News

September 11, 2025 - Palestine -  Internal emails obtained from Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs show that the Media Freedom Coalition—a 51-member grouping of countries committed to defending press freedom—struggled to coordinate a rapid, unified response after six Palestinian journalists were killed in Gaza in an Israeli air strike on August 10, 2025, including respected Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif. Members of the coalition received a request from its secretariat to confirm participation by midday on August 20 in a joint statement condemning violence against media workers. However, only 16 countries had responded by that...

September 11, 2025 - Canada/Palestine -  At the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), a moment of tension unfolded when Canadian journalist Lisa LaFlamme was booed by sections of the audience after raising a question about Gaza’s death toll. The incident occurred during the post-screening discussion of The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, a documentary directed by Barry Avrich. The film traces the story of an Israeli general’s efforts to save his family during the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, a narrative centered on survival, fear, and the trauma of that day. The documentary,...

September 11, 2025 - Palestine - Wael Al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, has publicly decried what he calls the world's "indifference" in response to the suffering in Gaza, particularly after a series of airstrikes killed multiple members of his own family. In October 2023, a strike on Nuseirat refugee camp claimed the lives of his wife Amna, his 15-year-old son Mahmoud, and his 7-year-old daughter, Sham. His grandson Adam also perished in that attack. Weeks later, in January 2024, his eldest son Hamza, a journalist himself, was killed in another strike in southern Gaza....

September 11, 2025 ‒ Bangladesh ‒ Two leaders associated with Chhatra Dal have been accused of forcibly taking a journalist’s mobile phone and deleting a video that captured them carrying ballot boxes during the Jahangirnagar University Central Students’ Union elections. The incident occurred on Wednesday at approximately 9:30 p.m. at the Election Commission office in the Senate Building. The accused are Zahir Uddin Muhammad Babar (Convener) and Mashiur Rahman Rozen (Joint Convener). Both are former students, Babar from the 2009-10 batch and Rozen from the 2010-11 batch, and were reportedly under notice, barring them from...

September 11, 2025 – Yemen – A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) documents widespread and systematic violations against journalists and media institutions by all parties in Yemen’s conflict, including the Houthis, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), and the Yemeni government. These abuses include arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, and other ill treatment, severely undermining press freedom across the country. Between October 2024 and May 2025, HRW interviewed 27 people (including 16 journalists) and reviewed evidence such as official documents, court indictments, photographs, and reports. They documented 14 specific cases of abuse: three journalists...

September 10, 2025 - Sudan - El-Rashid Mohamed Haroun, a journalist from West Darfur, has been held in detention by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since July 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). He was arrested at the Ardeiba market in El-Geneina without any stated reason. After more than a month in RSF custody, Haroun was transferred in August to Dagres Prison, located southwest of Nyala in South Darfur. He remains there without formal charges, and his family has been barred from visiting him. Haroun serves as the director of the local...

September 11, 2025 - China/USA -  The United States is proposing significant new restrictions on visas for foreign journalists, prompting immediate pushback from Beijing, which has denounced the measures as discriminatory and harmful to press freedom. Under the draft rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), visas for Chinese journalists would be limited to 90 days, with stricter provisions for extensions. Meanwhile, journalists from other countries would be allowed visas of up to 240 days. These limits would replace the current system, where I-visas (for media) can remain valid for much longer periods...

September 10, 2025 - Yemen/Palestine - The Palestinian Journalists Forum has strongly condemned an Israeli airstrike that targeted the offices of two Yemeni newspapers, 26 September and Al-Yemen. According to local reports, the assault killed and injured several journalists, along with several civilians and passersby in the vicinity of the buildings. The Forum described the attack as a deliberate war crime against the press, intended to silence voices and obstruct the flow of truth. In a statement carried by the Yemen News Agency, the Forum said that striking media offices is part of a systematic...

September 10, 2025 - Kosovo - Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani has publicly condemned actions by certain journalists whom she accuses of endangering her young daughters. She criticized recent media behaviour that allegedly exposed her children’s private details, including their classes and location at school, without parental permission, actions she says put minors at risk. According to Osmani, her daughters attend the public “Ismail Qemali” school in Pristina, and journalists captured images or footage of them, recorded them without authorisation, and shared personal school-related information. The President emphasized that, as minors, her daughters’ safety and privacy...

September 10, 2025 - Palestine - New revelations show that the BBC ignored an internal request to correct a false claim that Al-Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif had worked with Hamas before he died in Gaza. The claim, which has been repeatedly denied by Al-Jazeera, appeared in BBC coverage and was circulated on its website, live blog, and even a TikTok verification video, raising serious questions about editorial standards and the handling of sensitive information involving journalists in conflict zones. According to Novara Media, an internal email sent on August 18 to the BBC’s “collective newsroom...

September 10, 2025 - Nigeria - A journalist in Kebbi State, Hassan Mai-Waya Kangiwa, has been detained following the release of a video that exposed deplorable conditions at Kangiwa General Hospital. The footage showed an elderly patient lying on a bare metal bedframe without a mattress, sparking outrage among locals and civil society. The arrest was reportedly ordered by the state’s governor, Nasir Idris, after the video circulated widely on social media. Activists, opposition figures, and human rights groups have condemned the arrest, calling it an attack on press freedom. Omoyele Sowore, a well-known opposition...

September 10, 2025 - Nigeria - Nasir Hassan Yelwa, a journalist and member of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), was arrested by police officers on Tuesday while covering a peaceful religious procession in Abuja. The event was organized by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), also known as Shiites, alongside other Muslim worshippers to mark the Maulid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. According to eyewitnesses, Yelwa had been formally invited to document the Maulid procession. Around 2 p.m. in the Apo area of the capital, police intercepted him and took him into custody. He...

September 10, 2025 – Italy – Hundreds of Italian journalists gathered in Rome on Tuesday to honour media workers who have lost their lives during the Gaza conflict. The demonstration, organized by the Italian Journalists Association and Articolo 21, saw participants reading aloud the names of their colleagues killed, in a public show of mourning and protest. Organisers said that 289 media workers have died in connection with the conflict. According to Articolo 21 spokesman Beppe Giulietti, there has never been such a high number of journalists killed in a single conflict. He emphasised the...

September 10, 2025 - Nepal -  Nepal has been rocked by violent protests following the government’s controversial decision to ban 26 major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Signal. While TikTok and Viber remained accessible, the move sparked outrage among the country’s youth, who took to the streets in massive demonstrations. The protests, led largely by students and young activists, quickly escalated into clashes with security forces outside Parliament and across Kathmandu. On September 8, 2025, the unrest turned deadly. Authorities deployed tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and even...

September 10, 2025 ‒ Turkey ‒ A Turkish court has handed down a one-year, eight-month suspended sentence to journalist Mehmet Baran Kılıç on charges of “unlawful acquisition and dissemination of personal data,” following his reporting on a pro-government university official. The verdict relates to Kılıç’s investigative work exposing alleged misconduct by the official, including misuse of public resources. The court found that Kılıç had obtained documents through means deemed “unlawful” under Turkish law and then published details of them. Although the sentence is suspended, meaning Kılıç will not serve time if he avoids further infractions...

September 10, 2025 - India -  In a major development in a long-drawn case, the special CBI court in Siwan is scheduled to pronounce sentences today, September 10, 2025, against three individuals convicted for the 2016 murder of veteran journalist Rajdev Ranjan. The verdict follows the court’s August 30 ruling that found Vijay Kumar Gupta, Sonu Kumar Gupta, and Rohit Kumar Soni guilty of the crime, while three others—Laddan Mian (Azharuddin Baig), Rajesh Kumar, and Rishu Kumar Jaiswal—were acquitted due to insufficient evidence. Ranjan, the Siwan bureau chief of the Hindi daily Hindustan, was fatally...

September 10, 2025 - Gabon -  Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently travelled to Libreville to meet with President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema and government ministers to assess progress and propose reforms for press freedom in Gabon. Since President Nguema took office in August 2023, Gabon’s ranking in the RSF World Press Freedom Index has improved dramatically—jumping 80 places, from 121st in 2020 to 41st in 2025. During the meeting on 9 September, RSF’s delegation—led by Director General Thibaut Bruttin and Sub-Saharan Africa Director Sadibou Marong—commended Gabon’s recent advances. These include better conditions for journalists, the...

September 10, 2025 - UK -  Reach plc—publisher of the Mirror, Express, Daily Star, Liverpool Echo, Manchester Evening News and numerous regional titles—is planning its “biggest-ever” reorganisation of its editorial operations, putting 321 roles at risk of redundancy and creating 135 new roles, resulting in a net loss of 186 editorial positions. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) estimates that this latest move could put as many as 600 journalists in total at risk, including those affected indirectly by the changes. The restructure aims to reshape Reach’s editorial functions significantly, with priorities including the expansion of...

September 10, 2025 - Peru - In the Puno region of Peru, a growing conflict has emerged between the judiciary and local press workers after a judicial proceeding was launched against Óscar Pareja Castro, director of Diario Los Andes. The litigation was initiated by Judge Juan Francisco Ticona Ura, who is also the former president of the Superior Court of Justice of Puno. The judge is demanding a retraction of a published piece that critiqued his performance as court president. Journalists view this move as an attempt to silence criticism and limit oversight. The dispute...

September 10, 2025 - General -  Media-freedom organisations, including the International Press Institute (IPI) have welcomed the European Commission’s recent €2.95 billion antitrust fine against Google for abusing its dominance in digital advertising technology (adtech). They argue that while the fine is a significant step, it does not go far enough to curb the underlying structural problems. These groups assert that Google’s conduct — including favouring its own ad exchange (“AdX”) and display-ad serving tools — has imposed high costs on advertisers and squeezed revenue streams for independent publishers and news media. They are particularly...

September 09, 2025 – Georgia – At least six journalists were assaulted or robbed while reporting on anti-government protests in Tbilisi in early September, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports. The attacks occurred outside the Tbilisi campaign office of the Georgian Dream party. Among those harmed was Hungarian journalist László Róbert Mézes, who says he was beaten and had his phone stolen even though he was clearly marked as “Press.” He reported sustaining a broken finger and facial injuries. Journalists from outlets including Publika.ge, OC Media, and Netgazeti were also targeted. Keto Mikadze and...

September 09, 2025 - Cambodia/Thailand  - Two journalists from TSP 68 Online, Porn Sopheap and Pheap Pheara, have been arrested on treason charges after sharing a photograph linked to the Thai–Cambodian border conflict. The image reportedly depicted them standing with Cambodian soldiers at Ta Kwai Temple, taken following the July 28 ceasefire. Thai media interpreted the photo as showing unplanted landmines (PMN-2), escalating diplomatic and security concerns. According to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO), the journalists face accusations of "supplying a foreign state with information prejudicial to national...

September 09, 2025 - Azerbaijan - A Baku appellate court has denied the appeal from journalists associated with Abzas Media, upholding prison sentences ranging from 7½ to 9 years. Sentences were confirmed for seven media professionals, including director Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, investigative journalist Hafiz Babali, economist Farid Mehralizade (also a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent), and reporters Nargiz Absalamova, Elnara Gasimova, and coordinator Mahammad Kekalov. During the appeal hearing, the defendants publicly denounced the trial, chanting slogans such as “The ban on AbzasMedia’s activities is illegal,” “Journalism is not a crime,” and “Ilham...

September 09, 2025 - Nigeria - The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Oyo State has urgently called for a thorough investigation into the murder of journalist Ojo Peter, fatally shot by armed robbers in Ibadan. The NUJ described the attack as a profound tragedy, emphasising that no journalist should suffer such violence while performing their duties. Meanwhile, the International Press Centre (IPC) has also condemned the deadly incident, demanding accountability. Their statement made clear that those responsible must be brought to justice swiftly. Reports indicate that Ojo Peter, a seasoned reporter for Parrot Extra...

September 09, 2025 - DR Congo - On Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urged both government and rebel authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to halt their harassment of Congolese journalist Tuver Wundi, who has endured two detentions and dismissal from his position at a national broadcaster in Goma. CPJ’s regional director Angela Quintal condemned the targeting of Wundi, stating, “Detaining [reporter] Tuver Wundi without just cause is a blatant attempt to intimidate the press and deprive the Congolese public of critical information about the ongoing conflict in eastern DRC.” She...