New York, January 31, 2025—A Taliban court in Kabul sentenced Sayed Rahim Saeedi, the editor and producer of the ANAR Media YouTube channel, to three years in prison on charges of disseminating anti-Taliban propaganda. He was sentenced on October 27, 2024, but those with knowledge of the case initially refrained from publicizing it out of concern for Saeedi’s safety, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to fear of Taliban reprisal.
“Sayed Rahim Saeedi has been sentenced to three years in prison without access to a lawyer or due process in the Taliban’s courts, while also suffering from serious health complications,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately release Saeedi and ensure that he receives necessary medical support and treatment.”
Saeedi has been transferred to Kabul’s central Pul-e-Charkhi prison. He is suffering from lumbar disc disease and prostate complications, the journalist source told CPJ.
The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence detained Saeedi, his son, journalist Sayed Waris Saeedi, and their camera operator, Hasib, who goes only by one name, on July 14, 2024, in Kabul and transferred them to an undisclosed location. While the younger Saeedi and Hasib were released two days later, Saeedi remained in detention.
According to the exile-based watchdog group Afghanistan Journalists Center, Saeedi was arrested for his work criticizing the Taliban, including a screenplay he wrote about a girl denied an education by Taliban authorities.
Bangkok, January 30, 2025—Philippine authorities must drop the terrorism financing charges pending against journalist Deo Montesclaros and stop using legal threats to intimidate the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
On January 10, the northern Cagayan Provincial Prosecutor’s Office sent Montesclaros a legal notice alleging that he provided supplies to the banned New People’s Army insurgent group in 2018 and gave him 10 days to respond, according to newsreports and CPJ’s communication with the journalist.
Montesclaros, a freelance reporter with the local Pinoy Weekly and a regular contributor to German photo agencies IMAGO Images and Alto Press, told CPJ that the legal threat aimed to stifle his reporting on local issues and that he was preparing a counter affidavit to refute the prosecutor’s allegations.
Maximum penalties under the Philippines’ Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 include life imprisonment.
“Philippine authorities should cease their legal intimidation of journalist Deo Montesclaros and stop using terrorism allegations to silence critical news reporting,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “If President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s administration wants to be taken seriously as a democracy, this type of lawfare against the media must stop.”
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, an advocacy group, said in a statement that Montesclaros was the second journalist to be charged under the terrorism financing law. The other, Frenchie Mae Cumpio, has been in detention for almost five years on an illegal arms possession charge that has since been expanded to include terrorism financing.
Community journalists in the Philippines are often publicly accused of association with banned communist insurgents, a label known as “red-tagging” that makes them vulnerable to official harassment and reprisals. Montesclaros told CPJ he was first red-tagged in 2020 over his coverage of the government’s response to a COVID-19 outbreak.
The Cagayan Provincial Prosecutor’s Office and police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed requests for comment.
Within the last nine months in California, and even going before that, tens of thousands of people have lost their insurance policies, the fire policy, not the rest of your homeowners insurance, just anything that covers fire and it’s because the insurance companies can do it. Nobody is stopping them. Transcript: *This transcript was generated […]
The defendants were charged for alleged ties to the recently deceased exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkey’s government accused of maintaining a terrorist organization called FETÖ. Turkey has claimed that the failed 2016 military coup was organized by Gülen.
“Five Turkish journalists were once again tried because of alleged ties to the failed coup of 2016 without any credible evidence and found guilty again,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should not fight the appeals of those five journalists and stop using judicial measures to put pressure on the media, as such prolonged trials on baseless charges hurt Turkey’s press freedom record.”
The court found Yakup Çetin, a former reporter for the shuttered daily Yeni Hayat, guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years and three months, in line with the original 2018 sentencing.
Ahmet Memiş, former editor for news websites Haberdar and Rotahaber; Cemal Azmi Kalyoncu, former reporter for the shuttered news magazine Aksiyon; Ünal Tanık, former Rotahaber editor; and Yetkin Yıldız, former editor for news website Aktif Haber; were found guilty of “knowingly and willingly aiding a [terrorist] organization” and sentenced to 25 months each. The court acquitted Ali Akkuş, former editor for the shuttered daily Zaman.
None of the defendants were rearrested pending appeal.
All six defendants pleaded not guilty and asked for acquittals due to a lack of evidence for terrorist activity. While the journalists were employed by pro-Gülen outlets in 2016, the court documents CPJ inspected showed that their reporting was used as evidence against them.
In 2018, all six journalists were found guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and received sentences of up to seven years and six months.
CPJ’s email to the chief prosecutor’s office in Istanbul for comment on the case did not receive a reply.
New York, January 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a decision by Azerbaijani authorities to bring six new charges against four Toplum TV journalists and the Friday arrest of the independent news outlet’s reporter Farid Ismayilov, who was remanded into pretrial custody.
“The new charges against Toplum TV underscores an unprecedented media crackdown waged by Azerbaijani authorities,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “The jailing of Farid Ismayilov despite serious health issues is particularly concerning. He and all unjustly jailed Azerbaijani journalists should be immediately released.”
Police raided Toplum TV’s office in March 2024 and charged the outlet’s founder Alasgar Mammadli, video editor Mushfig Jabbar, social media manager Elmir Abbasov, and Ismayilov with currency smuggling, releasing Abbasov and Ismayilov under travel bans.
The Toplum TV staff are among 18 journalists and media workers from some of Azerbaijan’s largest independent media charged with major financial crimes over alleged Western donor funding amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijan and the West.
The charges increase the potential jail time facing the journalists from a maximum of eight to 12 years. The journalists denied the charges and alleged they were retaliatory, Toplum TV reported.
Ismayilov’s lawyer, Zibeyda Sadygova, called the journalist’s pretrial detention unjustified and told CPJ that he is frail, requiring frequent medical care following lung surgery last year.
CPJ’s annual prison census found that Azerbaijan was among the world’s top 10 jailers of journalists in 2024.
Separately, on January 11, border guards at Baku International Airport, in the capital, prevented independent journalist Khanim Mustafayeva from boarding a flight and informed her that she was under a travel ban, without providing more information.
On January 16 Azerbaijani authorities interrogated Ulviyya Ali, a reporter with U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America, in connection with a currency smuggling case against Germany-based independent outlet Meydan TV and told her that she was under a travel ban.
CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which oversees the police, for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.
What impact are we left with in January 6th as we go into it? For the American public, what’s their reaction to all this? If we believe that there was a coup that was going to take place, how does this affect anything? Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so […]
New York, January 17, 2025—A Taliban court in the capital Kabul on January 1 sentenced Afghan News Agency reporter Mahdi Ansary to 18 months in prison on charges of disseminating anti-Taliban propaganda.
“Mahdi Ansary’s unjust sentence is indicative of the Taliban’s continued brutality and suppression of press freedom in Afghanistan,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately release Ansary and Sayed Rahim Saeedi, the other known detained journalist, as well as all anyother Afghan journalists imprisoned by the group without public knowledge.”
The start of Ansary’s prison term was set as October 5, 2024, when he was apprehended while returning home from his office in Kabul.
The General Directorate of Intelligence confirmed Ansary’s detention but withheld information regarding his whereabouts or the reasons for his arrest. Ansary, who is a member of Afghanistan’s persecuted Hazara ethnic minority, had been reporting on killings and atrocities against the community under Taliban rule.
On October 8, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist was working with “banned [media] networks” and had engaged in “illegal activities.”
Donald Trump’s sentencing. When you look at what this judge has done, the evidentiary rulings he made, the procedural rulings he made, he begins to look like a dope. He wants to get a felony conviction before Trump becomes president, even though with the appellate court, it’s going to go away immediately. Transcript: *This transcript […]
New York, January 10, 2025— Singapore Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng and Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam should withdraw threats of legal action against media outlets over their public interest reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
“The threats of legal action by Singapore ministers against media outlets, as well as the government’s recent order to ‘correct’ reporting, severely undermine press freedom in the country,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Singapore authorities must cease using the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act to muzzle and discredit journalists.”
Tan and Shanmugam said in December 15 Facebook posts that they would pursue legal action against Bloomberg over a December 11 article alleging lack of transparency surrounding the purchase of multimillion dollar houses in Singapore. The ministers stated that they intend to take “similar action against others who have published libelous statements about those transactions.”
On December 23, the Singapore government ordered Bloomberg and three other media outlets, which also published the allegations, to issue public “corrections” under its “fake news” law, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.
The Online Citizen, which cited Bloomberg’s reporting in a December 12 article
The Edge Singapore and The Independent Singapore removed their respective posts. The four media outlets complied with issuing corrections, but Bloomberg and The Online Citizen, whose articles remained accessible as of January 10, additionally said that they stood by their reporting.
CPJ has condemned the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act’s provision of broad and arbitrary powers for government ministers to demand corrections from media outlets and remove online content.
Tan and Shanmugam’s offices did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emails requesting comment.
São Paulo, January 10, 2025—Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora could go back to jail this Monday if the country’s Supreme Court doesn’t agree to hear an appeal made by his defense, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday.
Zamora, 67, spent 813 days in prison, accused of money laundering, until he was granted house arrest on October 18, 2024. The following month, a Guatemalan appeals court ordered Zamora back to jail, but he has remained in house arrest until his appeal is heard.
“It’s inhumane what the Guatemalan judicial system is doing to journalist José Rubén Zamora,” said CPJ’s Latin American program coordinator, Cristina Zahar. “His presumption of innocence was shattered for more than two years when he was arbitrarily detained. He must be immediately released.”
What impact are we left with in January 6th as we go into it? For the American public, what’s their reaction to all this? If we believe that there was a coup that was going to take place, how does this affect anything? Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so […]
Donald Trump’s sentencing. When you look at what this judge has done, the evidentiary rulings he made, the procedural rulings he made, he begins to look like a dope. He wants to get a felony conviction before Trump becomes president, even though with the appellate court, it’s going to go away immediately. Transcript: *This transcript […]
Haitian journalist Jean Marc Jean was covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince in February 2023 when he was struck in the face by a gas canister fired by police into the crowd. One of at least five journalists injured while covering civil unrest in the country that month, Jean arrived at the hospital with a deep wound next to his nose that damaged one of his eyes beyond repair.
A freelance journalist, Jean lacked financial support from the outlets he worked for to cover his steep medical bills. CPJ stepped in to cover the cost of the journalist’s hospital stay, surgery, a new glass eye and, eventually, glasses, so he could continue reporting.
Jean is one of more than 600 journalists who received a combined $1 million in financial grants in 2024 from CPJ’s Gene Roberts Emergency Fund. In addition to medical care, the funds can be used to cover costs associated with exile, legal fees, and basic living supplies in prison. Overall, CPJ drastically stepped up its assistance work last year, helping more than 3,000 journalists with financial grants, safety training, and other kinds of support amid rising threats to the media and declining press freedom.
Here are five other ways CPJ’s Emergencies department helped journalists in 2024:
——————
Supporting journalists in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon to cover and survive war
Protesters and media members in Sidon, Lebanon, carry pictures during an October 26, 2024, sit-in condemning the killings Al Mayadeen television network’s Ghassan Najjar and Mohammad Reda, and Al Manar’s Wissam Qassem, who were killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese town of Hasbaya. (Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher)
The Israel-Gaza war continues to be one of the deadliest conflicts for journalists since CPJ began keeping records in 1992. Israeli military operations have killed 152 journalists in Gaza and six in Lebanon; Hamas killed two Israeli journalists in its October 7, 2023 attack. As Israel conducts what rights groups call ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, the country continues to forbid foreign journalists from accessing the territory without military accompaniment, leaving the coverage to the beleaguered local press.
In February, CPJ gave $300,000 to three organizations supporting Gaza’s journalists: the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and Filastiniyat. Through these grants, journalists were able to access food, basic necessities like blankets and tents for shelter, and journalistic equipment including cameras, phones, and laptops so they can continue to be the world’s eyes and ears on Gaza.
“We keep hitting what feels like rock bottom, only to discover even deeper levels of suffering and loss,” Hoda Osman, executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, told CPJ. “Yet Palestinian journalists persist. Their resilience cannot be overstated, and their work is essential—especially with foreign journalists barred from entering Gaza—but it is utterly unsustainable without continuous and significant support.”
As the war spread to Lebanon, CPJ provided grants to Lebanese freedom of expression groups the Maharat Foundation and the Samir Kassir Foundation to help journalists who were forced to flee their homes temporarily due to Israeli bombardment.
Providing resiliency and mental health workshops to journalists in Ukraine
A journalist walks on September 2, 2024, near residential buildings damaged during a Russian military attack in the frontline Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donetsk region. (Photo: Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters.)
Journalists living through and reporting on active conflict can face acute mental health challenges. Last year, CPJ partnered with Hannah Storm, a specialist in journalism safety and mental health and the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine to provide resiliency and mental health workshops for Ukrainian journalists experiencing anxiety and stress due to their coverage of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, now about to enter its fourth year.
In 2024, CPJ helped to host three online mental health workshops attended by 160 Ukrainian journalists, who learned how to prevent burnout when working in a war zone, how to remain calm while reporting during air raids and explosions, and how to work effectively under shelling.
“Despite the challenging and uncertain times they are living through, participants shared their insights and experiences, enabling a real sense of solidarity which I hope can be sustained,” Storm, the trainer, told CPJ.
Distributing VPNs to journalists covering civil unrest in Venezuela and Senegal
Senegalese protesters from civil society groups and opposition political parties protest in the capital of Dakar against the postponement of presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2024. (Photo: Reuters/Zohra Bensemra)
Journalists covering civil unrest around the globe in 2024 had to contend with threats to their physical safety and obstructions to their work, including internet shutdowns in countries with repressive regimes.
After Senegal postponed the February 2024 election, prompting mass protests in which more than two dozen journalists were attacked, Senegalese authorities censored news and information by shutting down mobile internet. In response, CPJ partnered with virtual private network (VPN) provider TunnelBear to distribute VPNs to 27 journalists reporting in and on Senegal, which helped them to continue working in the event of future online blocking.
Across the world in Venezuela, CPJ provided 25 journalists with VPNs to continue their coverage after authorities repeatedly imposed digital shutdowns as protests erupted over President Nicolás Maduro’s widelydisputed claim to have won the country’s July 28 presidential election. Ongoing suppression by the Venezuelan government had far-reaching consequences throughout the rest of 2024; CPJ supported three Venezuelan journalists with exile support and trained 30 Venezuelan journalists on their digital, physical, and psychological safety in partnership with local network Reporte Ya.
“The use of a VPN is an essential tool for practicing journalism in Venezuela,” a Venezuelan journalist who received a VPN from CPJ said. “This is especially important in an environment where surveillance and censorship are constant concerns. By encrypting the connection, a VPN allows you to research and communicate with confidential sources with greater confidence.”
Helping U.S. journalists safely cover the 2024 election
Journalists prepare for an election night event for Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s U.S. presidential candidate, at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on November 5, 2024 (Photo: Reuters/Mike Blake)
Elections and times of political transition pose special risks to journalists. In a year that saw around half the world’s population go to the polls, the 2024 U.S. presidential election was no exception. Ahead of the election, CPJ trained more than 740 journalists reporting on the U.S. on physical and digital safety, and provided U.S.-based journalists with resiliency and know-your-rights advice through a summer webinar series with partner organizations.
Jon Laurence, Supervising Executive Producer at AJ+, told CPJ that the training was “invaluable.” “Many of our staff members who were deployed to cover the conventions were able to attend the training and felt much better resourced as a result.”
Reporters covered the November 5 election against a backdrop of retaliatory violence, legal threats, police attacks, and the specter of the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection. To make sure that journalists were as prepared as possible, CPJ reissued its legal rights guide for U.S.-based journalists, and distributed an updated election safety kit.
Providing grants to incarcerated journalists around the globe
A view of the entrance sign of Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, October 17, 2022. (Photo: West Asia News Agency via Reuters/Majid Asgaripour)
Last year, CPJ provided a record 53 journalists with prison support in the form of a financial grant to help them access basic necessities behind bars, like food, water, and hygiene products. The grant can also be used by family members or lawyers to visit the journalist in prison, and to provide much-needed connection and emotional support. Recipients included journalists jailed in Myanmar, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Cameroon. For the first time, CPJ was also able to provide support to almost every imprisoned journalist in Belarus. Families of the 23 journalists helped by this grant were able to give care packages, consisting of items like stationery and medicine, to their loved ones. Some of the Belarusian journalists CPJ helped have since been released, and CPJ will keep fighting – and supporting – the hundreds who remain behind bars for their work.
The FBI informant on hunter Biden has been charged with lying about Biden’s role in Ukraine. He got caught. There’s been investigations and nothing happened, looking at the elements of the Burisma connection to Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any […]
Eric Trump, proudly announces last week, guess what? We are going to have Trump Tower Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. And this is a deal that they have been working on for several years. They were also working on Trump Tower in Israel. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please […]
Crystal Mangum accused the Duke lacrosse team of raping her. Their lives were absolutely ruined. They were humiliated. They were lied about. They had to drop out of school. And now she says, oh, I made up that story. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing. Really? Transcript: *This transcript was generated […]
Disneyland has agreed to pay $233 million after lying to all of their employees. This is the most heavy handed company. They just ignore the law. When you weigh the impact that they tried to have on politics, on wages, on taxes, it was almost like inviting somebody into your home and they start moving […]
Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. Mike Papantonio: Homan. We talked about Homan one time. This is a serious guy, whether right or wrong, he’s serious about what he visualizes. Okay. And his vision is to deport 13 million people. Now, I’ve always thought if […]
Blue Cross Blue Shield, in the quiet of the night, came up with this rule that is, if you’re going to have surgery, you can only have so much anesthesia and then you’re going to have to pay for it out of your pocket or the doctor’s going to take the loss by keeping you […]
How does it gets any crazier than to have the President of the United States pardon two judges that allowed children, because they were getting kickbacks, getting paid money to take children as young as eight years old and to put them in criminal facilities? Biden okayed it. We’re going to let this dirt bag […]
Hi, I’m Mike Papantonio, and this is America’s Lawyer, where every week we dig behind the headlines to give you the details and information that corporate media won’t give you because their advertisers won’t let them. They’ll lose advertising dollars if they talk about most of these stories. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a […]
New York, December 18, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Kyrgyzstan court’s decision upholdingconvictions against four journalists from anti-corruption investigative outlet Temirov Live, two of whom were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
On Wednesday, the Bishkek City Court upheld an October 10 first instance court decision sentencing Makhabat Tajibek kyzy to six years in prison, Azamat Ishenbekov to five years in prison, and reporter Aike Beishekeyeva and former reporter Aktilek Kaparov to three years of probation. Prosecutors did not appeal the acquittals of seven other current and former Temirov Live staff.
“Temirov Live’s bold anti-corruption coverage has made it the Kyrgyz government’s number one target. By upholding the outrageous prison sentences against director Makhabat Tajibek kyzy and presenter Azamat Ishenbekov, Kyrgyz authorities are confirming that they have no response to the outlet’s reporting but repression,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities in Kyrgyzstan should immediately release Tajibek kyzy and Ishenbekov, not contest their Supreme Court appeals and the appeals of journalists Aike Beishekeyeva and Aktilek Kaparov, and end their campaign against the independent press.”
Temirov Live founder Bolot Temirov told CPJ from exile that the journalists plan to appeal their convictions to Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court.
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 on charges of calling for mass unrest, accusing the outlet of “indirectly” making such calls by “discrediting” authorities in their videos.
Authorities previously deportedTemirov, an international award-winning investigative reporter, and banned him from entering Kyrgyzstan for five years in retaliation for his work.
In November, CPJ submitted a report on Kyrgyz authorities’ unprecedented crackdown on independent reporting under current President Sadyr Japarov to the United Nations Human Rights Council ahead of its 2025 Universal Periodic Review of the country’s human rights record.
On Tuesday, Japarovaccused U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service and “five or six other sites” of “using freedom of speech as a cover” to spread false information and warned them to “be careful” with their reporting on corruption.
Washington, D.C., December 18, 2024–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns President-elect Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Gannett, which was filed on Monday, for publishing a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in the run-up to the November presidential election.
The lawsuit, which also includes pollster J. Ann Selzer and her polling firm, alleges that the poll amounted to “brazen election interference.”
“The lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Gannett is the latest in a series of legal attacks that President-elect Donald Trump has filed against media organizations,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Using the courts to go after political enemies and silence what he perceives as unflattering narratives is concerning behavior from the president-elect. Journalists and news organizations must be free to do their jobs and cover the news without constant fear of legal retaliation from those they are covering.”
Trump has repeatedlystatedthat he intends to use the courts to go after those who he believes have wronged him, including journalists and media outlets. ABC News last week agreed to pay a $15 million settlement in a defamation suit Trump filed against the network, along with an additional $1 million in legal fees.
The president-elect has previously filed suit against major news outlets in retaliation for coverage he views as unfair. In October, Trump filed suit in a Texas court against CBS over an interview the network aired with then-Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. He has also sued the Pulitzer Board in relation to a prize it issued for reporting on the 2016 election.
CPJ has detailed what’s at stake with Trump’s litigious approach to silencing journalists and outlets whose coverage he does not like in its recent U.S. election report.
New York, December 17, 2024 – The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Azerbaijani authorities to drop charges against six members of the anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media and freelance journalist Farid Mehralizada, with U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Azerbaijani service, as a trial beganTuesday in the Serious Crimes Court of the capital, Baku.
“The trial of RFE/RL’s Farid Mehralizada and six members of Azerbaijan’s most prominent anti-corruption investigative outlet, Abzas Media, epitomizes the way the Azerbaijani government has used retaliatory criminal charges to lock up vast swathes of the country’s leading independent journalists over the past year,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately drop the charges against nearly two dozen journalists, including Mehralizada and the Abzas Media staff, who are currently on or awaiting trial and release them all.”
Police arrested Abzas Media director Ulvi Hasanli, chief editor Sevinj Vagifgizi, project coordinator Mahammad Kekalov, and reporters Hafiz Babali, Nargiz Absalamova, and Elnara Gasimova between November 2023 and January 2024 on charges of conspiring to smuggle currency, accusing the outlet of illegally receiving Western donor funds. In May, police arrested Mehralizada, an economist who contributed anonymously to RFE/RL, as part of the Abzas Media case, though both Abzas Media and Mehralizada denied that he was connected to the outlet.
The journalists are among more than 20 journalists and media workers charged with serious crimes in a major crackdown on the independent press and civil society in Azerbaijan since November 2023. Most of the journalists, who hail from some of Azerbaijan’s most prominentindependentmedia, have been arrested on similar currency smuggling charges related to alleged Western funding, amid a decline in relations between Azerbaijanand the West.
In August, authorities brought seven additional economic crime charges against the Abzas Media journalists and Mehralizada, including tax evasion and money laundering, which could see them jailed for up to 12 years.
The Daniel Penny case in New York. Alvin Bragg’s decision to even bring the case was a terrible decision. Seven witnesses came out and said, yeah, the guy was threatening people. He was threatening commuters to kill them. And what you saw here was a jury pardon because they’re tired of it in New York. […]
New York, December 13, 2024—A Belarusian court on Friday convicted freelance reporter Ihar Karnei of “malicious disobedience to the requirements of the prison administration” and sentenced him to an additional eight months in prison. Karnei is already serving a three-year prison sentence after being convicted in March 2024 on charges of participating in an extremist group.
“The additional eight months’ imprisonment given to journalist Ihar Karnei shows that the Belarusian authorities have little qualms about lashing out at members of the press already behind bars on spurious grounds,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately release Karnei, along with all other jailed members of the press.”
Karnei, who formerly freelanced with Radio Svaboda, the Belarus service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was arrested in July 2023. State-owned newspaper Belarus Segodnya said that Karnei had collaborated with the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), which was the largest independent media association in Belarus until it was dissolved in 2021 and labeled an extremist group in 2023.
After Karnei’s three-year sentence was upheld in June, he was transferred to Prison No. 17 in the city of Shklow, in the central eastern part of the country, and placed almost immediately in a solitary cell. Karnei is deprived of phone calls and parcels, and his family receives one out of four letters he sends, his wife Inna told CPJ in November.
On November 28, 2024, banned human rights group Viasnareported that Karnei was additionally charged withArticle 411, Part 1, of the country’s criminal code, for allegedly disobeying the prison’s administration. There is no information about which of the prison’s requirements Karnei is accused of disobeying, according to the BAJ.
Belarus was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.
CPJ emailed Prison No. 17 for comment but did not receive any replies.
Digital news outlet 404 Media was subpoenaed by the state of Texas on Oct. 22, 2024, in connection with an ongoing lawsuit against Google in Midland County’s district court, according to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google in 2022 on the state’s behalf, alleging that the company captured the biometric data of millions of its users in Texas without obtaining consent.
The subpoena to 404 Media seeks communications and documents from investigative journalist Joseph Cox’s article on a leak from Google, including a copy of an internal Google database obtained by the outlet “which tracks six years worth of potential privacy and security issues.”
In an announcement, 404 Media’s founders wrote, “Paxton’s subpoena seeks to turn 404 Media into an arm of law enforcement, which is not our role and which we have no interest in doing or becoming.”
They added that attorneys representing the outlet “vociferously objected” to the subpoena on Dec. 6. The court filing, reviewed by the Tracker, argues the news organization is protected from having to disclose the information by the First Amendment, as well as laws in California — where the outlet is based — and Texas.
404 Media’s founders, who declined to comment further when reached by the Tracker, wrote that the subpoena undermines a free and independent press and demonstrates an alarming trend.
“It also highlights the fact that the alarm bells that have been raised about legal attacks on journalists in a second Trump administration are not theoretical; politicians already feel emboldened to use the legal system to target journalists,” they wrote. “Paxton’s subpoena highlights the urgency of passing the PRESS Act, a federal shield law that has already passed the House and which has bipartisan support but which Democrats in the Senate have dragged their feet on for inexplicable and indefensible reasons.”
Paxton had previously sought records from Media Matters for America using a “civil investigative demand” — a type of administrative subpoena — in 2023 as part of a probe his office launched to investigate “potential fraudulent activity” by the media company. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction forbidding Paxton from pursuing Media Matters’ reporting materials.
New York, December 6, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the Azerbaijani authorities’ detention of at least six journalists and media workers in the capital Baku on Friday.
At around noon, independent journalist Ramin Jabrayilzade (also known as Ramin Deko) was detained at the Baku airport upon arrival from neighboring Georgia, where he was covering pro-EU protests. At the same time, law enforcement in different parts of the city detained Natig Javadli, Khayala Aghayeva, Aytaj Tapdig, Aynur Elgunesh, and Aysel Umudova, who work with the Germany-based independent media outlet Meydan TV.
The six were accused of illegal currency smuggling and taken to the Baku Main Police Department, according to a statement from Meydan TV and Shamshad Agha, editor-in-chief of the Baku-based media outlet Argument.az, who is familiar with the case and who spoke to CPJ from Baku. The homes of some of the journalists were searched, and personal equipment and some of their belongings were seized, according to Meydan TV.
“The detention of multiple Meydan TV journalists, occurring just as the United Nations’ COP29 climate conference wrapped up in Baku, is a sign of Azerbaijani authorities’ intention to continue the brutal media crackdown and a slap in the face of both the UN and democratic governments who just went to Baku to shake hands with Azerbaijani officials,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release Natig Javadli, Khayala Aghayeva, Aytaj Tapdig, Aynur Elgunesh, Aysel Umudova, and Ramin Deko, along with more than a dozen other leading journalists arrested on retaliatory charges in recent months, and end their unprecedented assault on the independent press.”
The Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement to the pro-government news agency APA that the detentions were “based on the information received in connection with bringing illegal foreign currency into the country” and that “the investigation was underway.”
Meydan TV refuted “all accusations” in the statement and called the detention and interrogation of the journalists “illegal.”
Over the last year, Azerbaijani authorities have charged at least 15 journalists with major criminal offenses in retaliation for their work, 13 of whom are being held in pretrial detention. Most of those behind bars work for Azerbaijan’s last remaining independent media outlets and face currency smuggling charges related to the alleged receipt of Western donor funds.
Azerbaijan’s relations with the West have deteriorated since 2023, when it seized Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the flight of most of the region’s more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians. In February 2024, President Ilham Aliyev won a fifth consecutive term, and his party won a parliamentary majority in September elections that observers criticized as restrictive.
