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Category: Legal

  • Zimbabwean journalist Blessed Mhlanga denied bail for third time

    Lusaka, April 8, 2025—Zimbabwean authorities should stop their victimization of broadcast journalist Blessed Mhlanga, who, after 43 days in jail, was denied bail for the third time on Monday, and must ensure that charges against him are dropped immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

    Mhlanga, a journalist for privately owned Heart and Soul Television, has been detained since February 24 on incitement charges for interviewing a war veteran who called for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s resignation. 

    “The repeated denial of bail is yet another example of the injustice that Blessed Mhlanga has been forced to endure for simply doing his job as an independent journalist covering all sides of Zimbabwe’s political story,” said CPJ Africa Regional Director Angela Quintal in New York. “Zimbabwean authorities should stop hounding Blessed Mhlanga and withdraw the charges against him, so that he can be free to report the news.” 

    The journalist has been behind bars over offenses allegedly committed in his interview in November 2024 and further coverage in January 2025 of Blessed Geza, a veteran of Zimbabwe’s war for independence from white minority rule, who also accused Mnangagwa of nepotism, corruption, and failing to address economic issues.

    On February 28, the Harare Magistrates Court denied Mhlanga bail. After several delays, the High Court dismissed an appeal of the bail ruling on March 21. Mhlanga’s lawyer, Chris Mhike, renewed the bail application in the magistrates court on April 4, but Magistrate Donald Ndirowei dismissed the appeal on Monday. Mhike told CPJ they will appeal the latest ruling.

    If found guilty, Mhlanga could be jailed for up to five years and fined up to US$700 under the 2021 Cyber and Data Protection Act.

    Zimbabwe’s government, in an effort to silence the press, has been jailing independent journalists and introducing laws to restrict freedom of expression, according to a recent CPJ report.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ supports legal efforts to protect RFE/RL, VOA after Trump executive order

    New York, April 2, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) filed three amicus briefs on Friday, March 28, responding to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and freeze congressionally-appropriated funds to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA).

    The amicus briefs assert that allowing the Trump administration’s March 14 executive order to take effect would destroy RFE/RL and VOA’s editorial independence, with grave implications for these organizations’ mission and the safety of their journalists. Under U.S. law, the editorial operations of USAGM entities are protected from political interference to ensure editorial independence.

    “For generations, VOA and RFE/RL have delivered reporting that broke the stranglehold of propaganda in closed societies. In doing so, their journalists have empowered millions of people across the world with the facts,” said CPJ Chief Global Affairs Officer Gypsy Guillén Kaiser. “By dismantling USAGM, the U.S. government is weakening the critical role of a free media and causing greater risk to journalists who have already paid a high price for reporting the facts.”

    CPJ’s research shows that RFE/RL and VOA journalists often put themselves at risk by reporting in highly censored countries.

    CPJ has documented at least nine journalists and media workers who worked for or contributed to VOA or its regional outlets who have been killed in connection with their work since 2003.

    Another nine have been imprisoned over the same period, with two currently in prison: Sithu Aung Myint, a freelancer serving a prison term in Myanmar for sedition, and Pham Chi Dung, the founding chairman of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam and a freelance contributor to VOA.

    CPJ reporting found that at least 13 journalists and media workers who worked for or contributed to RFE/RL or its regional outlets have been killed in connection with their work since 2000.

    At present, four journalists who work for or contribute to RFE/RL or its regional outlets are in prison. Over the last 20 years, 18 journalists and media workers who worked for or contributed to RFE/RL or its regional outlets have been imprisoned, including CPJ 2024 International Press Freedom Awardee Alsu Kurmasheva.

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    About the Committee to Protect Journalists

    The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Boston TV station turns over interview recordings, notes ahead of murder trial

    Broadcast station WFXT, a Fox News affiliate in Boston, was subpoenaed by prosecutors on Feb. 7, 2025, for interview recordings and notes in connection with a murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts.

    A judge upheld the request later that month and the outlet turned over the materials in March, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

    According to the prosecutors’ request, WFXT began advertising Feb. 6 about “the biggest interview of the year”: a sit-down with its reporter Ted Daniels and Karen Read, who stands accused of the murder of her boyfriend in a case that has captured national attention. The interview aired Feb. 9.

    After the case against Read ended in a mistrial in July 2024, prosecutors issued multiple subpoenas to news outlets and journalists ahead of the April 2025 retrial. Massachusetts does not have a formally recognized reporter’s shield law protecting journalists from being forced to disclose newsgathering materials.

    Prosecutors had succeeded in subpoenaing the broadcast station in 2024, with Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone ordering WFXT to produce copies of all recordings and notes from interviews with Read’s parents and brother.

    In their February 2025 request, prosecutors asked Cannone to order the production of all recordings and notes from interviews with Karen Read, including those that were never aired.

    “The defendant has repeatedly used the media to promote her position,” prosecutors wrote. “The defendant and her counsel cannot avail themselves of a media strategy to publicize and promote the defendant’s varying claims to the public at large and the potential jury pool while simultaneously excising statements and admissions that may not be favorable to her cause.”

    Cannone granted the request on Feb. 19, ordering WFXT to produce the materials by March 1. According to court filings, the station complied and turned over the files on March 3.

    WFXT did not respond to requests for comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ joins legal effort in defense of AP’s access to the White House

    New York, March 27, 2025 — Following the White House’s decision to ban Associated Press (AP) reporters from covering White House media events, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has joined the amicus brief filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) outlining how the Trump administration’s decision violates the First Amendment.

    In an alarming retaliation against the free press in the United States, on February 12, 2025, the Trump administration barred AP from covering White House events and accessing the Oval Office and Air Force One after its decision to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally known name. 

    RCFP filed the amicus brief on February 24, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserting that the exclusion of the AP from accessing White House events on the basis of its editorial viewpoint violates the First Amendment. CPJ and News/Media Alliance joined as co-amici on March 24, 2025.

    “The Trump administration’s arbitrary ban of AP’s access to media events stifles freedom of speech and violates the First Amendment at a time when independent journalism is most needed,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “AP’s essential reporting ensures news outlets around the world can keep their audiences informed. The Trump administration must adhere to its stated commitment to freedom of expression and refrain from retaliating against news organizations for their independent editorial decisions.”

    National and international newspapers, radio stations, and television broadcasters rely heavily on the AP’s reporting to deliver the news to an audience of four billion viewers each day. The White House’s decision effectively blocks media outlets’ from delivering the news to this audience.

    This decision is part of a concerning pattern of retaliation against the media in the first weeks of President Trump’s administration. 

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    About the Committee to Protect Journalists

    The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ, others stand in solidarity with Lebanon news outlets Daraj and Megaphone amid legal harassment

    The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 59 local and international media outlets and human rights organizations in a statement supporting Lebanon’s independent media outlets Daraj and Megaphone amid intensifying legal harassment against them.

    A lawsuit by several lawyers against Daraj and Megaphone, before the Public Prosecutor’s Office, accused the outlets of “undermining the financial standing of the state” and “receiving suspicious foreign funds with the aim of launching media campaigns that would shake confidence in Lebanon,” among other allegations.

    The statement calls on Lebanese authorities to protect independent media outlets and support the country’s economic recovery by ending the weaponization of baseless charges to silence independent media.

    Read the full statement here. 


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Yorker writer subpoenaed ahead of Massachusetts murder trial

    New Yorker contributing writer Eren Orbey and the magazine’s publisher, Condé Nast, were subpoenaed on Dec. 18, 2024, for copies of on- and off-the-record interviews and communications in connection with a murder trial in Brockton, Massachusetts. The magazine has requested the order be struck down.

    In 2023 and 2024, Orbey extensively interviewed Patrick Clancy, whose wife, Lindsay Clancy, stands charged for the murder of their three children in January 2023. Orbey also spoke with Patrick Clancy’s parents, sister and numerous family friends, ultimately authoring a lengthy October 2024 profile titled, “A husband in the aftermath of his wife’s unfathomable act.”

    In December, prosecutors attempted to compel the disclosure of the journalist’s notes and recordings from all of the interviews he conducted for the piece, including those that were off the record. The Commonwealth also requested all emails, texts and voicemails between Orbey and the interviewees, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

    “All of these individuals provided direct information to Orbey/Conde Nast related to how Lindsay’s demeanor, attitudes, and mental health appeared both before and after the murders,” Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague wrote. “These statements and observations are directly relevant to the defendant’s criminal responsibility as the article itself was framed to portray the defendant as suffering a mental health crisis when she killed her children.”

    Plymouth County Superior Court Judge William Sulivan granted the prosecution’s request on Feb. 7, 2025, and ordered Orbey or Condé Nast to provide the requested materials by March 14.

    That day, Condé Nast instead filed a motion to quash the records request, arguing that not only does New York’s reporter shield law protect the magazine from disclosing newsgathering materials, but that the request itself is a clear “fishing expedition.”

    “The New Yorker’s sympathies are not on trial here. In fact, even a cursory reading of the piece shows The New Yorker’s reporting is complex and nuanced, and is hardly ‘in support’ of the defense,” attorney Jonathan Albano wrote. “But even if it were, the notion that the government could seek presumptively privileged, unpublished information from any news outlet that expresses sympathy for a criminal defendant is chilling and directly contrary to the First Amendment.”

    Albano also highlighted that while only some of the sources for the article were confidential, all of the sources Orbey spoke with were sensitive about speaking to the press, largely out of a concern for causing further emotional distress to distraught family members.

    “The forced disclosure of confidential and unpublished journalistic work product not only would breach the trust of the sources here,” Albano wrote, “but also would significantly interfere with The New Yorker’s future reporting efforts by sending a signal to all sources that speaking to the magazine is the equivalent of speaking to the government, all to the detriment of the informing the public on matters of public concern.”

    A hearing on Condé Nast’s motion is scheduled for May 28, according to the court docket.

    In a statement shared with the Tracker, a New Yorker spokesperson said, “We’ve filed our opposition to this subpoena. These sorts of subpoenas that seek to turn independent journalists into tools of law enforcement violate basic First Amendment values.”


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Trump administration plans to revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people…


    This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • New Bill to Recognize Legal Rights of All Water Bodies in New York State

    What if bodies of water were guaranteed the kinds of legal rights that would criminalize their destruction? What if communities had the authority to enact laws that prevented pollution, extraction, and waste-dumping?

    This would be the case under a new bill introduced into the New York State Assembly by Patrick Burke on Friday. If it becomes law, New York Assembly Bill AO5156A, the Great Lakes and State Waters Bill of Rights, would recognize “unalienable and fundamental rights to exist, persist, flourish, naturally evolve, regenerate and be restored” for the Great Lakes and other watersheds and ecosystems throughout New York State.

    “All people deserve healthy ecosystems and clean water, and recognizing the inherent rights of nature to exist and flourish is the best way to protect this,” says Assemblyman Burke. “Protecting one watershed or regulating toxins one at a time isn’t enough. All New Yorkers are connected through our water, and so this bill protects all of us.”

    Representative Burke previously introduced an earlier draft of this bill in 2022. The new version incorporates feedback from the community and expands ecological rights beyond the Great Lakes watershed to include all the waters of New York.

    It also empowers municipalities and counties to democratically enact rights of nature laws for their local ecosystems. Many states have forbidden this practice. In addition, the new bill contains provisions to protect treaty rights for indigenous people and tribal nations in New York.

    Burke represents New York’s 142nd district, made up of South Buffalo and the surrounding areas on and near the shore of Lake Erie. Buffalo is located less than 5 miles south of Lake Ontario.

    This measure received overwhelming support in Burke’s constituent survey, including from Dr. Kirk Scirto, who received his medical doctorate at the University of Buffalo, teaches public health in the United States and internationally, and works as a clinician for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation.

    “This bill means communities having the freedom to finally decide what corporations can and can’t do in their backyards,” Dr. Scirto says. “It means communities having the power to say ‘No!’ to outsiders who’d steal their resources and leave behind only contamination. It means having the ability to protect our waters–and therefore our health. It means justice!”

    “For States to take action could be a game-changer”

    The law was drafted with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) which has been at the forefront of the rights of nature movement for more than 20 years, and incorporates input from constituents and tribal members living in the NY and Great Lakes ecosystems. Since writing the first law to recognize legal rights of ecosystems in 2006, CELDF has partnered with more than 200 communities across the United States to enact community rights and rights of nature laws.

    “The rights of nature movement is gaining momentum around the world as global warming, species extinction, fresh water scarcity, and climate-driven migration are all getting worse,” says CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price, who helped draft the law. “Meanwhile, the U.S. is being left behind. For states to take on these issues in the absence of federal action could be a game-changer, as it was for women’s suffrage when the states led the way for years.”

    The bill would also enshrine the right to a clean and healthy environment for all people and ecosystems within the State, the right to freedom from “toxic trespass,” and would prohibit the monetization of the waters of New York State.

    The bill is of cross-border interest, and will be part of an upcoming symposium on the health of the Great Lakes in Toronto in March where CELDF will be presenting.

    “Serious threats” to the waters of New York

    Lake Erie and Lake Ontario provide drinking water to 6.2 million New Yorkers. All told, the Great Lakes provide drinking water for more than 40 million people, contain 95% of all the surface freshwater in the United States, and make up the largest freshwater ecosystem on the planet.

    But this ecosystem is struggling. According to experts, billions of gallons of raw sewage entering the lakes, increasing toxic algae blooms, invasive species, global warming, and both historic and ongoing industrial pollution represent serious threats to the ecosystem and human health.

    According to Dr. Sherri Mason from Gannon University in Erie Pennsylvania over 22 million pounds of plastic are dumped in the Great Lakes annually.

    Experts such as Daniel Macfarlane, Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University, say that the people of the U.S. have become “complacent” after early efforts to clean up the Great Lakes curtailed obvious issues such as the Cuyahoga, Buffalo, and Chicago rivers catching fire due to petrochemical waste dumping in the 1960’s.

    In August 2014, a toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie linked to fertilizer and excrement from industrial farms shut down the drinking water supply to the city of Toledo, Ohio, home to 270,000 people, for 3 days.

    This led to the community to overwhelmingly vote to pass a similar law to the one introduced by Assemblyman Burke called the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which was also drafted by CELDF. The story of the pollution entering Lake Erie, the 2014 water shutdown, and the effort to protect the lake was profiled in a 2024 documentary produced by artist Andrea Bowers and titled What We Do to Nature, We Do to Ourselves.

    The Rights of Nature movement

    Recognizing the legal rights of nature is becoming increasingly popular around the world. Since CELDF assisted the people of Ecuador to amend their constitution to include rights of nature in 2008, the movement has seen hundreds of other laws passed in countries like Columbia, New Zealand, and Canada.

    Just days ago, the Lewes District Council in East Sussex, England affirmed the Ouse River Charter, recognizing for the first time the rights of an English river.

    The U.S. is lagging behind these international efforts, with only local communities asserting the rights of nature thus far. CELDF’s consulting director Tish O’Dell has worked with many of these communities.

    “Brave people and communities have attempted to promote the new idea of rights of nature and challenge the current system, but we have never found a state legislator courageous enough to introduce such a law at the state level,” she says. “Representative Burke is the first to build on this grassroots movement for change.”


    This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Reward to dictators’: CPJ stands with thousands of journalists harmed by Trump’s dismantling of VOA, Radio Free outlets

    The Committee to Protect Journalists stands in support of thousands of journalists and millions of citizens around the world impacted by President Donald Trump’s dismantling Voice of America’s (VOA) staff and termination of funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).

    CPJ condemns a Trump executive order issued Friday that resulted in more than 1,300 employees being put on leave at VOA alone, and contract terminations at Radio Free outlets that would effectively end operations, and access to independent news for millions of citizens around the world, creating, as RFA President and CEO Bay Fang put it, “a reward to dictators and despots.”

    In reiterating its call for congressional leaders to restore support for the parent funder of these outlets, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), CPJ emphasized the dire consequences of Trump’s action for many journalists.

    “This suffocation of independent media is already putting the lives of journalists – who have often withstood enormous challenges to bring news to millions living in censored countries – in grave danger,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “It is really dystopian that the U.S. administration is now posing an existential threat to these historical organizations. We express our solidarity with the journalists put on administrative leave and urge congressional leaders to restore USAGM before irreparable harm is done.”

    USAGM, an independent agency chartered by Congress, funds VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. The networks reach an estimated 427 million people.

    CPJ research shows that journalists for USAGM networks often put themselves at risk by reporting in highly censored countries and frequently face retribution for their reporting.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ, others urge UK prime minister to secure writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release

    In a joint letter, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 16 other press freedom and human rights organizations called on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ramp up efforts to secure Egyptian-British writer Alaa Abdelfattah’s release. Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade behind bars and now faces an additional two years in detention—despite Egyptian legal provisions that should have ensured his release last September.

    The letter highlights the urgency of Abdelfattah’s case as he began a hunger strike in prison on March 1, 2025. His 69-year-old mother, Laila Soueif—a respected Egyptian professor—conducted a hunger strike for more than 150 days, which led to severe health deterioration and hospitalization. 

    On March 4, CPJ led another joint letter, signed by 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel Prize laureates, writers, and public figures, calling on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to grant a presidential pardon to Abd El Fattah.

    Read the full letter in here.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ, partners call for Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora’s release

    The Committee to Protect Journalists and eight other international organizations call for the immediate and unconditional release of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora and urgent guarantees of due process.

    Judge Erick García ordered Zamora’s return to prison on March 10, executing a appeals court order that revoked the journalist’s house arrest. At the hearing, García reported threats and intimidation, raising concerns over judicial independence and press freedom in Guatemala.

    The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled in July 2024 that Zamora’s continued imprisonment violated international law. A TrialWatch report detailed severe due process violations in Zamora’s case, concluding that his prosecution was likely retaliation for his investigative journalism.

    Zamora, founder of the now-defunct elPeriódico, was arrested in July 2022 and faces money laundering and obstruction of justice charges that have been widely condemned as politically motivated. His defense has rejected all accusations.

    Read the full statement here.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ calls for release of José Rubén Zamora after Guatemala judge orders the journalist back to jail

    The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces Monday’s court ruling to revoke the house arrest of Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora and send him back to prison.

    “The decision to return journalist José Rubén Zamora to prison is a blatant act of judicial persecution. This case represents a dangerous escalation in the repression of independent journalism,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “We call on authorities to release him immediately, stop using the justice system to silence critical journalism, and to respect press freedom and due process.”

    Zamora’s return to jail on money laundering charges that have been widely condemned as politically motivated was ordered by Judge Erick García, who had initially granted Zamora house arrest on Oct. 18, 2024. García said during Monday’s hearing that he and his staff had been threatened and intimidated by unknown individuals, according to a report by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre.

    Zamora, 67, was first arrested on July 29, 2022, and spent more than 800 days in pretrial detention before being placed under house arrest. A pioneering investigative journalist, Zamora has faced decades of harassment and persecution for his work, which CPJ has extensively documented. He received CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 1995 for his commitment to independent journalism. His newspaper, elPeriódico, was forced to shut down in 2023.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ joins call for Nepal to revise new media council, social media bill

    The Committee to Protect Journalists joined more than two dozen media and civil society groups in a joint statement on March 5, urging the Nepalese government and parliament to revise a recently proposed social media bill and the newly established Media Council. The statement noted that the bill granted the government “overreaching powers” that could threaten press freedom.

    The statement said the bill’s “overbroad and vague provisions” could be misused to target human rights defenders, journalists, and critics. It noted that parliament introduced the bill and founded the council within weeks of each other, raising “serious concerns about the government’s move to exert control over freedom of expression and access to information.”

    Read the full statement here.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • South Africa’s Expropriation Act: Between Legal Reform and Historical Justice

    Houses of Parliament (Cape Town, South Africa). Photograph Source: I, PhilippN – CC BY-SA 3.0

    There is no discourse in South Africa more ancient, more unresolved, and more weaponised than that of land. The passage of the Expropriation Act in South Africa has set the air thick with tension, a moment that peels open the past to reveal its jagged edges. A history that never ended, only submerged beneath the language of legality and market transactions, is once again clawing at the present.

    The land is not just dirt and fences—it is memory, survival, identity and belonging, resistance, dispossession of labour, the looting of minerals, and the establishment of racial capital. It is the primordial question—older than the Republic of itself.

    On 23 January 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the controversial Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 into law. Like the screech of rusted gears grinding against time’s stubborn wheel, the Act has sent a raucous clatter through the nation and beyond—its champions hailing it as long-overdue justice for stolen land, its detractors warning of economic ruin, while distant powers, draped in their own self-interest, tighten their grip, their protests echoing not in the name of principle, but of privilege.

    The Act, replacing its apartheid 1975 predecessor, is no mere legislative housekeeping. It is the state’s uneasy reckoning with a history of plunder—a tentative attempt to confront the theft that built South Africa’s economy, the dispossession that cemented its class hierarchies. Yet, as the ink dries, old ghosts stir. Who truly benefits? Who is left behind? And what of the landless, for whom restitution has remained a vanishing horizon, a promise deferred by bureaucracy and broken by politics?

    At its core, the Act seeks to bring the law in step with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 108 of 1996, aligning the legal framework with the imperatives of land reform. It corrects the lingering contradictions between the outdated Expropriation Act and Section 25 of the democratic constitution, which speaks of expropriation in the public interest, the just terms of compensation, and the broader commitments of a nation still struggling to unshackle itself from its past. The Act echoes previous iterations—2015, 2018—bearing the scars of legislative battles, the residue of failed consultations. It insists: expropriation must not be arbitrary; compensation must be just.

    Yet, as the legal scaffolding is erected, the fundamental question remains—does the law merely refine the mechanics of ownership, or does it reimagine justice itself?

    Since the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch East India Company in 1652 on the shores of Southern Africa, the story of South Africa has been one of land, conquest, and capital. The first wars of dispossession began with the violent subjugation of the Khoi-San, their ancestral land carved up for Dutch settlers who spread inland, waging battles of expansion.

     As they moved eastward, they met fierce resistance from the Xhosa, who for a hundred years fought a series of wars against colonial encroachment. The Xhosa stood as one of the longest-lasting obstacles to settler domination, pushing back against British and Boer forces in a struggle that shaped the landscape of resistance. Yet, even as these wars raged, the British tightened their grip on the Cape, and tensions between white factions deepened—Boers, losing their cheap slave labour, trekked north to claim new territories, leaving a trail of blood and conflict.

    Despite their divisions, settlers were bound by a shared imperative: the extraction of land and labour at the expense of the indigenous majority.

    The discovery of minerals in the late 19th century marked a turning point, shifting South Africa from an agrarian society to an industrial economy fuelled by forced native labour. Capital’s hunger for wealth deepened racial segregation, culminating in the Anglo-Boer Wars, where white capital fought itself before ultimately uniting. In 1910, the Union of South Africa was formed, excluding native South Africans from political and economic power. This exclusion was cemented in 1913 with the passing of the Natives Land Act, which stripped natives of land ownership, confining them to impoverished reserves with the Native Trust and Land Act of 1936 and into “tribal” boundaries called homelands by the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951. The foundation for apartheid had been laid—not just through law, but through centuries of war, theft, and the relentless logic of capital.

    The new Expropriation Act of 2024 attempts to pull South Africa’s legal framework closer to the constitutional imperatives of Section 25—the so-called property clause. The legal fiction of “just and equitable compensation” introduced in the Act is an attempt to balance constitutional propriety with the pressure of historical injustice. But whose justice? And what is equitable in a country where land was not bought but taken?

    To date, land reform has largely been cosmetic, measured in hectares redistributed rather than in the dismantling of agricultural monopolies or capital structures. The state has danced cautiously around the issue, unwilling to provoke market unrest or dislodge the deeply entrenched privileges of the white agrarian elite. And so, the Expropriation Act emerges as both a promise and a limitation.

    The Act permits expropriation in the “public interest,” a term rooted in the Constitution but destined to be contested in courts for years, entangling the process in legal bureaucracy. While the Act provides a framework for expropriation with and, in limited cases, without compensation, it does not fundamentally alter the state’s cautious approach to reclaiming large tracts of unused, unproductive, or speculatively held land. Instead, it remains tethered to negotiation, reinforcing a slow and measured redistribution. The Act acknowledges the rights of unregistered land occupiers, yet recognition alone does not guarantee security or restitution—leaving many still at the mercy of protracted legal and administrative processes.

    As argued before, for the nearly 60% of South Africans living off-register in communal areas, informal settlements, or Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses, the Expropriation Act of 2024 offers little more than a symbolic gesture. Without title deeds, their claims to land are not legally secured, yet their histories and lived realities are deeply embedded in it. If expropriation is not accompanied by a robust land administration strategy that formalises tenure rights for the dispossessed, it risks becoming another performance of reform rather than a transformative intervention.

    The Act’s recognition of unregistered land rights is a step forward, but recognition alone does not equate to protection. Unless the expropriation process is integrated with a comprehensive land administration system to document the rights of unregistered occupiers, those most vulnerable to dispossession will remain in legal limbo. The enactment of a Land Records Act, as recommended by the High-Level Panel Report on the Assessment of Key Legislation (2018) and the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform (2019), is essential to ensuring security of tenure.

    Additionally, both panels proposed a National Land Reform Framework Act to establish clear legal principles for redistribution, restitution, and tenure reform. Rather than replacing existing laws, this framework would provide coherence by setting legal criteria for beneficiary selection, land acquisition, and equitable access. It would also introduce mechanisms for transparency, accountability, and alternative dispute resolution, including a Land Rights Protector. The Expropriation Act should not stand in isolation—it must align with these broader legislative efforts to ensure that land reform is not only legally sound but also meaningfully transformative.

    Land, under capitalist relations, is not merely a resource—it is a commodity. Any attempt at expropriation without rupturing this logic is bound to be a compromised one. The Act, while acknowledging that compensation may, in certain instances, be set at nil, does not articulate a decisive framework for when and how this will occur, leaving these decisions to courts and policymakers. The absence of a robust redistributive mechanism means that expropriation may ultimately reinforce rather than disrupt market logic.

    This is not mere conjecture. In countries like Zimbabwe and Venezuela, land reform initiatives were sabotaged by a combination of domestic elite resistance and international financial retaliation. In South Africa, capital has already signaled its intention to resist large-scale redistribution, with organizations such as AgriSA warning of economic collapse should expropriation be pursued aggressively. This fearmongering is not new. It echoes the same panic-driven narratives that were used to justify land theft in the first place.

    Beyond South Africa’s borders, the passage of the Expropriation Act has triggered predictable reactions from Western powers. U.S. President Donald Trump, following a well-worn script of white minority protectionism, issued an executive order cutting aid to South Africa, claiming the law targets white farmers. The European Union has expressed “concern,” a diplomatic prelude to potential economic pressures. Additionally, the U.S. administration has threatened to revoke South Africa’s benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade agreement that facilitates tariff-free exports to the U.S. market. Yet, even as these forces decry land reform under the guise of defending property rights, Trump’s administration has quietly extended refugee status to white Afrikaners, framing them as victims of persecution. This move—granting asylum to the descendants of colonial settlers while barring refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern and African nations—reveals the racialised logic underpinning Western foreign policy. These responses are not about human rights or democracy. They are about the continued assertion of Western interests in the Middle East and Africa’s resources, protecting economic and racial hierarchies that long predate the Expropriation Act.

    International finance capital is already tightening its grip, with investment ratings agencies hinting at further downgrades should expropriation proceed in ways deemed unfavourable to the market. The South African state, historically timid in the face of international economic leverage, may find itself retreating into a defensive crouch, reducing expropriation to an instrument of negotiation rather than transformation.

    The Expropriation Act has reopened historical wounds, but it is not, in itself, a radical break. Its success or failure will depend on political will, legal battles, and grassroots mobilisation. The Landless People’s Movement, shack dwellers’ organisations, and rural activists have long articulated a vision of land reform that centres the dispossessed rather than the property-owning class. Will the state listen? Or will it once again privilege legal technicalities over substantive justice?

    For expropriation to mean something beyond legalese, it must be tied to a broader transformation of land relations in South Africa. This means:

    + Implementing a National Land Reform Framework Act, as proposed by the High-Level Panel and Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform, to set clear criteria for redistribution and beneficiary selection.

    + Recognising and securing tenure rights for the millions who live without formal documentation of their land occupancy.

    +  Creating mechanisms for community-driven expropriation, where citizens can initiate claims rather than relying solely on the state’s discretion.

    + Dismantling the commercial agrarian monopolies that continue to hoard vast tracts of land.

    Expropriation cannot be reduced to a bureaucratic procedure, a sterile legal exercise bound by the logic of the market. It must be a rupture—a deliberate act of redress, dismantling centuries of theft and exclusion. The state stands at a threshold: waver in hesitation, or grasp the weight of history and reimagine South Africa’s land ownership beyond the margins of negotiation. But history is restless. The dispossessed will not wait in endless queues of policy revisions and court battles. The land is calling—not for half-measures, not for another paper revolution, but for a reckoning that answers the injustice written into the soil.

    The post South Africa’s Expropriation Act: Between Legal Reform and Historical Justice appeared first on CounterPunch.org.


    This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sobantu Mzwakali.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • CPJ: Georgia must free Mzia Amaghlobeli after 53 days in jail for a slap

    New York, March 5, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Georgian court decision to proceed with the trial of media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli and keep her in detention, following an altercation with a local police chief. 

    In a March 4 pretrial hearing, Georgia’s western Batumi City Court rejected motions to release Amaghlobeli, director of independent news outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi, and to dismiss the charge against her of assaulting a police officer. If convicted, Amaghlobeli faces a minimum four-year prison sentence, in a case that is widely seen as disproportionate and in retaliation for her journalism.

    “Georgian authorities’ prosecution of media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli is clearly punitive and is all the more jarring given rampant impunity for brutal police attacks on journalists,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should release Amaghlobeli immediately.”

    The trial is due to begin on March 18, local journalist Irma Dimitradze told CPJ.

    Amaghlobeli has been behind bars since her January 11 arrest, when she began a hunger strike that lasted 38 days.

    Amaghlobeli was not covering the protests when she was arrested, but human rights groups calling for her release believe she is being punished for her outlets’ reporting on alleged abuses by authorities, including the police. 

    The journalist’s lawyer Juba Katamadze told CPJ that Amaghlobeli had been unlawfully detained earlier that evening for putting up a poster on a police station wall to protest her friend’s detention, and that her slapping of Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze did not warrant prosecution under the serious charge of assaulting an officer. 

    Amaghlobeli’s case comes amid a sharp decline in press freedom in Georgia. Dozens of journalists covering anti-government protests have been violently obstructed or beaten by police. Last week, the government proposed to introduce prison terms for non-compliance with an amended “foreign agent” law and to tighten control over broadcasters.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • First assessment of Human Rights under the Trump Administration by HRW

    Amy Braunschweiger speaks with Human Rights Watch’s US Program Director Tanya Greene, who leads research within the United States, as well as Washington Director Sarah Yager, who advocates with the US government on global issues, about the slew of executive orders President Trump has issued, the damage to human rights his administration’s policies have already done, and where we go from here.The text – reproduced in full below, was published on 3 March 2025.

    See also: https://youtu.be/N_hCOCVuJsA?si=t2lUEb3Fw8XWH7Vo where UN human rights chief Volker Türk has voiced deep concerns for hostilities happening across the globe, including a “fundamental shift in direction” of the US. He expressed concern over a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war that did not involve Kyiv.

    President Trump has been governing by executive orders. Could you give us some quick background on executive orders and what they do?

    TG: An executive order is a presidential directive regarding federal government operations and policies. Their reach and power can be extraordinary, including because they often impact federally funded non-governmental entities, like universities and housing providers. Executive orders should be based on existing law, and are often operationalized through agency action, such as the departments of labor, homeland security, or education.

    Many of Trump’s executive orders are facing court challenges arguing that they are unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. For example, his executive order denying citizenship to children of undocumented people born in the United States has been stayed by the courts pending a legal challenge. It is widely seen as a clear violation of the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

    Although the implementation of executive orders is not always automatic, widespread responses have been preemptive, anticipatory, and fearful, which is likely what Trump intended in this blitz of actions.

    SY: These executive orders show how split the United States is. In 2016, Trump’s executive orders reversed former President Barack Obama’s. Then Joe Biden reversed Trump’s orders. And today, Trump reverses Biden’s. But this isn’t typical. It shows the divisive nature of US politics.

    It’s also not typical that so many of these current orders are harmful to human rights.

    Many of Trump’s executive orders harm human rights, both in the United States and around the world. Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, is laying off masses of federal employees at various agencies. What are we most concerned about inside the US?

    TG:  Whatever its supposed intentions, DOGE is slashing and burning to the point that a growing number of federal agencies are crippled by lack of resources, staff, and competent leadership. DOGE is also taking down websites and data that we rely on, both as human rights defenders and as the general public seeks information. For instance, hospitals across the country can no longer obtain important public health data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Human Rights Watch is investigating the treatment of immigrant children, racial justice impacts, environmental concerns, healthcare access, rights of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender people, and reproductive freedoms. You have a president that says diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is “dangerous, demeaning and immoral” but offers no ways to fight racial injustice, and yet one of his executive orders allows for resettling certain supposedly-persecuted white South Africans in the US, just after an earlier order closed the refugee admissions door on all other refugees worldwide.

    Immigration enforcement raids and other enforcement activities in the last month have targeted all immigrant communities, disproportionately those of color. Enforcement has targeted immigrants regardless of how long they have been in the United States and without considering their contributions to their communities, as well as people in the process of an immigration proceeding, where a judge decides if they can stay in the US.  As a result, there are communities in which many people are terrified and some avoid going to church or the hospital, and many children don’t go to school.

    There is also an order now in place defunding reproductive justice and abortion access both in the US and around the world.

    The stock value of GEO Group, a company the US government has long contracted with to run private immigration detention facilities, went up immediately after Trump’s election, presumably in anticipation of ramped-up immigration detention in private facilities. Human Rights Watch has long called for investment in community-based public safety solutions rather than more prisons.

    What are we worried about in terms of US foreign policy?

    SY: The foreign aid freeze and termination of thousands of State Department grants is a key focus for us right now, though of course there are new concerns that rise up every day. The aid being stopped has had awful consequences around the world. People will die needlessly because of this one policy decision.

    There is also an impact on civil and political rights abroad. Russian independent media outlets, which have been doing an amazing job exposing the Kremlin’s repression and debunking the official propaganda, received significant US-funding. Terminating aid will severely undercut that work. The same thing with Belarusian independent media.

    Many human rights defenders targeted by their governments lived in US-funded safe houses, which are now closed.

    Small human rights groups, some the only ones in their country, are on the verge of closing. We’re going to see the ripple effects and deaths in populations unable to stand up for their freedoms without this funding and the political support the United States gave.

    Aside from the aid freeze, Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the military’s top lawyers. Military lawyers are supposed to ensure US military operations abide by international law, the laws of war.  This could mean far more harm to civilians, who are supposed to be protected, when the US military is in an armed conflict. In fact, Trump also just lifted limits on US commanders authorizing airstrikes and special operations raids outside of war zones, which rolls back 20 years of work to ensure only combatants are targeted and only in recognized armed conflicts.

    These kinds of actions will have long-term ramifications on how people around the world view the United States.

    When there’s so much happening in a short period of time, how does Human Rights Watch approach its work?

    TG: We remember our priorities and how we can make a difference. There’s a lot of noise and distraction so we have to be thoughtful about putting limited resources into efforts that have impact. Our research on immigration raids or deportation flights might be used in partner litigation; our interviews with witnesses to abuses help support policymakers advocating in support of human rights.

    As an organization with colleagues who deal with repressive states and authoritarian regimes globally, those of us working in the US are informed of effective strategies and lessons learned as we encounter them here. And we can share this information with partners on the ground and policymakers, too.

    SY: We were not caught off guard by this. We were able to plan. I do think the speed, the apparent vindictiveness, and the level of chaos of Trump’s first month in office shocked many people. But we planned for this. We had a strategy that we are now implementing. We are going to engage with every policymaker that we can. We know for a fact many on both sides of the aisle don’t agree with what is happening. We are going to document the Trump administration’s impact on human rights around the world, and we’re going to try and block or end those policies. We are working together with our partners, some of whom focus on strategic litigation – litigation designed to advance respect for and protection of rights.

    How is Human Rights Watch responding to this? What is our work inside the US focusing on?

    TG: All the areas of work I mentioned are under attack by the new administration.

    The immigration space is fraught with misinformation that stokes fears and prejudices, but we counter that with fact-finding and with the stories of the real people who are harmed by dehumanizing rhetoric and policies.  We will build on our track record of careful research on problematic immigration policies from previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, exposing harmful policies such as inhuman and degrading immigration detention and the separation of migrant children from their parents. We are continuing this work, documenting what’s happening to people and using it to advocate for change.

    We’ve seen US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deporting Iranian families with children to Panama with an agreement that the US will pay for Panama to deport them to Iran. A country cannot lawfully send Iranian asylum seekers to Panama without hearing their claims and just be done with it – sending them back to a country to face persecution violates international refugee law. The administration is also preparing to deport unaccompanied immigrant children – not just cruel and terrifyingly dangerous, but a human rights violation.

    In the democracy space, some US voters seem ready to trade freedoms away for supposed gains that are ultimately long-term losses, like increased surveillance, that will embolden and enable bad actors in government.

    In the racial equality space, we’ve been working on education, and that is a battle zone. We are doing research to expose state-level policies that censor and distort school curricula in ways that are inconsistent with human rights norms—measures that target the histories and experiences of Black, Indigenous and LGBT people in particular. If those efforts succeed they will be exported to other states.

    How is our work responding to changes in the foreign policy space?

    SY: The Trump executive order putting in place a sanctions program targeting the International Criminal Court has already done damage. We are working to convince the Senate not to legislate more sanctions, and to make sure other governments step up to defend the court from US pressure.

    We continue to focus on some of the conflicts where we think the Trump administration could play a valuable role. When it comes to Sudan, where the US government itself said a genocide took place, the US could pressure allies like the United Arab Emirates to stop supplying weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, one of the abusive warring parties there.

    President Trump says he wants to be a peacemaker. There are ways he could do that, but so far we are seeing very worrying foreign policy proposals. For example, Ukraine’s future is being discussed by the United States and Russia without Ukraine, and in Gaza, Trump has proposed permanently and forcibly displacing the Palestinian population, which would amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

    Some people would say there is no way to engage with this administration on human rights.

    SY: Engaging is certainly more challenging. But we don’t want to just walk away from our advocacy with US officials. Then you give up the power of the human rights movement, and any opportunity to change the minds of policymakers. There are still people in this administration who care about human rights. They may talk about it differently, they may be focused on particular places or issues. We’ll start there and make our case for the US role in lessening suffering and protecting rights around the world, not only because it’s good but because it’s smart and it’s in the US interest.

    And there’s Congress, which needs to step up as a check on the power of the White House. We will continue to work with House representatives and Senators on both sides of the aisle.

    TG:  The fear that the administration is cultivating among the public is dangerous, and information is so critical in response. That’s why we respond with research, arming people with facts. We know there are members of congress and state leadership like governors that support human rights. They are also empowered by our work.

    What can people in the US do in this situation?

    SY: If we want to see rights on the agenda, we need to see people in the United States reaching out to their representatives in Congress. They were elected to bring to Washington the needs and desires of their people.

    Also, if you see a person acting with courage in these difficult times, thank them. We’re going so fast, and we push and yell and scream, and then when a policymaker, a celebrity, or the head of a local food bank steps out and does the right thing, we move on. Stop for a minute and recognize the people doing the right thing. Make the space for them to keep doing that important work of holding the line.

    TG: Also, you too can be that person. Share the information. Have the conversations with your friends and family, provide what you know, encourage exchange of real information. It’s about building community. One of the strongest weapons we have is our unity, and we can each do something to build that.

    Religious communities and school groups and community centers, there are many places we can plug in to make a difference. Support your local homeless shelter or food pantry. Sponsor or reach out to refugees and immigrants living in your localities. I think the big risk is feeling powerless and unplugging. I know the temptation is great. We each don’t have to do everything. But if we all do something, that’s more than nothing. And don’t be afraid to hear “no” or lose on your first try. No is the first step to yes.

    And remember that there have been people in this country who have been targeted for abuse and destruction by the government their entire time in this country. Us as Black people, Indigenous people. And we’ve not only survived but thrived, and there are lessons to be learned from those struggles. And for the rest of the US population, we are a nation of mostly immigrants who came here to escape ills like human rights abuses or poverty. So gain strength from that.

    We’re doing this work for the next generation as well as the present. Not only are we trying to protect rights for them, we are also modeling what to do when you have problems and face difficulties.

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/03/interview-snapshot-rights-under-trump-administration

  • Abby Martin explains Palestinians have a LEGAL right to armed resistance


    This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bosnian Serbs adopt ‘foreign agent’ law targeting independent media

    Berlin, March 4, 2025–-The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority territory Republika Srpska to revoke a “foreign agent” law that poses a significant threat to media freedom and civil society.

    “Republika Srpska authorities should immediately suspend any plans to enforce this ‘foreign agent’ legislation, which mirrors restrictive measures used by authoritarian regimes to silence critics,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Such laws are incompatible with democratic values, and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s aspirations for European integration.”

    On February 27, the National Assembly of the Serb-dominated half of Bosnia and Herzegovina called Republika Srpska passed the Law on the Special Registry and Transparency of the Work of Nonprofit Organizations, requiring foreign-funded groups to register with the justice ministry as “foreign agents” and comply with strict financial oversight and reporting rules. Russia, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan have used similar legislation to criminalize critical voices and the media.

    The bill was among several passed by Serb lawmakers in response to the February 26 one-year sentence given to Republika Srpska’s President Milorad Dodik on charges that he disobeyed the top international envoy overseeing peace in ethnically-divided Bosnia. The court in the national capital, Sarajevo also barred pro-Russian Dodik from politics for six years.

    Dodik has long advocated for Republika Srpska to separate from Bosnia and Herzegovina and join Serbia. The Bosnian Serb mini-state is one of two autonomous entities — the other is the Bosniak-Croat Federation — created under the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian war.

    In a statement, 41 local non-governmental organizations described the foreign agent law as “a revenge attack on all critical voices.”

    CPJ emailed Dodik’s press office to request comment but received no reply.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Azerbaijan arrests 2 more journalists in Meydan TV case

    New York, March 4, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Azerbaijan’s February 20 arrest of Nurlan Gahramanli and February 28 arrest of Fatima Mövlamli — both freelance reporters for Germany-based outlet Meydan TV — on currency smuggling charges.

    “The latest arrests in Azerbaijan’s unprecedented media crackdown show more clearly than ever that authorities’ real goal is to entirely stifle the work of independent media inside the country,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Nurlan Gahramanli and Fatima Mövlamli, along with nearly two dozen other journalists currently jailed on clearly retaliatory charges.”

    In separate hearings, the Khatai District Court in the capital, Baku, ordered Gahramanli into pretrial detention for one month and 17 days on February 21 and set a pretrial detention period of one month and nine days for Mövlamli on March 1.

    The arrests bring the total number of Meydan TV journalists jailed on currency smuggling charges to nine. Police detained six of the outlet’s staff in December and arrested journalist Shamshad Agha in February. Pro-government media claimed Agha was entrusted with the “management” of Meydan TV’s in-country operations following the December arrests and “recruited” several journalists, including Gahramanli and Mövlamli.

    The Meydan TV journalists are among at least 24 journalists and media workers currently jailed in Azerbaijan, one of the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. Most of them hail from the country’s largest independent media and have been charged over allegations of bringing Western donor funds into the country illegally, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.

    On February 26, a Baku court moved another journalist charged on funding accusations, Toplum TV presenter Shahnaz Baylargizi, from pretrial detention into house arrest on health grounds.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In Turkey, 5 Halk TV journalists face trial for influencing judiciary with broadcast

    Istanbul, March 3, 2025— Turkish authorities should free Halk TV editor-in-chief Suat Toktaş and drop the charges against him and four colleagues, whose trial is due to open on March 4, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

    An Istanbul court arrested Toktas on January 26 after pro-opposition Halk TV broadcast a conversation between its journalist Barış Pehlivan and an expert financial witness. The court said Halk TV had secretly recorded the two men’s telephone conversation and it had publicly named the witness to put pressure on him. Four other Halk TV staff were placed under judicial control and banned from foreign travel.

    “Suat Toktaş and his four Halk TV colleagues must not be jailed for airing an interview that the government disagreed with. The public deserve to hear all sides of this story, which is of national importance and involves a top Turkish politician,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Authorities should immediately halt their prosecution of Halk TV and instead take a positive step towards improving Turkey’s dismal press freedom record.”

    Pehlivan’s interview took place after Istanbul’s opposition Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu hosted a news conference where he named the witness, who he alleged had filed biased reports in numerous politically motivated lawsuits against opposition-controlled municipalities. The witness told Pehlivan that the mayor’s allegations were false.

    The interview was aired on a program hosted by Seda Selek, with Serhan Asker as director and Kürşad Oğuz as program coordinator.

    All five journalists were charged with violating the privacy of communication through the press and influencing those performing judicial duties, a crime for which the prosecution has requested up to nine years in prison. Pehlivan and Oğuz face an additional charge of recording non-public conversations between individuals and could be jailed for up to 14 years, according to the indictment, reviewed by CPJ.

    CPJ’s email to Istanbul’s chief prosecutor requesting comment did not receive a response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam’s legal system ‘arbitrary,’ ignores international agreements, UN group says

    Read a version of this story in Vietnamese

    A United Nations group has accused Vietnam of unfairly arresting and trying a blogger and activist, who is serving a six-year prison term. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said the trial took place under a state judicial practice that could amount to a violation of international law.

    Nguyen Lan Thang was jailed for six years in 2023 for “conducting propaganda against the State” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s criminal code.

    The U.N. group said in its report, Opinion No. 51/2024, which it released on Wednesday, that Article 117 is so loosely worded that it serves as a trap to catch government critics.

    “The language used is overly broad and fails to define key terms, which prevents individuals from regulating their behaviour and ensuring that it is in accordance with the law,” the opinion letter said.

    “The Working Group has previously considered that article 117 of the Criminal Code is so vague that it is impossible to invoke a legal basis for detention thereunder and expressly noted that the provision does not meet the standards of the principle of legality due to its vague and overly broad language.”

    The group submitted its report to Vietnam on Dec. 10 and said Vietnam had not responded.

    Thang, who was a Radio Free Asia blogger, reported on human rights issues since 2011. He was also active in protests over China’s territorial clashes with Vietnam in the South China Sea.

    He was arrested on July 5, 2022, kept in solitary confinement for more than seven months and refused visits from his family and lawyer. In February 2023 he was finally allowed to meet his lawyer to prepare for a closed trial in July of that year.

    The working group’s document said Thang’s arrest was arbitrary because he was only peacefully exercising his fundamental rights as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Vietnam has agreed to follow.

    The group also said Thang’s trial was unfair since he was denied legal advice for so long.

    The U.N. group, made up of five independent international experts, called on Vietnam to release and compensate Thang.

    It said Thang’s case was one of many in Vietnam recently where activists had been locked up following arbitrary arrests that didn’t meet international standards. Campaigners were detained for long periods before their trials with limited or no access to lawyers and often held in solitary confinement, the U.N. body added.

    The group said Vietnam prosecuted human rights defenders at show trials on vaguely worded criminal charges for peacefully exercising their human rights. Courts gave them disproportionately long prison sentences and prisons denied them access to the outside world.

    “This pattern indicates a systemic problem with arbitrary detention in Viet Nam,” the group said, adding that if such cases continued, “this practice, which is embedded in the security and judicial culture of Viet Nam, might amount to a serious violation of international law.”

    “The constant and systematic targeting of journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders, such as Mr. Nguyễn in the present case, amounts to a crime against humanity. Mr. Nguyễn has been the victim of serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against bloggers, journalists and others in Viet Nam.”

    Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to RFA’s emails seeking a response to the group’s statement.

    What do lawyers say?

    A lawyer who defended Thang at his trial, but who didn’t want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the subject, said Vietnam’s judiciary and legal system are not fair or transparent.

    “Such substantive and procedural law-based adjudication has the effect of challenging the sustainability and core values ​​of justice, which require strict detail and precision for all its application conditions,” he told RFA on Friday.

    He said legal regulations should not “unduly restrict citizens’ political rights, especially with regard to freedom of speech or assembly, and of the press.”

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    Another lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, who has defended many political cases and was forced to flee to the United States, said that although Vietnam has been a member of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights since 1982, it still uses Article 117 “propaganda against the State” and Article 331 “abusing democratic freedoms” to silence dissidents.

    “It is unjust because the investigation process, prosecution and trial of those accused under Article 117 or Article 331 are full of violations of criminal procedures, as well as violations of the standard principles of criminal procedures that many civilized countries in the world are applying,” he said, calling the U.N. groups comments completely legitimate.

    “The Vietnamese government needs to promptly and fully implement the contents of this document. At the same time, apply similar treatment to all other political prisoners who are being detained, whether they have been tried or not.”

    Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Vietnamese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russia puts journalist under house arrest for ‘fake’ news about Ukraine war

    New York, February 27, 2025—CPJ calls on Russian authorities to drop legal proceedings against 64-year-old Russian journalist Ekaterina Barabash, who is under house arrest and could be jailed for up to 10 years for criticizing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    On February 25, Ukrainian-born Barabash, a film critic for the independent outlet Republic, was detained and charged with spreading “fake” news. The following day, a Moscow court placed her under two months’ house arrest ahead of her trial. Barabash’s reporting frequently has a political and anti-war stance.

    Also on February 26, a court in the Far East city of Khabarovsk fined Sergey Mingazov, a news editor with the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, 700,000 rubles (US$8,062) for publishing false information about the Russian army.

    “The criminal cases against Ekaterina Barabash and Sergey Mingazov demonstrate how Russian authorities are weaponizing ‘fake’ news legislation to silence those who dare to contradict Kremlin-approved narratives on the Ukraine war,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna.

    The charges against Barabash stem from four Facebook posts in 2022 and 2023, three of which have since been removed. In the fourth, she condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a recurring theme in her commentary.

    “While under house arrest, she is not allowed to publish anything or communicate via social media or a phone,” her son Yury Barabash told CPJ, adding that he believed the charges were “politically motivated” and linked to “her social media or/and her professional activities.”

    Mingazov was put under house arrest in April for three reposts on his Telegram channel of news about the 2022 massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. 

    Russia was the fifth worst jailer of journalists worldwide, with at least 30 reporters behind bars on December 1, 2024, in CPJ’s latest annual global prison census. Of these, six were jailed for “fake” news.

    CPJ did not receive a response to its request for comment sent to the Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee, a federal body in charge of investigating crimes, via its website.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarusian journalist Palina Pitkevich’s extremism trial set to open

    New York, February 27, 2025— Belarusian authorities should immediately release Belarusian journalist Palina Pitkevich, whose trial on charges of participating in an extremist organization is set to start on March 7, and stop jailing the press for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

    “Palina Pitkevich’s detention is yet another grim reminder that President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s government is the worst jailer of journalists in Europe and Central Asia,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “Belarusian authorities must drop all charges against Pitkevich and repeal the country’s extremism legislation instead of using it to silence dissent.”

    Pitkevich was arrested in June, shortly after authorities designated the Press Club Belarus’ media literacy project Media IQ as an extremist group and listed her among its members, a representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an exiled advocacy and trade group, told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

    If found guilty, she could be jailed for up to six years, according to the Criminal Code, which was amended to comply with a package of extremism legislation in 2021. Since then, the law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 35 media outlets, according to BAJ.

    CPJ is also investigating the case of freelance journalist Aleh Supruniuk, who has been missing since late January, and the detention of seven former journalists with the shuttered independent outlet Intex-Press, including reporter Ruslan Raviaka, on extremism charges in late 2024.

    The BAJ representative confirmed to CPJ that Supruniuk was in detention. In 2021, Supruniuk was also briefly detained and his home was searched.

    Belarus is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 31 journalists behind bars, on December 1, 2024, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census. Pitkevich was not included at the time due to a lack of publicly available information on her detention.

    CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency, for comment but did not receive any response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarusian journalist Palina Pitkevich’s extremism trial set to open

    New York, February 27, 2025— Belarusian authorities should immediately release Belarusian journalist Palina Pitkevich, whose trial on charges of participating in an extremist organization is set to start on March 7, and stop jailing the press for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

    “Palina Pitkevich’s detention is yet another grim reminder that President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s government is the worst jailer of journalists in Europe and Central Asia,” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “Belarusian authorities must drop all charges against Pitkevich and repeal the country’s extremism legislation instead of using it to silence dissent.”

    Pitkevich was arrested in June, shortly after authorities designated the Press Club Belarus’ media literacy project Media IQ as an extremist group and listed her among its members, a representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an exiled advocacy and trade group, told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

    If found guilty, she could be jailed for up to six years, according to the Criminal Code, which was amended to comply with a package of extremism legislation in 2021. Since then, the law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 35 media outlets, according to BAJ.

    CPJ is also investigating the case of freelance journalist Aleh Supruniuk, who has been missing since late January, and the detention of seven former journalists with the shuttered independent outlet Intex-Press, including reporter Ruslan Raviaka, on extremism charges in late 2024.

    The BAJ representative confirmed to CPJ that Supruniuk was in detention. In 2021, Supruniuk was also briefly detained and his home was searched.

    Belarus is the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 31 journalists behind bars, on December 1, 2024, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census. Pitkevich was not included at the time due to a lack of publicly available information on her detention.

    CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency, for comment but did not receive any response.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnamese journalist Truong Huy San sentenced to 30 months in prison

    Bangkok, February 27, 2025—Hanoi’s People’s Court sentenced Vietnamese journalist Truong Huy San to 30 months in prison on Thursday under a criminal provision that bars “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the State.”

    San, a well-known political commentator and author also known by his pen names Huy Duc and Osin, was convicted under Article 331 of the penal code for 13 articles posted to his personal Facebook page between 2015 and 2024 and for independently collecting information, according to news reports.

    “Journalist Truong Huy San was convicted and sentenced for gathering and publishing independent news, which Vietnam treats as a criminal offense,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “San and all independent journalists wrongfully held behind bars in Vietnam should be freed immediately and unconditionally.”  

    CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether San intends to appeal his conviction. San has been in detention since his arrest in the capital Hanoi on June 1, 2024.

    Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, which manages the nation’s prisons and authorizes police to make political arrests, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

    Vietnam tied with Iran and Eritrea as the seventh worst jailer of journalists worldwide, with at least 16 reporters behind bars on December 1, 2024, in CPJ’s latest annual global prison census.  


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Zimbabwean journalist Blessed Mhlanga jailed over interviews with war veteran

    Lusaka, February 26, 2025—CPJ calls on Zimbabwean authorities to free broadcast journalist Blessed Mhlanga, who has been in detention since February 24 on charges of incitement in connection to his critical interviews with a war veteran. 

    “It is absolutely shameful that Blessed Mhlanga has been thrown behind bars simply because he gave voice to a war veteran’s criticism of Zimbabwe’s government,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator, Muthoki Mumo, in Nairobi. “Zimbabwean authorities should free Mhlanga unconditionally and respond to their citizens’ concerns, rather than punishing the messenger.”

    Mhlanga, who works with the privately owned Heart and Soul TV, said on the social media platform X that three armed men came to his office searching for him on February 17, soon after which the police phoned him to ask him to come in for questioning. On February 21, the police issued a statement seeking information about Mhlanga’s whereabouts. 

    Mhlanga responded to the police summons on February 24 and was arrested on two counts of transmission of data messages “inciting violence or damage to property,” according to the Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights network, and Mhlanga’s lawyer Chris Mhike. 

    On February 25, prosecutors opposed Mhlanga’s bail application, arguing that he was a flight risk, Mhike told CPJ. The court is due to decide on his application on February 27.

    Authorities allege that the offenses were committed in Mhlanga’s November 2024 and January 2025 interviews with Blessed Geza, a veteran of Zimbabwe’s war for independence from white minority rule, who called on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to resign, accusing him of nepotism, corruption, and failing to address economic issues.

    If found guilty, Mhlanga could be jailed for up to five years and fined up to US$700 under the 2021 Cyber and Data Protection Act.

    Mhlanga was previously assaulted and arrested in 2022 while covering the attempted arrest of an opposition politician.

    CPJ’s phone calls and messages to Zimbabwe’s National Prosecution Authority communications officer Angelina Munyeriwa and police spokesperson Paul Nyathi went unanswered.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyrgyzstan Supreme Court upholds lengthy prison terms for Temirov Live journalists

    New York, February 25, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by the Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court’s February 25 decision confirming sentences against three Temirov Live journalists on charges of calling for mass unrest, including a six-year prison term for Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, director of the anti-corruption investigative outlet, a five-year prison term for presenter Azamat Ishenbekov, and a five-year suspended sentence for reporter Aike Beishekeyeva.

    “Today’s Supreme Court ruling in the case of prominent investigative outlet Temirov Live was a chance for Kyrgyzstan to right the most egregious press freedom violation in the country’s modern history. Instead it serves to underline the apparently irreversible course towards authoritarianism under President Sadyr Japarov,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Kyrgyz authorities should immediately release Temirov Live journalists Makhabat Tajibek kyzy and Azamat Ishenbekov, withdraw all charges against them and Aike Beishekeyeva and Aktilek Kaparov, and end their attacks on the country’s once-free press.”

    Kyrgyz police arrested 11 current and former staff of Temirov Live, a local partner of the global Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in January 2024. In October, a court convicted Tajibek kyzy, Ishenbekov, Beishekeyeva, and former reporter Aktilek Kaparov and acquitted the remaining seven. Kaparov, who like Beishekeyeva was given a five-year suspended sentence with a three-year probation period, has yet to file a Supreme Court appeal. The four convicted journalists remained in detention pending the October verdict; the seven who were acquitted were previously moved into house arrest or released under travel bans in March and August.

    A review of the case by TrialWatch, a global initiative of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, concluded that the convictions suggest “improperly that negative statements [in Temirov Live videos] about the government can serve as a basis for inciting mass unrest” under Kyrgyz law, and said the journalists’ right to a fair trial was violated, “as the court apparently relied almost exclusively on prosecution experts’ conclusions” and failed to address major gaps and inconsistencies in their testimony.

    Temirov Live founder Bolot Temirov, who works from exile after being deported from Kyrgyzstan in retaliation for his reporting in 2022, told CPJ that Tajibek kyzy, Ishenbekov, and Beishekeyeva plan to file complaints against their convictions with the United Nations Human Rights Council.

    In November 2024, CPJ submitted a report on Kyrgyz authorities’ unprecedented crackdown on independent reporting under Japarov to the Human Rights Council ahead of its 2025 Universal Periodic Review of the country’s human rights record in May.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Journalist ordered to turn over notes, communications around murder trial

    Boston magazine contributing editor Gretchen Voss was subpoenaed on Nov. 21, 2024, for confidential newsgathering materials in connection with a murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts. After initially upholding the motion in December, the judge partially reversed the order almost two months later.

    In June and July 2023, Voss interviewed Karen Read, who stands accused of the murder of her boyfriend in a case that has captured national attention.

    Prosecutors first attempted in January 2024 to compel the disclosure of the journalist’s notes and recordings of the interviews. Massachusetts does not have a formally recognized reporter’s shield law protecting journalists from being forced to disclose newsgathering materials.

    Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone denied the prosecutor’s request for the off-the-record portions of the interviews and notes handwritten by Voss, but ordered her to produce copies of Read’s recorded on-the-record comments. Voss provided the redacted recordings.

    The case against Read ended in a mistrial in July and was scheduled for a retrial in early 2025.

    The state renewed its request for the notes and unredacted interview recordings in November 2024, ahead of the second trial. Prosecutors also requested copies of any texts, emails or voicemail communications Voss had with Read.

    “The defendant made a tactical decision to be interviewed. There is no legal justification enabling a defendant to pick and choose what statements can and should be disseminated to the public,” the motion said. “The ‘off the record’ promise has no legal import, and this Commonwealth does not recognize the private agreement between the defendant and the news sources.”

    Cannone granted the government’s request on Dec. 5 and ordered Voss to produce the documents by Jan. 2, 2025. Voss filed a motion for reconsideration regarding her notes, writing in an affidavit that forcing her to turn them over would jeopardize her credibility with sources in the future and her ability to work as an investigative journalist.

    “Obtaining information from sources ‘off the record’ is a normal—and critical—part of my work,” Voss wrote. “Keeping my word on this is critical to maintaining credibility and trust, and thus maintaining source relationships while not intervening with the flow of important information to the public.”

    Robert Bertsche, an attorney representing Voss and Boston magazine, argued in the motion that courts have cautioned against making journalists “discovery agents for the government.”

    “What is the Commonwealth seeking now from the taped interviews? Exactly what it forswore earlier: the statements made by Karen Read’s attorneys during those interviews,” Bertsche wrote. “The Commonwealth is commandeering a journalist merely in the hopes that the journalist’s records will prove useful to its case.”

    Cannone ordered Voss to provide the notes for “in camera review” — where the judge privately views disputed materials to determine relevance — by Jan. 13, and Voss complied.

    During a Jan. 31 hearing, Cannone partially reversed her decision and ruled that Voss would not be compelled to turn over her off-the-record notes, the Boston Herald reported. “Voss has articulated a compelling argument that requiring disclosure of the notes poses a greater risk to the free flow of information than the other materials produced,” Cannone wrote.

    The judge ruled, however, that the unredacted copies of her on-the-record interviews with Read — which had excluded off-the-record comments from both Read and her attorneys — must be turned over to prosecutors.

    Neither Voss nor Bertsche responded to requests for comment.


    This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnamese journalist Truong Huy San indicted for ‘abusing democratic freedoms’

    Bangkok, February 18, 2025—Vietnam must drop all charges against jailed prominent journalist Truong Huy San over his personal Facebook posts and stop using legal threats to intimidate the independent media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

    The government is prosecuting San under Article 331 of the penal code, which outlaws “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the State,” according to multiple news reports. He could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty.

    “Vietnamese journalist Truong Huy San was exercising, not abusing, his democratic freedoms in his independent reporting on Vietnam’s Communist Party-dominated politics, and he should not be punished for doing so,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “These wrongheaded criminal charges should be scrapped and San should be freed unconditionally now.”

    San, a well-known political commentator and author also known by his pen names Huy Duc and Osin, was arrested by police on June 1, 2024, in the capital, Hanoi, while traveling to an event where he was scheduled to speak. He has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest. CPJ could not confirm if a date has been set for the case to be heard in Hanoi People’s Court.

    Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, which manages the nation’s prisons and authorizes police to make political arrests, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

    Vietnam was tied with Iran and Eritrea as the seventh worst jailer of journalists worldwide, with at least 16 reporters behind bars on December 1, 2024, in CPJ’s latest annual global prison census.  


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bangladesh journalists face threats from attacks, investigations, and looming cyber laws

    New York, February 14, 2025— Six months after a mass uprising ousted the increasingly autocratic administration of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladeshi journalists continue to be threatened and attacked for their work, along with facing new fears that planned legislation could undermine press freedom

    Bangladesh’s interim government — established amid high hopes of political and economic reform— has drawn criticism from journalists and media advocates for its January introduction of drafts of two cyber ordinances: the Cyber Protection Ordinance 2025 (CPO) and Personal Data Protection Ordinance 2025.

    While the government reportedly dropped controversial sections related to defamation and warrantless searches in its update to the CPO, rights groups remain concerned that some of the remaining provisions could be used to target journalists. According to the Global Network Initiative, of which CPJ is a member, the draft gives the government “disproportionate authority” to access user data and impose restrictions on online content. Journalists are also concerned that the proposed data law will give the government “unchecked powers” to access personal data, with minimal opportunity for judicial redress.

    “Democracy cannot flourish without robust journalism,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Bangladesh’s interim government must deliver on its promise to protect journalists and their right to report freely. Authorities should amend proposed laws that could undermine press freedom and hold the perpetrators behind the attacks on the press to account.”

    CPJ’s calls and text messages to Nahid Islam, the information, communication, and technology adviser to the interim government, requesting comment on the ordinances did not receive a reply.

    Meanwhile, CPJ has documented a recent spate of beatings, criminal investigations, and harassment of journalists for their work.

    Attacks

    A group of 10 to 12 men attacked Shohag Khan Sujon, a correspondent for daily Samakal newspaper, after he and three other journalists investigated allegations of medical negligence at a hospital in central Shariatpur district on February 3. 

    Sujon told CPJ that a clinic owner held the journalist’s legs as the assailants hit his left ear with a hammer and stabbed his back with a knife. The three other correspondents — Nayon Das of Bangla TV, Bidhan Mojumder Oni of News 24 Television, and Saiful Islam Akash of Desh TV — were attacked with hammers when they tried to intervene; the attack ended locals chased the perpetrators away.

    Sujon told CPJ he filed a police complaint for attempted murder. Helal Uddin, officer-in-charge of the Palang Model Police Station, told CPJ by text message that the investigation was ongoing.

    In a separate incident on the same day, around 10 masked men used bamboo sticks to beat four newspaper correspondents — Md Rafiqul Islam of Khoborer Kagoj, Abdul Malak Nirob of Amar Barta, Md Alauddin of Daily Amar Somoy, and Md Foysal Mahmud of Daily Alokito Sakal — while they traveled to a village in southern Laximpur district to report on a land dispute, Islam told CPJ. 

    The attackers stole the journalists’ cameras, mobile phones, and wallets and fired guns towards the group, causing shrapnel injuries to Mahmud’s left ear and leg, Islam said.

    Authorities arrested four suspects, two of whom were released on bail on February 10, Islam told CPJ. Laximpur police superintendent Md Akter Hossain told CPJ by phone that authorities were working to apprehend additional suspects.

    Threats

    Shafiur Rahman, a British freelance documentary filmmaker of Bangladeshi origin, told CPJ he received an influx of threatening emails and social media comments after publishing a January 30 article about a meeting between the leadership of Bangladesh’s National Security Intelligence and the armed group Rohingya Solidarity Organisation.

    Multiple emails warned Rahman to “stop or suffer the consequences” and “back off before it’s too late.” Social media posts included a photo of the journalist with a red target across his forehead and warnings that Rahman would face criminal charges across Bangladesh, leaving Rahman concerned for his safety if he returned to report from Bangladesh’s refugee camps for Rohingya forced to flee Myanmar.

    “The nature of these threats suggests an orchestrated campaign to silence me, and I fear potential real-world repercussions if I continue my work on the ground,” Rahman said.

    CPJ’s text to Shah Jahan, joint director of the National Security Intelligence, requesting comment about the threats did not receive a reply.

    Criminal cases

    Four journalists who reported or published material on allegedly illicit business practices and labor violations are facing possible criminal defamation charges after Noor Nahar, director of Tafrid Cotton Mills Limited and wife of the managing director of its sister company, Dhaka Cotton Mills Limited, filed a November 13, 2024, complaint in court against them. If tried and convicted, they could face up to two years in prison.

    The four are:
    * H. M. Mehidi Hasan, editor and publisher of investigative newspaper The Weekly Agrajatra.

    * Kamrul Islam, assignment editor for The Weekly Agrajatra.

    * Mohammad Shah Alam Khan, editor of online outlet bdnews999.  

    * Al Ehsan, senior reporter for The Daily Post newspaper.

    CPJ’s text to Nahar asking for comment did not receive a reply. 

    Md Hafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge of the Uttara West Police Station, which was ordered to investigate the complaint, told CPJ by phone that he would send the latest case updates but did not respond to subsequent messages.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.