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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.
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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.
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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.
Brussels, April 25, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed Thursday’s call by the European Parliament for the repeal of two Hong Kong security laws that it said undermine press freedom and for the release of Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.
The parliamentary resolution condemned Hong Kong’s adoption last month of a new security law, which includes offenses for treason, sabotage, sedition, theft of state secrets, and espionage. The latest legislation expands on a Beijing-imposed 2020 national security law, under which more than 200 people — including Lai — have been arrested, according to the European Parliament.
“The European Parliament’s resolution sends a clear signal to Hong Kong authorities — we are standing shoulder to shoulder with Apple Daily’s Jimmy Lai and pro-democracy activists who have been jailed for speaking out against repression,” said Tom Gibson CPJ’s EU representative. “Hong Kong and Chinese authorities should repeal the Hong Kong security laws and stop harassing and prosecuting journalists.”
In 2023, the European Parliament urged Hong Kong to immediately and unconditionally release Lai, saying that he had been detained on “trumped-up charges.”
Lai faces life imprisonment if convicted of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the 2020 security law.
A former British colony, Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997 with the guarantee of a high degree of autonomy, including freedom of speech, under a “one country, two system” formula.
New York, April 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns Belarusian authorities’ decision to cancel the domain names of news websites they labeled as “extremist” and calls for an end to the use of extremism legislation as a censorship tool to silence independent reporting.
In an April 4 order, the Operational and Analytical Center (OAC) under the President of the Republic of Belarus, a government agency that protects classified information and manages the internet domain name reserved for Belarus ending in .by, said that it would take offline all websites that the ministry of information added to its list of extremist materials.
On April 22, at least 20 news websites on this list that use the Belarus top-level domain displayed a message saying that the website “is not accessible,” according to CPJ’s review.
Authorities have used “extremism” legislation to detain, fine, and jail critical journalists and block numerous popular outlets they have labeled as extremist. Anyone who distributes extremist content can be held for up to 15 days, while anyone charged with creating or participating in an “extremist” group faces up to 10 years in prison under the Belarusian Criminal Code. There are additional penalties of up to eight years in prison for financing extremism and up to seven years for facilitating extremist activity.
“Robbing independent media outlets of their domain names – and the Belarusian public of important information – is a ruthless form of censorship,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “After jailing or forcing into exile independent journalists and silencing critical media, Belarusian authorities are trying to stifle the free flow of information on the internet by weaponizing their shameful extremism legislation.”
Belarus has seen an unprecedented media crackdown since popular protests against the disputed re-election in 2020 of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994.
Barys Haretski, deputy head of the exiled Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group, told CPJ that the authorities in 2023 canceled the domain names of three independent media outlets — ex-press.by, Brestskaya Gazeta and tut.by — as well as BAJ’s domain name in January.
Reform.by, which is known for its investigative work, and Media-Polesye said they received letters from the OAC informing them that their websites’ domain names would be cancelled on April 15.
Another blow to independent media
Svitlana Harda, editor-in-chief of Media-Polesye, told CPJ that the move was “another blow to the independent media, proof that readers are being deprived of their right to receive objective information.”
She said the number of visitors to Media-Polesye was only just approaching the volume that it had been before authorities blocked the website in September 2021.
“We almost reached the previous figures and here is a new blow,” she said, adding that the outlet moved to a new domain name and informed its readers before April 15.
Reform.news editor-in-chief Fyodar Pauluchenka told CPJ that the outlet would have to try to ensure that all of its readers knew that it had moved to a new internet address but its work would not otherwise be affected.
“This is rather a symbolic loss,” said Pauluchenka, whose award-winning website was also blocked by the Ministry of Information in 2021, forcing its staff into exile.
“What is more important here is that the Belarusian authorities violated international obligations on fair distribution of national domain names. There should be a reaction to such actions, not only from fellow journalists, but also from international organizations that manage the internet,” he said, referring to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit responsible for handling domain name disputes.
BAJ’s Haretski said that his organization moved to a new domain name in November, before their original one was cancelled on January 3. He said the move had a “serious impact” on BAJ’s work because the group’s social media handles were named after its internet address, which was widely distributed online.
He said media outlets whose domain name was canceled were likely to see a drop in audience figures because readers could not find the old websites that they had bookmarked and search engines like Google ranked established websites higher than new ones.
CPJ’s emails to the Operational and Analytical Center and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers requesting comment did not immediately receive any responses.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) joined eight other press freedom organizations in an April 19 statement urging the Brazilian Supreme Court to dismiss the case against journalist André Barrocal filed by former attorney general Augusto Aras.
Aras filed a defamation case against Barrocal in response to the reporter’s July 2020 article about Aras’s performance, which was published in Carta Capital Magazine. The Superior Court of Justice (STJ) rejected the case, and Aras has now appealed to the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
The signatory press freedom organizations trust that the Federal Supreme Court will reject this unfounded attempt to silence public criticism and criminalize journalism in Brazil.
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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued a civil investigative demand, a form of subpoena, to Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Media Matters for America on March 25, 2024, for documents related to its reporting about the social platform X. A day later, Bailey filed a lawsuit in Missouri circuit court seeking to enforce his demand, according to court documents reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
On Nov. 16, 2023, Media Matters published a report written by its investigative reporter Eric Hananoki that found advertisements for major brands appeared next to pro-Nazi posts on X. Following the report’s publication and a post on X by owner Elon Musk that appeared to endorse an antisemitic conspiracy theory, several major companies paused their advertising on the platform.
The report touched off a firestorm of response from X and from Republican politicians across the country. X filed a lawsuit on Nov. 20 against both Media Matters and Hananoki, alleging that they had manipulated the platform’s algorithms to produce the report’s findings in order to harm X’s relationship with advertisers. (Media Matters filed a motion to dismiss X’s suit in March 2024.)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also cited allegations of algorithm manipulation in a probe he initiated into “potential fraudulent activity,” issuing his own civil investigative demand on Dec. 1, 2023, that Media Matters turn over documents related to its reporting on X. Media Matters sued to block that demand and was granted a preliminary injunction against Paxton in April 2024.
Bailey opened his investigation into Media Matters on Dec. 11, 2023, alleging that it appeared to have used the “coordinated, inauthentic activity” described in X’s lawsuit “to solicit charitable donations from consumers.” He said that his office would look into whether this violated Missouri’s consumer protection laws, “including laws that prohibit nonprofit entities from soliciting funds under false pretenses.” Bailey instructed the nonprofit to preserve all records related to the case.
Three days later, Bailey announced that he and then-Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (now serving as governor) had sent letters to several major companies that paused their advertising on X, including Apple, Disney, IBM and Sony, informing them of the investigation into Media Matters.
Bailey then issued a civil investigative demand similar to Paxton’s and petitioned a state court to enforce it, arguing that given Media Matters’ response to Paxton, it was unlikely to comply by his April 15 deadline.
Bailey’s demand included requests for Media Matters’ 2023 and 2024 donation records, documents associated with Hananoki’s reporting and materials “related to generating stories or content intended to cancel, deplatform, demonetize, or otherwise interfere with businesses located in Missouri, or utilized by Missouri residents,” among other records.
“My office has reason to believe Media Matters used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to bully advertisers into pulling out of X, the last social media platform dedicated to free speech in America,” Bailey said in a news release. “If there has been any attempt to defraud Missourians in order to trample on their free speech rights, I will root it out and hold bad actors accountable.”
The organization has objected to Bailey’s demand in full. Media Matters President Angelo Carusone told Ars Technica, “This Missouri investigation is the latest in a transparent endeavor to squelch the First Amendment rights of researchers and reporters; it will have a chilling effect on news reporters.”
In a response to Bailey’s announcement of the suit on X, Elon Musk wrote: “Much appreciated! Media Matters is doing everything it can to undermine the First Amendment. Truly an evil organization.”
Carusone, in the Ars Technica article, countered: “Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Elon Musk has actually intensified his efforts to undermine free speech by enlisting Republican attorneys general across the country to initiate meritless, expensive, and harassing investigations against Media Matters in an attempt to punish critics.”
As the scorching summer peaks this year, India’s political landscape is coming to a boil. From April 19 until June 1, the world’s biggest democracy will hold the world’s biggest election, which the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has been in power since 2014, is expected to win.
It’s a critical time for journalists.
CPJ spoke to reporters and editors across India about their plans for covering these historic parliamentary elections in a difficult environment for the media, which has seen critical websites censored, prominent editorsquit and independent outlets bought by politically-connected conglomerates, while divisive content has grown in popularity.
Here are their biggest concerns:
Political violence
During the run-up to the 2019 vote, there was a rise in assaults and threats against journalists during clashes between political groups, particularly in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir, according to data collected by CPJ and the Armed Conflict & Location Event Data Project.
Ishani Datta Ray (Photo: courtesy of Ishani Datta Ray)
“Our state is now very famous or infamous for pre-poll, and post-poll, and poll violence,” Ishani Datta Ray, editor of Anandabazar Patrika newspaper in the eastern state of West Bengal, said at the launch of CPJ’s safety guide for journalists covering the election. “We have to guide them [our journalists] and caution them about the perils and dangers on the field.”
Dozens of citizens were killed in West Bengal’s 2019 and 2021 elections, largely due to fierce competition between the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP.
Datta Ray described how she spent the night on the phone to one of her journalists who was part of a group who were beaten during a clash between two political parties and trapped in a building in Kolkata, West Bengal’s capital, as party activists attempted to set fire to one of the reporters, whom they had doused in petrol. The journalists were eventually rescued by police and locals.
“Nobody should die for a newspaper. Your life is precious,” said Datta Ray. “If there is a risk, don’t go out.”
Mob violence
Many journalists fear that they will not receive adequate protection or support from their newsrooms on dangerous assignments.
More than a dozen journalists were harassed or injured during the 2020 Delhi riots, the capital’s worst communal violence in decades, in which more than 50 people died.
A reporter in safety gear walks through a street vandalized in deadly communal riots in New Delhi, India, on February 27, 2020. (Photo: AP/Altaf Qadri)
One female reporter told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, that she and a Muslim colleague were sent to out report without any safety gear.
“People were standing with knives and swords on the streets of Delhi and asking journalists for their IDs” to try to determine their faith based on their names, she said.
The journalist’s colleague was beaten up and she was thrown on the ground by a rioter. After she posted about the incident on social media, her employer summoned her back to the office.
“She said that everyone must be thinking that we are not protecting our reporters. I said, ‘Leave what everyone thinks. What are you doing? You are not protecting your reporter. In fact, you’re shooting the messenger,’” she told CPJ.
Datta Ray described how politicians sometimes try to turn their supporters against journalists by calling out their names at rallies and saying, “They are against us. Don’t read that newspaper.”
“We’ve had to text people that ‘Just come out of the crowd … Don’t stay there,’” she said. “You don’t have to cover the meeting anymore. Just come out because you don’t know what could happen.’”
For the last three years of CPJ’s annual prison census, India held seven journalists behind bars — the highest number since its documentation began in 1992. All but one of the 13 journalists recorded in CPJ’s 2021-23 prison censuses were jailed under security laws. Some appear in multiple annual censuses due to their ongoing incarceration.
Six were reporting on India’s only Muslim-majority region, Kashmir, where the media has come under siege following the government’s 2019 repeal of the region’s constitutional autonomy.
Aasif Sultan outside court in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, in 2018. (Photo: Muzamil Mattoo)
India’s longest imprisoned journalist, Aasif Sultan, was arrested in 2018 for alleged militant ties after publishing a cover story on a slain Kashmiri militant.
Since 2014, CPJ’s research shows, at least 15 journalists have been charged under India’s anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which allows for detention without trial or charge for up to 180 days, since 2020.
Datta Ray also said she was dealing with a growing number of cases against local journalists.
“Every institution should have a very strong back up of a legal team,” she said, recounting how West Bengal police spent five hours raiding the house of Parkash Sinha, a journalist who covers federal investigative agencies for ABP Ananda news channel, which is part of the same media group.
“You don’t know if your write up, if your TV report, has angered any establishment, any police,” said Datta Ray, who worked with lawyers to advise the reporter via a conference call while the February raid was going on. “You can be slapped with any kind of charges.”
“They copied everything from his personal laptop and from pen drives … they cannot do but they did it,” she said.
Sinha has denied the charges in the ongoing case, which relate to a land dispute.
Attacks by other journalists
Under Modi, Indians have become increasingly divided along political lines — and that includes the media. Government officials have labeled critics as “anti-national” and cautioned broadcasters against content that “promotes anti-national attitudes.”
In February, India’s news regulator ordered three news channels to take down anti-Muslim content that it said could fan religious tensions, while the Supreme Court has called for divisive TV anchors to be taken off air.
Journalists are not immune.
Dhanya Rajendran (Photo: courtesy of Dhanya Rajendran)
“Indian media is very, very polarized now,” Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute, said at CPJ’s launch event. “We are seeing a clear divide in the Indian media, where one side is continuously egging the government to go arrest people from the other side, to take action, branding them as ‘anti-national.’”
She highlighted October’s police raid on the news website NewsClick, which has been critical of the BJP, and the arrest of its editor Prabir Purkayastha, who remains behind bars on terrorism charges for allegedly receiving money from China.
“We saw many Indian TV anchors go on air and ask for the arrest of the editor Prabir. They continue to call him all kinds of names,” said Rajendran, as she called for more solidarity among journalists and newsrooms.
Online harassment
Ismat Ara was among 20 Muslim women journalists whose pictures and personal information were shared for a virtual “auction” in 2022 by an online app called Bulli Bai, a derogatory term to describe Muslim women. Ara filed a police complaint which led to the arrest of the app’s creators.
Trolling is still a regular occurrence for her. This month, she posted on social media about being on an election assignment in the northern state of Uttarakhand, which is known for its Hindu pilgrimage sites. One of the comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, said, “In future you will have to apply for visa to visit these places in India.”
Since she was chased by a mob at the Delhi riots, Ara said she usually hides her Muslim identity while reporting.
Ismat Ara (Photo: courtesy of Ismat Ara)
“I think it helps not to be visibly Muslim,” she said, adding that she removed a picture of herself in a hijab on X after a BJP aide asked for her handle to check for “negative stories.”
Some journalists at The News Minute receive abusive comments whenever they publish stories, Rajendran said.
“People have disturbed sleep patterns, they lose their confidence, they self-censor themselves, they do not want to tweet out stories,” she said, urging journalists to talk about their experiences with friends and colleagues.
Online censorship
In recent years, India has become a world leader in imposing internet shutdowns, according to the digital rights group Access Now.
In early April, YouTube blocked prominent Hindi language news channels Bolta Hindustan and National Dastak without explanation.
On Tuesday, X said it had blocked several posts by politicians and parties, which made unverified claims about their opponents, in compliance with orders from the Election Commission of India, while noting that “we disagree with these actions” on freedom of expression grounds.
Digital rights experts have criticized India for failing to respect a 2015 Supreme Court order to provide an outlet that has allegedly produced offensive content with a copy of the blocking order and an opportunity to be heard by a government committee before taking action.
Device hacking
Digital security is another growing concern. After The News Minute was raided by the income tax department, Rajendran said she organized a training for her staff on how to respond if an agency wants to take your device or arrest you.
Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire news website, has been repeatedlytargeted with Pegasus spyware.
Siddharth Varadarajan (Photo: Wikicommons)
“We need to fight for our right to work as journalists without this sort of intrusive, illegal surveillance,” he told CPJ. “A first step is to educate ourselves and devise technologically sound strategies to cope with surveillance.”
In the wake of the revelations, Varadarajan’s devices were analyzed by a committee established by the Supreme Court but its findings have not been made public.
“Until recently, journalists were primarily trained to uncover and disseminate the truth,” Rajendran concluded.
“In today’s landscape, it is equally vital to educate both aspiring journalists and seasoned professionals on methods to safeguard themselves, their sources, and their personal devices.”
B.P. Gopalika and Naresh Kumar, chief secretaries of the states of West Bengal, and Delhi, respectively, did not respond to CPJ’s emails seeking comment on authorities’ efforts to protect journalists during the election.
Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Sanjay Jaju did not respond to CPJ’s email seeking comment on social media censorship.
Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology S. Krishnan did not respond to CPJ’s email seeking comment on the allegations of hacking.
Abuja, April 16, 2024—Nigerian authorities should immediately drop their investigation into the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) and its founder, the award-winning undercover reporter, Fisayo Soyombo, and stop intimidating the chairperson of FIJ’s board of trustees, Bukky Shonibare, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
On February 21, Soyombo published an investigation detailing how he had smuggled rice into Nigeria with the collusion of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) officials and accused local businessman Ibrahim Dende Egungbohun of being a smuggler. FIJ’s accompanying documentary was also broadcast by Arise News.
On February 26, Egungbohun’s lawyer, David Olaoluwa Folalu, petitioned the police, Arise News, and the regulatory National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) over FIJ’s investigation, which it described as “defamatory, false and malicious” and “contrary to Section 24 of the cybercrimes (prohibition, prevention) Act, 2015,” according to multiplenewsreports, including by FIJ. Folalu demanded retractions, apologies, and 500 million naira (US$403,159) in damages, those sources said.
Separately, on March 15, another lawyer for Egungbohun, Bolarinwa Elijah Aidi, wrote to Soyombo, similarly demanding damages and retraction of the story, according to a copy of the letter posted on FIJ’s website.
Allegation of cybercrime
On March 26, FIJ board chairperson Shonibare was questioned by police at the National Cybercrime Center in the capital, Abuja, following their written request to interview her, reviewed by CPJ.
Shonibare told CPJ that the police said they were investigating an allegation of cybercrime in connection with one of FIJ’s articles, which they did not name, and asked about FIJ’s journalistic standards. The police also said they knew that Soyombo was not in Nigeria and instructed Shonibare to return with him, she told CPJ and said in a report on FIJ’s website.
Shonibare said that one official threatened her by saying that the police could access her personal and financial information via records associated with her phone number.
“Nigerian authorities must cease their efforts to intimidate the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, including its founder, the renowned investigative reporter Fisayo Soyombo, and the chairperson of its board of trustees, Bukky Shonibare, and allow them to continue reporting on issues of public interest,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “The Nigerian police’s investigation into such a reputable media outlet demonstrates the alarming extent to which they are willing to go to silence journalists seeking to expose crime.”
Death threat on social media
Soyombo said that he received a death threat on social media, reviewed by CPJ, telling him to stay away from Egungbohun, whose nickname is IBD Dende. It said, “step back from this called IBD DENDE … does [those] whom are paying you doesn’t [don’t] want you to live long.”
Soyombo said that two friends also warned him to be careful as they feared for his life after speaking with associates of Egungbohun and the Nigeria Customs Service who made threats against him.
On February 24, an opinion piece defending Egungbohun and criticizing Soyombo’s investigation was published in multiple localnewsoutlets.
Folalu confirmed to CPJ by phone that he was seeking to press charges for cyberstalking under Section 24 of the law and described the FIJ’s story as “deliberately targeted at the character and reputation of our client” and “purely criminal in nature.”
Folalu said his office had sent a pre-action letter to Arise News, notifying the outlet that they planned to file a civil suit against it demanding 500 million naira (US$403,159) in damages but put the matter on hold after the regulatory NBC wrote to Arise News on the same issue.
A senior member of staff at Arise News confirmed to CPJ, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, that the outlet had received written communication from Egungbohun’s lawyers, which had been forwarded to their lawyers, but declined to provide further details.
Possible criminal case
Egungbohun’s second lawyer, Aidi, told CPJ on April 5, that his office had sent pre- action letters to Soyombo and Arise News, notifying them about the possible civil suit and that their plans did not preclude a possible criminal case against the FIJ.
NCS spokesperson Abdullahi Aliyu Maiwada told CPJ via text message that the customs service remained “resolute in addressing genuine, evidence-based observations” but it was “not formally aware” of FIJ’s investigation.
He rejected the claim by Soyombo’s friends that NCS officials made threats against the journalist.
“Constructive, fact-based criticism channelled through appropriate means are always welcomed,” he said.
NBC spokesperson Ekanem Antia told CPJ on April 15 that the regulator did not receive any petition against Arise News about FIJ’s documentary.
Reached by phone and messaging app, Uche Ifeanyi Henry, director of the police’s National Cybercrime Center, told CPJ that requests for comment on the case should be send via the police’s “official channel,” but he did not specify a contact.
CPJ’s emails to the National Cybercrime Center and the police in Abuja requesting comment did not receive any response.
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Lusaka, April 10, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing into law a bill that abolishes criminal defamation, and urged authorities to reform other problematic laws that threaten press freedom in the country.
On April 3, Ramaphosa signed the Judicial Matters Amendment Act (2023), which includes a provision repealing “the common law relating to the crime of defamation,” according to newsreports and a statement by the president’s office. The South African parliament forwarded the bill to Ramaphosa for signature after approving it in December last year.
South Africa becomes the latest country in southern Africa to decriminalize defamation, following its neighbors Zimbabwe (2016) andLesotho (2018). Other countries in the Southern Africa Development Community regional bloc which continue to use criminal defamation against journalists include Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to CPJ research.
“The long-awaited repeal of the crime of defamation in South Africa is an important victory for press freedom and hopefully will reverberate positively across other parts of the region, such as Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where defamation continues to be used to criminalize journalism,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program, in New York. “South African authorities should also move swiftly to reform other laws, as well as draft legislation that threaten, or have the potential to undermine media freedom and the public’s right to information.”
South Africa’s parliamentvotedto abolish the common law crime of defamation, which is based on Roman Dutch Law and court precedents, on December 6, 2023 after decades of advocacyby the press, media lawyers, and civil society activists who argued that there were other remedies that did not involve prosecution or jail, such as civil defamation lawsuits for aggrieved parties who believed their reputations were impugned.
The 2013 conviction of newspaper journalist Cecil Motsepe was the most recent case in which a South African journalist was found guilty of criminal defamation, according to a guide on South African media law by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a philanthropic body that works to advance press freedom. The conviction was overturned on appeal in 2014, although the court ruled that criminal defamation remained constitutional. CPJ was among a group of organizations that filed an amicus brief in support of Motsepe, arguing for the decriminalization of defamation in South Africa.
Justice Deputy Minister John Jeffery told CPJ by phone that the lack of a public interest override was not raised during public submissions about the proposed Cybercrimes Act. The justice department was not averse to making changes to draft laws if threats to press freedom arose, and it had done so previously, even when journalists had raised concerns at the eleventh hour.
Civil society groups also raised concerns about the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill currently before Parliament arguing in December last year that it posed a threat to democracy. When the bill was first tabled in December last year, critics feared that the power given to state security to vet individuals who accessed national key points, including the public broadcaster, SABC, was a threat to journalists’ independence. Although several amendments were subsequently made, free expression groups remain concerned that SABC journalists could still be targeted on the pretext that the intelligence services were establishing their trustworthiness. The National Assembly approved the revised bill last week, and it is now before the National Council of Provinces for processing.
State Security Agency spokesperson Sipho Mbhele did not respond to CPJ’s requests by messaging PP and telephone calls for comment.
Caroline James, the AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism’s advocacy coordinator, told CPJ by phone there were also other laws and draft legislation that indirectly affect media freedom, contributing to a lack of transparency and restricting access to information for journalists and the public. These include the Protection of Personal Information Act and Public Procurement Bill.
Quintal is a non-executive board member of amaBhungane.
Since the advent of democracy in 1994, South African courts have generally acted as a bulwark against threats to press freedom, including striking down efforts to legally gag the media or to judicially harass journalists.
Two privately owned newspapers in Lesotho—the Lesotho Tribune and Lesotho Times—faced separate lawsuits in February and March 2024, seeking to shut them down, according to the publications’ owners who spoke to CPJ.
In late March, the courtsdismissedboth lawsuits, but the newspapers still face defamation cases in connection with their corruption coverage.
Mergence Investment Managers filed an urgent application at the High Court in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, on February 9, for the Lesotho Tribune to delete published articles and block the publication of additional articles in a planned eight-part investigative series, according to court documents reviewed by CPJ and the publication’s owner, Phafane Nkotsi. The articles were about alleged corruption by Mergence in connection to Lesotho’s civil servants’ pension fund.
Mergence also asked the court to order the closure of Lesotho Tribune, arguing that the paper did not have the appropriate registration to operate. According to CPJ’s review of the certificate from Lesotho’s Office of the Registrar General, the newspaper’s registration is current and has been since August 10, 2021.
The court dismissed Mergence’s applications on March 22, Nkotsi said, adding that the outlet still faces a defamation lawsuit from the investment firm, filed on February 7, in which it is seeking 10 million loti (US$538,000) in relation to the investigative series, according to Nkotsi and astatement by the Lesotho chapter of the press freedom group the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).
The suit is still pending, and a hearing has yet to be scheduled, he said.
Matshona Libalele Mlungwana, a communication officer with the Public Officers’ Defined Contribution Pension Fund, declined to comment, saying that the fund had no interest in the case against Lesotho Tribune.
CPJ could not identify contact information for Mergence’s Lesotho offices. CPJ’s phone calls to Mergence’s South African numbers to request comment went unanswered.
In a separate case, Lesotho’s former police commissioner, Holomo Molibeli, filed an urgent application on March 18 asking the High Court to shut down Lesotho Times on the grounds that the newspaper was operating without the appropriate registration license and to order the outlet to pay unstated damages for defamation, according to areport by the newspaper and court documents, reviewed by CPJ.
Molibeli accused the newspaper of defaming him in a March 7report about allegations that he covered up fraud at a local energy company while serving as a police commissioner. The allegations were part of filings in a separate criminal case in which two local businessmen are accused of defrauding the energy company, according to a report by Lesotho Times, which said Molibeli denied the accusations.
On March 27, the High Court dismissed the application, according to Lesotho Times owner Basildon Peta and a report by the state-owned Lesotho News Agency. The court said the defamation suit was not urgent and could be heard at an undetermined date in the future, according to Peta.
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