Tag - press-freedom

 
 

PRESS FREEDOM

A closure order on the door to the Ramallah Al Jazeera office in the West Bank after the Israeli raid on Sunday
WORLD / Politics
Sep 22, 2024
Israel forces raid Al Jazeera TV in West Bank and order 45-day closure
The Israeli parliament passed a law in early April allowing the banning of foreign media broadcasts deemed harmful to state security.
Chung Pui-kuen, the former chief editor of now-shuttered Hong Kong pro-democracy news outlet Stand News, leaves the district court in Hong Kong on Thursday after he was found guilty of conspiracy to publish seditious materials.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 30, 2024
Hong Kong editors convicted of sedition in blow to press freedom
Local news outlets in Hong Kong already self-censor to survive and some foreign news organizations have left or moved out staff.
A prison van that is believed to carry media mogul Jimmy Lai, the founder of Apple Daily newspaper, leaves the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts on the day of the national security trial, in Hong Kong on Dec. 18, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 12, 2024
Hong Kong court dismisses bid by media tycoon Jimmy Lai to overturn conviction
Lai, the founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has been held in solitary confinement for more than three years since December 2020.
Jimmy Lai at Apple Daily, the newspaper he founded, in Hong Kong on Aug. 12, 2020
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jul 25, 2024
Hong Kong court dismisses Jimmy Lai's bid to end national security trial
The founder of now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily faces charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious material.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich at Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on June 26
WORLD / Politics
Jul 23, 2024
Russia convicted second U.S. journalist on same day as WSJ's Evan Gershkovich
Alsu Kurmasheva was found guilty of publicly disseminating false information about Russia’s military, the state-run Tass news service reported.
This screen grab taken from video posted on the WikiLeaks X account on Tuesday shows WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange looking out the window of a private jet as he flies from London to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands after reaching a plea deal with the U.S. authorities.
WORLD / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Jun 26, 2024
Assange walks free, but plea deal sets a chilling precedent
The Committee to Protect Journalists says the prosecution had grave implications for journalists and press freedom worldwide.
An image of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released on social media on Tuesday. Assange pleaded guilty to a single charge of disseminating classified documents in a plea bargain that leaves him a free man.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2024
Julian Assange’s saga will forever exist in a legal gray area
WikiLeaks founder Assange’s case lies on the boundary between espionage and protected speech. Its outcome has done nothing to shed light on this gray zone.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in this screen shot taken from video in London on Monday.
WORLD
Jun 25, 2024
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange to be freed after pleading guilty to U.S. Espionage Act charge
Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified U.S. national defense documents.
Former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai in 2020
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 24, 2024
Hong Kong top court hears Jimmy Lai appeal as scrutiny mounts
Any conviction of Lai risks further inflaming ties between China and the U.S. and U.K., which are among countries that have called for his release.
Naran Unurtsetseg became one of Mongolia's most well-known journalists by exposing sexual abuse in a Buddhist boarding school, violence in the military and by taking on some of the country's most powerful people.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 12, 2024
Hard-hitting journalist ensnared in Mongolia's press freedom crackdown
Mongolia has plummeted in press freedom rankings amid what critics say is a declining rule of law and a government seeking to curb criticism of its record on corruption.
A man maneuvers media equipment following an Israeli police raid on an Al Jazeera de facto office at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem on Sunday.
WORLD
May 6, 2024
Israel raids Al Jazeera’s offices after banning broadcaster
Al Jazeera’s broadcasts and access to its website are now blocked throughout Israel.
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 4, 2024
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
Japan fell by two places from last year, and was ranked lowest among the Group of Seven major countries.
A man rides past journalists reporting on the aftermath of the Shady Fire in Santa Rosa, California, on Sept. 28, 2020.
ENVIRONMENT
May 3, 2024
Violence against environmental journalists rises, UNESCO says
More than 70% of the 905 journalists the agency surveyed in 129 countries said they had been attacked, threatened or pressured.
The Singapore skyline. The Wall Street Journal will be shifting its Asia base to the city from Hong Kong.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 3, 2024
Wall Street Journal moves Asia base from Hong Kong to Singapore
The U.S. newspaper said its decision comes after other foreign firms have reconsidered their operations in the Chinese financial hub.
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.
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.

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