News

November 02, 2025 - Pakistan -  A comprehensive review from the Pakistan Press Foundation indicates that 2025 has been a particularly dangerous year for journalists in Pakistan, with at least 137 documented incidents targeting media professionals between January and October. The cases span a wide spectrum of intimidation tactics, including physical assaults, detentions, legal harassment, and organized raids. In the course of its findings, the PPF noted 35 instances of physical violence or ill-treatment, alongside at least five journalists being held in custody and two recorded abductions. Legal pressures are mounting as well: authorities have...

November 02, 2025 - France - A French correspondent says he was expelled from Russia after his reporting triggered hostile responses from authorities. According to the journalist, who has asked to remain unnamed for the moment, his investigations into military operations and sensitive issues related to the war in Ukraine drew heightened scrutiny. He claims that Russian officials pressured his media outlet and ultimately revoked his accreditation, effectively forcing his departure. His experience illustrates an increasingly harsh climate for foreign media operating in Russia. He recounted how the costs of reporting in Russia became unsustainable...

November 02, 2025 - General - On the occasion of the 2025 International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI), the global press-freedom organization Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has issued a forceful appeal for a structural overhaul of how killings and attacks on journalists are investigated and prosecuted. The group’s statement, issued on 30 October 2025, points out that despite mounting evidence of targeted violence against media workers, the rate of accountability remains unacceptably low. The CPJ emphasizes that the arbitrary killing of journalists is not just a tragedy for individuals and...

November 01, 2025 - UK/USA -  The wife of British journalist and commentator Sami Hamdi has spoken out after her husband was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at San Francisco International Airport during a U.S. speaking tour. His visa was revoked, and he was held without a clear explanation, drawing sharp concerns about press freedom and due process. Soumaya Hamdi said she had only one thirty-second phone call with her husband, during which he told her he was being held at an ICE detention center in McFarland, California, and had a court...

November 01, 2025 - Afghanistan -  Afghan freelance journalist Sayed Rashid Kashifi has been released after nearly seven months in detention under Taliban authorities. His release on November 1 follows mounting calls from media rights groups demanding an end to the ongoing detention of journalists in Afghanistan. Kashifi had been arrested in April 2025 by agents of the General Directorate of Intelligence on accusations of collaborating with international media outlets. His arrest, carried out without a warrant, led to his transfer between multiple detention facilities, including the notorious Directorate 40 and Kabul’s Pul-e-Charkhi Prison. The...

November 01, 2025 - Belarus - In a poignant turn of events, journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva—who has become a symbol of press freedom under assault in Belarus—continues to serve an eight-year prison sentence, while her partner, Ihar Ilyash, has now also been jailed after remaining in the country to support her. According to the reporting, Andreyeva was arrested in late 2020 following a livestream from Minsk and subsequently convicted on charges of treason and extremism. Ilyash chose not to leave Belarus during the protests and his wife’s detention, and his arrest marks a wider crackdown on...

November 01, 2025 - Palestine/USA - An American journalist who participated in the aid mission organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) has revealed harrowing accounts of torture while held in an Israeli detention facility. Noa Avishag Schnall, a Jewish-American reporter aboard a Gaza-bound vessel intercepted by Israeli forces, said she witnessed and personally endured physical and psychological abuse alongside Palestinian detainees. Her testimony is captured in a video shared on social media, where she described the ordeal in stark detail. According to her account, Schnall and fellow detainees were subjected to intimidation, threats, and...

November 01, 2025 - Bangladesh -  Journalists across Bangladesh mobilized for nationwide rallies on Saturday, united under the call “No Wage Board, No Media,” and presented a 39-point charter of demands. The demonstrations, organized by the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), convened in major cities including Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barishal, Khulna, Gazipur, Mymensingh, and Narayanganj. At the rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club in Dhaka, BFUJ Secretary-General Kader Gani Chowdhury formally submitted the demands, while Dhaka Union of Journalists President Shahidul Islam and Jatiya Press Club President Hasan Hafiz addressed the...

November 01, 2025 - USA -  The White House Correspondents' Association and other press‐freedom groups are raising serious concerns after the White House issued a memo restricting accredited journalists from freely entering Room 140 (the “Upper Press” area) in the West Wing without a scheduled appointment. The space houses senior communications officials—including Karoline Leavitt, press secretary—and the new policy, attributed to structural changes in the National Security Council (NSC), holds that the communications staff now routinely handles sensitive material. The NSC memo states the change is needed “to protect such material, and maintain coordination between...

November 01, 2025 - General -  In a new call to action, the United Nations has spotlighted the growing dangers faced by journalists covering conflict zones and critical societal issues, emphasizing that the majority of assaults remain unpunished. The report highlights how reporters are often caught between lethal hazards and digital threats, yet perpetrators continue to act with impunity. The insight emerged during the UN’s annual observance of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists. Across battlefields, documentation crews are deliberately targeted; some are even abducted or killed while striving to document...

October 31, 2025 - General - In a strongly worded statement dated 30 October 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists emphasizes that the dramatic rise in violence against media workers demands radical structural reforms, not just symbolic observances. The organization notes that the number of journalists killed, abducted, or subject to enforced disappearance is reaching unprecedented levels, yet accountability mechanisms remain fragmented and weak. CPJ highlights that many countries routinely fail to launch meaningful investigations into attacks on journalists, fostering a climate of impunity that emboldens perpetrators and chills press freedom. The statement underscores how...

October 31, 2025 - Pakistan - In a serious assault on press freedom in Pakistan, authorities in Rawalpindi intercepted a contract killing plot targeting journalist Tahir Naseer of DawnNewsTV. A police investigation revealed three suspects had been hired for Rs 200,000 (approximately USD 500) to assassinate him. They had observed his residence for three days, and one procured a weapon, and the group had already received Rs 99,000 in their bank account. The plot came to light when the investigating officer, Sub-Inspector Nabeel Haider, confirmed the contracted nature of the crime. The suspects were arrested...

October 31, 2025 - General -  The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reaffirmed on 31 October 2025 that ending impunity for crimes against journalists is a collective global duty. The statement, issued ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI) on 2 November, denounced ongoing violence and intimidation against media workers and reiterated the demand for a binding international treaty guaranteeing journalists’ safety. The IFJ’s communiqué pointed out that despite the IDEI having been observed for more than a decade, attacks on journalists continue to rise. It highlighted that reporters...

October 30, 2025 - Philippines - Following the powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Cebu on September 30, 2025, local journalists who had rushed to document the disaster are now confronting a different kind of aftershock—the emotional trauma of covering widespread destruction, loss, and fear. A recent report by Rappler reveals how those tasked with informing the public during the crisis have been left grappling with their own mental scars. In the hours after the quake, journalists from Cebu-based newsrooms and local stations were among the first to arrive at collapsed structures and makeshift evacuation centers....

October 30, 2025 - South Africa -  At Rhodes University’s campus in Makhanda, South Africa, journalism students and faculty held a dedicated month-long memorial to honor the journalists killed while reporting on the conflict in Gaza. The initiative concluded on 23 October 2025 with a candlelight service and a visual tribute of over 270 CDs suspended from campus trees—each representing a journalist lost in the war zone. The tribute was organized by the university’s School of Journalism and Media Studies and included a documentary screening, student-led vox-pop interviews, and a silent walk alongside the photographs...

October 30, 2025 - Syria/USA -  Thirteen years after American journalist Austin Tice vanished in Syria, new testimony uncovered by CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward has reignited questions about his fate and the extent of Syrian government involvement in his disappearance. The report, released on October 28, 2025, takes viewers deep into Lebanon and the edges of war-torn Syria, where Ward confronts two men who claim to hold knowledge of what happened to Tice—one a former Syrian general, the other a regime insider. Austin Tice, a freelance journalist and former U.S. Marine, disappeared near...

October 29, 2025 - Palestine -  Palestinian journalist Mohammed Al-Muneerawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Al-Muneerawi, who worked with the Falasteen newspaper, was among the last journalists still reporting from the devastated enclave. His death brings the number of journalists killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023 to 256, according to the Gaza Government Media Office and medical sources. The strike that killed Al-Muneerawi came amid a fresh wave of bombardments that have persisted despite the ceasefire declared earlier in...

October 29, 2025 - Senegal -  In the early hours of October 28 and 29, 2025, authorities in Dakar carried out coordinated raids on the private television station 7TV and broadcaster RFM, resulting in the arrest of five journalists, including the station owner Maimouna Ndour Faye and producer Bamba Touré. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that as of the statement date, these two remained in custody and called for their immediate release. The raids reportedly came amid heightened tensions between independent media outlets and the Senegalese government. The detained journalists are accused of...

October 29, 2025 - Serbia -  According to the press-freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), at least 89 physical attacks against journalists were recorded in Serbia over the past year as they covered nationwide protests triggered by a fatal railway station collapse. The protests began after the canopy above a railway station platform in northern Serbia collapsed on November 1, 2024, resulting in the deaths of 16 people. Since then, media professionals documenting the unrest have faced an unprecedented wave of reports of assault, interference, and intimidation. RSF notes that nearly half of these attacks...

October 29, 2025 – Iran/Russia – Two men, Rafat Amirov (46) and Polad Omarov (41), are set to be sentenced in a federal court in Manhattan after being convicted earlier this year of plotting to kill Iranian American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad at her Brooklyn residence. Prosecutors are seeking prison terms of up to 55 years for both men, arguing the plot advanced to a perilously close stage of execution. They contend that both defendants, described as senior figures in a faction of the Russian mob known as the Gulici, were motivated by financial...

October 29, 2025 – Vietnam – A journalist working for the BBC has been prevented from leaving Vietnam and endured multiple days of questioning by state authorities following a trip to renew their passport and visit family. Since August, the reporter — a Vietnamese national based in Thailand — has been unable to depart the country due to the detention of both their renewed passport and identity card by Vietnamese officials. According to sources familiar with the case, Vietnamese security personnel interrogated the journalist for an extended period, probing the nature of their reporting work....

October 28, 2025 - Azerbaijan -  Exiled Azerbaijani journalist Parvana Gurbanli has delivered a stark warning about the state of media freedom in her home country, declaring that if she were still in Azerbaijan today, she would “probably be in prison.” Her remarks came in a recent in-depth interview with the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) and provide a rare, personal window into the mounting pressure on independent journalism under the rule of Ilham Aliyev. Gurbanli recounts a police raid on her apartment after she published investigative reporting that exposed corruption and...

October 29, 2025 - Mexico/USA -  Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran-born journalist based in Atlanta, was deported to El Salvador on 3 October 2025 after spending about 100 days in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising deep concerns among press-freedom and civil-rights advocates. Guevara had lived in the United States for more than two decades and built a prominent Spanish-language reporting presence focusing on immigration enforcement in Georgia. After covering an anti-Trump “No Kings Day” protest in June 2025, he was arrested by local police and subsequently handed over to ICE, despite...

October 28, 2025 - Ecuador - The Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the killing of community journalist Álex Fernando Álvarez Vera, 28, who was shot dead while playing football with friends in Salitre, a canton in Ecuador’s Guayas Province, on October 28. The incident occurred at a municipal sports ground when an assailant reportedly approached him near the goal area, fired a shot, and fled the scene. Alvarez Vera served as the administrator of a local Facebook news page and was recognised for his community-level reporting on regional issues. RSF’s statement...

October 28, 2025 - Senegal -  At a regional conference held in Dakar under the aegis of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the governments of Mauritania, Liberia, and The Gambia formally backed the RSF-initiated “Dakar Declaration on the Right to Information in the Sahel”. The declaration seeks to enshrine the right of citizens within the Sahel region to access reliable information and to enable a freer press environment—especially critical in the face of security challenges, conflict-driven instability, and threats to media independence. This marks a notable step for the three signatory states, signaling a willingness to...