safety.) SABC spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo forwarded the earlier press release to CPJ but did not respond to its query about whether the vetting included a polygraph for all SABC executives.
Civil society groups andjournalists have recently raisedconcerns that intelligence agencies could soon be given the power to vet any individual or institution, including the SABC, threatening journalistic independence.
State Security Agency spokesperson Sipho Mbhele referred CPJ to presidential spokesman Magwenya’searlier statement.
In 2022, Monare’s predecessor as SABC’s head of news, Phathiswa Magopeni, was fired following a disciplinary hearing over the airing of an interdicted program. Magopeni alleged in a grievance letter to the SABC board and a public statement that she was targeted for political reasons as she had resisted attempts by senior SABC officials to force her to carry out an unscheduled interview with Ramaphosa during the 2021 local government election campaign. Magopeni and the SABC settled out of court.
Magopeni’s removal came soon after the ANC’s then-election manager, Fikile Mbalula, accused her and the SABC of being partly responsible for the party’s poor performance in the 2021 local government elections. ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Benghu did not respond to CPJ’s repeated calls and messages, while Mbalula directed queries to Benghu.
Editor’s note: Quintal, a former editor at three South African newspapers, previously worked with Monare at several of the country’s media outlets.
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Beirut, May 5, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Israeli cabinet’s decision to shut down Al-Jazeera’s operations in Israel and warns that the vote could set a dangerous precedent for other international media outlets working in Israel.
The cabinet vote on Sunday, announced by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X, came after Israel’s parliament passed a law on April 1 allowing the shutdown of a foreign channel’s broadcasts in Israel if the content is deemed to be a threat to the country’s security during the ongoing war. The shutdown took immediate effect, according to Al-Jazeera and multiplenewsreports. Al-Jazeera is funded by Qatar, which is mediating between Hamas and Israel.
“CPJ condemns the closure of Al-Jazeera’s office in Israel and the blocking of the channel’s websites,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “This move sets an extremely alarming precedent for restricting international media outlets working in Israel. The Israeli cabinet must allow Al-Jazeera and all international media outlets to operate freely in Israel, especially during wartime.”
Al-Jazeera journalists have faced multiple threats, including intimidation, obstruction, injuries, arrests, and killings, during the ongoing war.
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New York, May 2, 2024—Ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today announced the launch of CPJ’s journalist safety chatbot, which equips journalists with safety information on their phones via WhatsApp.
The tool will expand the reach and usability of CPJ’s suite of safety tools tailored for elections, protests, and digital and physical safety, among other areas. This vital resource comes at a time of increased political violence, polarization, and the targeting of journalists, both online and in person.
“In a year in which half the world’s population will head to the polls and amid heightened threats against the press, CPJ’s safety chatbot delivers crucial physical, digital, and psychosocial safety information directly into the hands of journalists whenever and wherever they need it,” said Lucy Westcott, CPJ’s emergencies director. “As journalists around the world confront multiple challenges in their work, this initiative will support journalists to stay safe before, during, and after their assignments.”
CPJ’s chatbot automatically sends safety information to journalists, providing them with critical safety resources, including risk assessments, guidance for reporting in a war zone, digital safety information, and advice on reporting in environments containing unexploded ordnance (UXO).
To access the information, journalists should add CPJ’s journalist safety chatbot as a contact using the number +1 206-590-6191, open WhatsApp, and text the number “Hello.” From there, a menu of journalist safety resource options will appear for users to navigate and select from.
By ensuring that journalists reporting on the ground can easily access potentially lifesaving information, CPJ’s journalist safety chatbot will reduce the barriers to access safety information and help mitigate safety risks for reporters in the field.
CPJ’s Emergencies team first released a limited version of the chatbot in 2023 to disseminate safety resources to journalists covering the Russia-Ukraine war.
The newly expanded chatbot builds on the previous version by expanding the resources available and making them applicable to multiple reporting scenarios. This project was developed as part of the Chat for Impact Accelerator 2022 hosted by Turn.io in partnership with WhatsApp.
About the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. CPJ defends the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
KTBC broadcast photographer Carlos Sanchez was charged on April 26, 2024, with the felony assault of a peace officer, the Austin American-Statesman reported, two days after he was arrested filming a student protest at the University of Texas at Austin. The charge was downgraded to two misdemeanors on April 30.
Sanchez said he was pushed into a state trooper as Texas Department of Public Safety officers drove back a pro-Palestinian protest line on campus, NBC affiliate KXAN-TV reported. Another officer immediately pulled him backward and threw him to the ground, arresting him. Sanchez was initially charged with criminal trespassing, but the charge was dismissed the following day.
The American-Statesman reported that the law enforcement agency then launched a criminal investigation into the incident. A warrant for Sanchez’s arrest on the second-degree felony charge was issued on April 26, after additional witnesses — including the trooper who was said to have been hit — were identified and additional footage obtained.
E.G. “Gerry” Morris, an attorney representing Sanchez, told the American-Statesman that they learned the felony charge had been dropped when Sanchez arrived at the jail on April 30 to turn himself in.
KTBC reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety detective investigating the incident acknowledged that the allegations did not rise to a felony offense. A new warrant for Sanchez’s arrest was issued later that day on two misdemeanor counts: assault against a peace officer and impeding a public servant.
Morris told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that Sanchez turned himself into custody on May 1 and was released on his own recognizance after being booked.
“Mr. Sanchez was performing an important news gathering function during a chaotic event when he inadvertently bumped into a police officer. He did not commit a crime,” Morris wrote the Tracker via email. “We look forward to someone taking a unbiased look at the evidence and exonerating Mr. Sanchez. That may ultimately occur with a jury.”
In a thread posted on the social media platform X, Society of Professional Journalists President Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins called the new misdemeanor charges “blatant retaliation and intimidation.”
“TX DPS is trying to make an example out this photographer to scare other journalists from covering these highly publicized protests on campuses across TX,” Blaize-Hopkins wrote. “What they are doing is unconstitutional and just plain vindictive.”
Berlin, May 1, 2024—Russian authorities must drop legal proceedings against Sergey Mingazov, a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, and detained journalists Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin and ensure that members of the press are not imprisoned for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.
On April 27, a court in the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East placed Mingazov under house arrest for two months as he awaits trial, according to newsreports.
Mingazov was detained the previous day on charges of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army by reposting on the Telegram channel Khabarovskaya Mingazeta reports about the massacre of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha in 2022, according to the journalist’s lawyer, Konstantin Bubon, who spoke to CPJ, and newsreports.
If convicted, Mingazov could be jailed for up to 10 years under Russia’s criminal code, which was amended after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to include lengthy sentences for spreading false news about the army.
Bubon told CPJ that Mingazov’s case was directly linked to his journalistic work and authorities had seized the journalist’s electronic devices, as well as computers and phones belonging to his wife and children while searching his apartment, before taking him for further questioning.
Bubon also said he had filed a complaint challenging the court’s decision to ban Mingazov from using the internet.
Charged for working for ‘extremist’ Navalny channel
Separately, on April 27, Russian courts placed freelance videographer Karelin, who has worked for The Associated Press news agency and German broadcaster DW, and Gabov, who has worked with Reuters news agency and DW, under pre-trial detention for two months, according to newsreports.
The general jurisdiction courts of Moscow said on Telegram that Gabov, who was detained in Moscow on April 27, was accused of participating in an extremist organization for preparing photos and videos for Navalny LIVE. The YouTube channel is run by supporters of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February.
The courts’ Telegram post described Navalny LIVE as a platform for posting content for Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which Russian authorities have banned as extremist.
Karelin, who was detained on April 26 in the northern region of Murmansk, faces similar charges.
If convicted, the two journalists could face up to six years in prison each under Russia’s criminal code. CPJ was unable to determine exactly what materials the men were accused of producing.
“We are deeply troubled by the persistent pattern of intimidation and legal harassment faced by journalists in Russia,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Russian authorities should drop the charges and immediately release Sergey Mingazov from house arrest, provide information on the charges against Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin, and ensure that they are not prosecuted for journalistic work.”
The AP said that it was “very concerned” by Karelin’s detention and was “seeking additional information.”
Charged for working for ‘undesirable’ Meduza
In a separate case, on April 23, a district court in the Russian-occupied Crimean capital, Sevastopol, in Ukraine, charged freelance reporter Anastasiya Zhvik with participating in an “undesirable organization” for publishing in the exiled independent news website Meduza, the journalist told CPJ via messaging app.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s office outlawed Meduza as “undesirable” in 2023. Organizations that receive such a classification are banned from operating in Russia, and anyone who participates in them or works to organize their activities faces fines and up to six years imprisonment.
Zhvik told CPJ that as a first-time offender and based on fines given to other journalists for similar charges, she expected to be fined about 5,000 rubles (US$54) if convicted.
Russia held at least 22 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its 2023 prison census, making the country the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists that year. CPJ’s prison census documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023.
CPJ’s emails to district courts in Khabarovsk and Sevastopol, and the Anti-Corruption Foundation seeking comment did not receive any replies.
Washington, D.C., May 1, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by reports that FOX 7 Austin photojournalist Carlos Sanchez is again facing charges in connection with his work, and calls on Texas authorities to drop all charges against him and allow journalists to do their work without fear of arrest.
“We are gravely concerned that the Texas Department of Public Safety has persisted in pressing charges against FOX 7 Austin photojournalist Carlos Sanchez in retaliation for his reporting on pro-Palestinian campus protests. All charges against him must be dropped immediately,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Sanchez never should have been arrested and this revolving door of charges is especially egregious in a country that guarantees press freedom.”
On April 24, FOX 7 Austin photojournalist Sanchez was on assignment covering a student protest at the University of Texas’ Austin campus when he was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing by the Department of Public Safety. The Travis County attorney’s office dismissed the charges the next day, according to a FOX 7 report and multiple sources. On April 26, Sanchez was charged with the felony assault of a peace officer. Those charges were dismissed on Tuesday, April 30, and two new misdemeanor charges were also filed against Sanchez on that day.
A Class B misdemeanor charge of impeding a public servant is punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,000; a class C misdemeanor assault charge carries a penalty of a fine up to $500.
CPJ’s email to the Texas Department of Public Safety did not receive an immediate response.
For decades, teenagers were abused and sometimes even killed at a reform school in a small Florida town. Mike Papantonio is joined by attorney Troy Rafferty to explain what happened. Then, Republican Congressman Ken Buck made headlines by announcing his early retirement, blaming the fact that Congress has become completely dysfunctional. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated […]
The US Department of Justice is being urged to condemn and cease its reliance on the “Insular Cases” — a series of US Supreme Court opinions on US territories, which have been labelled racist.
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin called them “a stain on the history of our country and its highest court”.
The territories include the Northern Marianas, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
A letter signed by 43 members of Congress was sent to the Department of Justice this month.
The letter follows a filing by the Justice Department last month, in which it stated that “aspects of the Insular Cases’ reasoning and rhetoric, which invoke racist stereotypes, are indefensible and repugnant”.
But the court has yet to reject the doctrine wholly and expressly.
US House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raúl M. Grijalva said the Justice Department had made strides in the right direction by criticising “aspects” of the Insular Cases.
‘Reject these racist decisions’
“But it is time for DOJ to go further and unequivocally reject these racist decisions; much as it has for other Supreme Court opinions that relied on racist stereotypes that do not abide by the Constitution’s command of equality and respect for rule of law,” he said.
Congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett said the Justice Department had a crucial opportunity to take the lead in rejecting the Insular Cases.
“For far too long these decisions have justified a racist and colonial legal framework that has structurally disenfranchised the 3.6 million residents of US territories and denied them equal constitutional rights.”
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Durbin said the decisions still impact on those who live in US territories to this day.
“We need to acknowledge that these explicitly racist decisions were wrongly decided, and I encourage the Department of Justice to say so.”
In recent weeks, Virgin Islands Governor Albert Bryan, Jr and Manuel Quilichini, president of the Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Bar Association), have also sent letters to DOJ urging the Department to condemn the Insular Cases.
Quilichini wrote to DOJ earlier this month, and this followed a 2022 resolution by the American Bar Association and similar letters from the Virgin Islands Bar Association and New York State Bar Association to the Justice Department.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
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São Paulo, April 26, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed a Brazilian court’s decision on Tuesday to uphold the conviction of four men for the 2012 murder of journalist Valério Luiz de Oliveira.
Oliveira was shot dead by an unidentified gunman on a motorcycle while leaving his offices at Rádio Jornal 820 AM, where he hosted a sports program in Goiânia, the capital of the central Brazilian state of Goiás. Five men were charged with Oliveira’s murder in 2013 but it took almost a decade for the case to reach trial.
In 2022, the state court jury found the fifth not guilty. Maurício Borges Sampaio, the former president of football club Atlético Goianiense, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for masterminding the killing. Sampaio was accused of ordering the killing in retaliation for Oliveira’s critical reporting.
Ademá Figuerêdo Aguiar Filho was given a 16-year sentence and Marcus Vinicius Pereira Xavier and Urbano de Carvalho Malta received 14-year sentences for participating in planning and carrying out the crime.
The four men were not jailed because their attorneys appealed their convictions.
On February 29, 2024, Daniela Teixeira of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) annulled the convictions on the grounds that Xavier’s 2015 hearing took place without the other defendants or their attorneys being present.
On April 12, Teixeira reversed her decision, following an appeal by the prosecution, which argued that Xavier’s hearing was not used as evidence by the jury.
Sampaio, Aguiar Filho, Xavier, and Malta will remain free as their lawyers plan to appeal, according to newsreports.
“The decision by the state court of Goiás to uphold the conviction of four men for the murder of sports reporter Valério Luiz de Oliveira is a victory not only for his family but for everyone working to end impunity for the killing of journalists in Brazil and worldwide,” CPJ Latin America Program Coordinator Cristina Zahar said on Friday.
“To ensure genuine justice, the next step must be the courts to ensure that Oliveira’s killers serve their full prison sentences so that Oliveira’s family can finally put this painful case behind them.”
Ricardo Naves, the attorney for Sampaio, Malta, and Aguiar Filho, told CPJ via messaging app that he would appeal to the state court requesting a review of aspects of the decision. If that did not succeed, he would file a special appeal to the STJ and an extraordinary appeal to Brazil’s Superior Federal Court, he said.
Valério Luiz Filho, Oliveira’s son and a lawyer who was an assistant to the prosecution in his father’s case, told CPJ that the prosecution planned to ask the court to imprison Sampaio and Aguiar Filho immediately as Article 492 of the criminal procedure code says anyone sentenced by a jury to serve 15 years or more must be sent to prison immediately.
Historic day
The court’s April 23 ruling marked a ”historic day” in the fight to end impunity for crimes against journalists, said Valério Luiz Filho.
“When this happens with someone who has power and fortune, which is not common in Goiás, nor in Brazil, it is considered an important achievement,” he told CPJ in a reference to Sampaio.
Valério Luiz Filho, who was a law student at the time of the murder, previously told CPJ that he decided to help prosecute the case after seeing his father’s body at the crime scene.
“I realized that I had to do it myself, that I had to make an extra effort for the case to go forward,” he said, adding that his grandfather, Manoel de Oliveira, who was also a sports journalist, kept Oliveira’s case in the news by being a tireless spokesman for the case until his death in 2020.
“Keeping the trial in the open forced the authorities to do their job,” Valério Luiz Filho said. Brazil was 10th on CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which ranks countries where journalists are regularly murdered in retaliation for their work and their killers go free.
CPJ’s text message to Xavier’s attorney, Rogério Rodrigues de Paula, requesting comment did not receive any reply.
Congress passed fewer bills last year than at any other point in American history, and they could be on track to pass even fewer bills this year. Multiple new studies have found alarming amounts of micro plastics in early every food and animal product that were tested, and these tiny particles can have a major […]
México City, April 25, 2024—Chilean authorities must drop criminal charges against journalists Daniel Labbé and Josefa Barraza and ensure journalists can work without restrictions, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
On Tuesday, Labbé, an independent journalist, was sentenced to a suspended prison term of 61 days on charges of public disorder, the journalist told CPJ by phone. Labbé was detained and physically attacked by police on January 29, 2021, while he was covering a protest in the capital Santiago, according to newsreports. Labbé told CPJ that he was formally charged with public disorder upon his release the next day, after police claimed he attacked them.
“I was there as a journalist. The judge did not believe the evidence I brought: the pictures and videos of my coverage. He believed the testimony of those officers who lied and said they saw me throwing stones and attacking them,” Labbé said.
On Monday, April 22, Josefa Barraza, director of the independent news website El Ciudadano, faced the first hearing of a lawsuit filed against her in Santiago by former congresswoman Andrea Molina. Molina formally filed a legal complaint against Barraza that accused her of libel in her coverage of Molina’s new role in the municipality of La Reina.
Barraza told CPJ by phone that the court Tercer Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago (Third court of guarantees of Santiago) deemed itself incompetent because Molina’s lawyer had filed the case in the wrong court. The proceedings will continue in another court. Barraza said that the former legislator is seeking that she be jailed as punishment for her coverage. In Chile, defamation is a crime that carries a penalty of imprisonment for up to 1 to 3 years, according to the country’s criminal code.
CPJ sent a message to Andrea Molina on her Instagram account for comment but did not receive a reply.
“As Chile prepares to host this year’s World Press Freedom Day conference in Santiago, it’s alarming to see one journalist condemned for public disorder and another facing slander charges,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s program coordinator for Latin America, in São Paulo. “We call on authorities to drop these charges and safeguard the essential freedom of journalists to fulfill their duties without fear or constraint.”
Labbé, a journalist with over 15 years of experience, has contributed to outlets such as El Ciudadano and Ciudad Invisible. When he was arrested on January 29, 2021, he was reporting for the independent media outlet Muros y Resistencia, covering a protest organized by the families of those detained during Chile’s 2019-2022 demonstrations, known as the social outburst (el estallido social).
The journalist told CPJ that he was livestreaming a clash between police and protesters when he was arrested while resting on the sidewalk. Labbé said he was wearing press insignia and informed authorities that he has a heart condition, which makes physical activity difficult, and he needed his medication, which he did not have with him.
With more than five years in the field, Barraza is an investigative journalist known for publishing exposés on police brutality and corruption on alternative media outlets such as CIPER.
According to Javier García, a spokesperson at the Chilean press freedom group, Observatory of the Right to Communication (ODC), Chile has a long history of criminalizing journalists.
“Defamation is a criminal offense that has remained unchanged since Chile’s Penal Code of 1884. We’re dealing with an outdated and obsolete regulation,” García told CPJ. “Not only are police officers targeting journalists, but we’re also witnessing a failure from judges to protect them.”
CPJ sent an email to the Chilean judiciary for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
In 2023, CPJ documented that at least two other Chilean journalists Felipe Soto and Victor Herrero were convicted in defamation cases.
Editor’s note: The date of this alert has been updated.
