Tag - freedom

 
 

FREEDOM

Jimmy Lai leaves a police station in Hong Kong in 2020.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 11, 2024
Hong Kong refuses entry to Reporters Without Borders staffer
Hong Kong is currently ranked 140 out of 180 on the 2023 World Press Freedom Index.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has a long-running feud with Qatar-based channel Al Jazeera.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 2, 2024
Israel's Netanyahu vows to ban Al Jazeera broadcasts
The Qatar-based broadcaster slammed the ban as "part of a series of systematic Israeli attacks to silence Al Jazeera."
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia has made on-the-ground reporting increasingly dangerous and illegal since it sent troops into Ukraine two years ago, arresting and fining those who defy the Kremlin's narratives.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 29, 2024
Russia sentences journalist to two years in prison and detains others
Russia has made on-the-ground reporting increasingly dangerous and illegal since it sent troops into Ukraine two years ago.
A South Korean presidential official has resigned following criticism of his comments regarding a 1988 knife incident, where a journalist who had written columns critical of the government was attacked.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 20, 2024
South Korean official resigns amid controversy over knife attack comment
South Korea has a history of media censorship, which was particularly harsh during administrations from the 1960s to the 1990s.
People read newspapers at a roadside tea stall in Patna, Bihar, India. Newsrooms are being reshaped, journalists say, by India’s richest press barons, many of whom are close to the ruling party and depend on millions of advertising dollars from the government.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 26, 2024
Billionaire press barons are squeezing media freedom in India
Many press barons are close to the ruling party and depend on millions of advertising dollars from the government.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters demonstrate against U.S. extradition in front of the British Consulate in Barcelona on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024
Assange absent at final hearing against extradition to U.S.
The two-day session is likely the WikiLeaks founder's last chance to fight the extradition in Britain's courts after a half-decade battle.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands inside an enclosure for defendants during a court hearing on espionage charges in Moscow on Oct. 10.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2024
Remember the world’s political prisoners. One could be you.
Hostage diplomacy and arbitrary arrests by autocratic governments are a growing threat.
Media mogul Jimmy Lai, the founder of now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and one of the most prominent Hong Kong critics of China's Communist Party leadership, has faced a salvo of litigation since a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 15, 2023
China crackdown on Hong Kong in focus as Jimmy Lai goes on trial
Media tycoon faces possible life imprisonment on charges he colluded with foreign forces, including the U.S.
Yoon Suk-yeol, then the 2022 presidential election candidate of South Korea's main opposition People Power Party, attends a news conference in Seoul in November 2021.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 10, 2023
President’s war against ‘fake news’ raises alarms in South Korea
Critics say South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is silencing journalists in the name of fighting disinformation.
Journalists and activists call for justice and protection of media workers during a rally following the killing of a radio journalist in Quezon City, Philippines, in October 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 5, 2023
Radio broadcaster killed in the Philippines
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, and their killers often go unpunished.
Reporters take cover upon hearing sirens warning of an incoming rocket attack from Gaza, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, on Oct. 23
WORLD / Politics
Oct 31, 2023
Media reporting on Israel-Hamas war face singular challenges
Lack of access to Gaza, with both the Israeli and Egyptian access points closed, is creating difficulties journalists say they have rarely seen before.
An Albanian communist hangs a banner with Enver Hoxha's image in a public cemetery in Tirana in April 2012 to mark the anniversary of the hard-line Stalinist dictator's death.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2023
When freedom does not bring about justice
From communism to capitalism, Lea Ypi's book,"Free: Coming of Age at the End of History" reflects on Albania's transition to freedom.
West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts, in Hong Kong. A man in Hong Kong was sentenced to jail for importing children's books that portrayed the city's democracy supporters as sheep defending their village from wolves.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 6, 2023
Hong Kong man jailed for importing 'seditious' children's books
Beijing has revived a colonial-era sedition offense to jail dozens of residents, which critics have decried as political suppression.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Press freedom in India has plummeted since Modi came to power in 2014, rights activists and opposition lawmakers say, with Reporters Without Borders warning that such freedom is "in crisis" in the country.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 4, 2023
Indian police launch sweeping raids on journalists, arresting two
Police said the raids were carried out under a stringent anti-terror law that makes it virtually impossible to get bail.
Paramilitary personnel at a security checkpoint ahead of the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sept. 8.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 3, 2023
Indian police launch raids on journalists and activists
Those raided are reported to be connected to the English-language news website NewsClick.
Sebastien Lai, son of Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, holds a sign calling for the release of his father, on the sidelines of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Sep 28, 2023
Son of jailed tycoon says it's in Hong Kong's interest to free him
Jimmy Lai is the founder of now shut pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and a prominent critic of China's Communist Party.
Search and rescue volunteers in Derna, Libya, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Society
Sep 20, 2023
Journalists ordered out of flood-hit Libyan city after protests
An official in the administration that runs eastern Libya said that the decision to move journalists was unrelated to the protests there overnight.
Philippine journalist and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa speaks during an interview in Manila on Tuesday
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 15, 2023
'It's up to us': Philippines' Maria Ressa fights for press freedom
Ressa and Rappler had faced five charges of tax evasion — they were acquitted of four in January and were cleared of the final charge on Tuesday.
The incoming and outgoing presidents of Johnny & Associates, Noriyuki Higashiyama and Julie Keiko Fujishima, bow at a press conference on Sept. 7.
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 14, 2023
Johnny’s talent agency has admitted to a past of abuse. What next?
Karin Kaneko joins the show to update us on how the story is unfolding.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 12, 2023
China moves to strengthen management of independent content creators
A new string of measures represents strict oversight of not only tech companies and platform moderation but also what content can be posted online by independent creators.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on