News

November 08, 2025 - Venezuela/USA -  A Venezuelan journalist residing in Florida was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly two weeks after being stopped by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) during a routine traffic operation in mid-October. The journalist, identified as Gustavo Giménez Sánchez, who is seeking asylum in the United States, was initially detained after the trooper alertly questioned his immigration status following the stop. Following his arrest, Giménez Sánchez was transferred into ICE custody and held at a detention centre outside Miami, where he reportedly experienced harsh conditions and...

November 08, 2025 - Niger -  In a staggering escalation of press suppression, three journalists in Niger remain behind bars after being charged under the country’s sweeping cybercrime law for allegedly sharing an invitation to a government media briefing. On October 30, the Kyimen Capital Police arrested veteran broadcast manager Ibro Chaïbou of RTS, publishing director Youssouf Sériba of Les Échos du Niger, and editor-founder Oumarou Abou Kané of the satirical magazine Le Hérisson after they forwarded a WhatsApp invitation to a press conference hosted by the Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland...

November 07, 2025 - Chile -  The Chilean Journalists Association has strongly denounced a move by prosecutor Paulina Díaz of the Western High-Complexity Prosecutor’s Office to access the telephone records of eleven journalists in connection with the Hermosilla case. The request included access to call logs, geolocation data, and mobile data traffic from reporters affiliated with outlets such as Centro de Investigación Periodística (CIPER), La Tercera, La Bot, and Reportea. Although the 4th Guarantee Court of Santiago and the Court of Appeals rejected the application, the Association warned that the attempt itself poses a grave...

November 07, 2025 - Afghanistan -  Today marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Afghan TV anchor and journalist Yama Siawash, who was killed after explosives planted in his vehicle detonated near his home in Kabul’s Macroryan neighbourhood in November 2020. Siawash was a well-known face on the network TOLO News, where he hosted the current-affairs programme Farakhabar between 2010 and 2015, earning widespread respect for his bold, insightful interviews with political and religious figures who often avoided public scrutiny. Born in 1984 in Kohistan district of Kapisa province, Siawash combined intellect and eloquence, holding...

November 07, 2025 - Turkey -  Over the past two weeks, Turkish authorities detained a total of 178 individuals in nationwide operations targeting affiliates of the Fethullah Gülen-linked group, known in Türkiye as the Fethullahist Terror Organisation (FETÖ). According to a statement issued by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, out of the 178 detainees, Turkish courts have formally ordered the arrest of 67 suspects. The operations form part of a continuing crackdown launched by the government, which has for years held the FETÖ responsible for the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Security forces reported...

November 06, 2025 - USA -  The arrest of photographer Ya’akub Ira Vijandre—a DACA-protected journalist who has documented human-rights abuses—by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has provoked outcry from media-freedom advocates, who say his detention marks a disturbing escalation in threats against the press. According to reports, Vijandre was taken into custody earlier this week, not for an immigration-status violation, but apparently as part of a broader crackdown on his reporting activities. Vijandre, 38, a Filipino-American photojournalist based in Southern California, has worked extensively covering exploitation and immigrant-worker vulnerabilities. His supporters say he was...

November 06, 2025 - USA -  A senior communications aide at the White House has sparked criticism after posting a coarse and insulting message aimed at a journalist from the press corps. Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson responded publicly to a tweet by Hugh Dougherty, editor of the outlet The Daily Beast, which shared a story critiquing the administration’s treatment of that media organisation. Jackson’s reply included a meme depicting a penguin dunking a basketball with a lude caption followed by a message stating: “The liberal activists who work at the Daily Beast are not...

November 06, 2025 - Ukraine/Russia -  Oleksandr Kolychev, a special correspondent for the Ukrainian international broadcaster Freedom TV, has survived five major surgeries after being critically wounded in a drone strike in eastern Ukraine. On 23 October 2025, while reporting alongside colleagues near a gas station in Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast, their vehicle was struck by a Russian “Lancet” drone. Two of their crew, journalist Aliona Hramova and cameraman Yevhen Karmazin, were killed immediately, and Kolychev was severely injured. Following the strike, Kolychev was rushed to the hospital in Dnipro, where he was placed on...

November 06, 2025 - Turkey -  Six prominent Turkish journalists have been summoned by police in Istanbul under an investigation tied to the jailed opposition-led mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu. Prosecutors allege that the reporters publicly “disseminated false information” and aided what they describe as the “İmamoğlu criminal organisation for profit.” The journalists named by the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office are Soner Yalçın, Şaban Sevinç, Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Ruşen Çakır, Yavuz Oğhan, and Batuhan Çolak. According to the Turkish Minute, some of the journalists were taken from their homes early in the morning and brought to the...

November 06, 2025 - Argentina -  The Foro de Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA) has condemned a controversial court decision in the province of Tucumán that imposes a six-month gag order on journalists and staff of the local television network CCC (Closed Circuit Television Company). The ruling, issued by acting judge Lucas Alfredo Taboada, follows a criminal complaint filed by Attorney General Edmundo “Pirincho” Jiménez, who accused CCC’s director and team of crimes such as obstruction of justice, institutional coercion, and public incitement against the judiciary. The order bans journalists, producers, and presenters associated with CCC from...

November 06, 2025 - Turkey -  Two recent reports from Turkish press-rights groups show the growing threats facing journalists across the country. The Dicle Fırat Journalists Association (DFG) published its October 2025 findings outlining a sharp surge in violations against reporters, while the Mesopotamia Women Journalists Association (MKG) focused on the distinct attacks targeting women in media. The DFG report revealed that during October, at least one journalist was killed, five were assaulted, seven were detained, and two were arrested. Additionally, access to 628 social media posts was blocked, and a trusteeship was imposed on...

November 05, 2025 - Afghanistan -  Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced a troubling new pattern emerging in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban: the public broadcasting of coerced confessions by detained journalists. One such case involves journalist Mahdi Ansary of the Afghan News Agency, who was arrested in October 2024 and later appeared in a video posted by a Taliban-linked Facebook page, confessing to alleged collaboration with exiled media and “anti-Taliban propaganda”. RSF describes these staged admissions as part of a broader intelligence-driven tactic aimed at humiliating reporters, blurring the line between criminal...

November 05, 2025 - Mexico -  Veteran investigative journalist Adela Navarro Bello has publicly accused prominent businessman Manuel Cisneros Romero of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation directed at her newsroom, including the presence of armed bodyguards within the office premises. The allegations, published by LatAm Journalism Review, claim that Cisneros Romero, father of political figure Omar Cisneros Salcedo, sent security personnel linked to his private company to the building housing the magazine Zeta in Baja California following coverage of alleged corruption involving his family’s financial interests. Navarro, who heads Zeta—a publication known for fearless investigations...

November 05, 2025 - Bolivia -  Six journalists from Bolivia suffered a brutal abduction and beatings on October 28, 2021, while covering a land-rights dispute in the department of Santa Cruz. The group included reporter Percy Suárez and five colleagues, travelling to the Las Londras ranch when they were ambushed by masked gunmen—truck tyres were shot out, cameras seized, and the journalists forced to lie face down under threat of death.Despite the extreme violence captured on video by Suárez himself, prosecutions have faltered. Four years on, the case remains stalled in the courts: hearing after...

November 05, 2025 - Albania -  A recent investigation by Balkan Insight reveals that harassment of journalists by Albanian officials is no longer exceptional but increasingly normalized. The article documents a range of intimidation tactics that independent media professionals say they face regularly—online abuse, surveillance, physical obstruction, and smear campaigns. Journalists interviewed for the report say that officials and political actors routinely frame critical reporting as hostile, misleading, or even treasonous. This rhetoric appears to reinforce the idea that independent reporters are legitimate targets. One cyber-attack on the media outlet Citizens Channel is cited as...

November 05, 2025 - USA -  Science journalists around the world are contending with a surge of health-related misinformation emanating from high-level government sources, including the White House, according to a report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. While such outlets have historically focused on peer-reviewed studies, they now find themselves throttled by waves of disinformation that outpace traditional fact-checking workflows. The Reuters Institute highlights that when officials promote unverified claims—whether about vaccines, treatments, or emerging diseases—newsrooms must decide whether to challenge the statement, publish with caveats, or ignore it entirely. Some...

November 05, 2025 - Turkey/Syria -  A court in Istanbul has cleared seven journalists of criminal charges after they memorialised two slain reporters—Nazım Daştan and Cihan Bilgin—who were killed in a drone strike in late 2024. The journalists had been arrested following a December 21 vigil in central Istanbul and were held for several weeks as prosecutors pressed charges including “terrorist propaganda” and participating in an unlawful demonstration. The detained journalists—among them Hayri Tunç, Gülistan Dursun, Pınar Gayıp, and Can Papila—had assembled to honour their murdered peers, only to be intercepted by law enforcement and...

November 04, 2025 - General - UNESCO has announced the sixth Call for Partnerships under the Global Media Defence Fund (GMDF), aimed at strengthening legal protections for journalists who face coordinated legal threats, including strategic lawsuits, criminal charges, and unjustified detention. This initiative invites non-profit organisations to submit proposals by January 2, 2026, with grants ranging from USD 15,000 to USD 50,000. The appeal follows a survey revealing that 68 percent of judicial actors now perceive strategic lawsuits against journalists and media outlets as increasingly sophisticated, with media lawyers citing significant barriers such as limited...

November 04, 2025 - Palestine/Italy -  Italian journalist Gabriele Nunziati of the outlet NOVA News has taken to social media to allege that Israeli authorities refused him entry into the Gaza Strip immediately after he published a report highlighting serious humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza. Nunziati says the denial followed a field investigation he conducted in early October, during which he sought to interview displaced families in Gaza’s Rafah area. He claims the Israeli liaison office cited unspecified “security concerns” as the basis for revoking his accreditation at the border crossing. According to Nunziati’s account,...

November 04, 2025 - Azerbaijan -  Imprisoned Azerbaijani journalist Farid Mehralizade has been awarded the 2025 John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award by the National Press Club of the United States in recognition of his work and his current status as a political prisoner. The award is meant to highlight journalists operating under threat and to draw attention to the continued detention of media workers in Azerbaijan. Mehralizade, an economist-turned-reporter affiliated with the independent outlet Abzas Media, was among several journalists convicted in 2024 on charges such as “illegal entrepreneurship” and “currency smuggling” after investigations into...

November 04, 2025 - Philippines -  Journalist Gary De Leon of News5 has reported that he received a serious death threat on October 27 after contacting a key whistle-blower in the widely followed “missing sabungeros” case. The threat was allegedly made by Julie “Totoy” Patidongan, the whistle-blower in the disappearance of dozens of cockfighters, according to a filing with the safety office of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP). De Leon told the NUJP that he reached out to Patidongan and his legal team for comment as part of his reporting, and...

November 04, 2025 - General -  In a stark report published to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) has documented an unprecedented surge in journalist fatalities across the Middle East and North Africa over the past two years — yet accountability remains almost absent. The report details that since October 2023, conflicts in regions such as Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan have seen extremely high casualties among media workers, many of whom appear to have been deliberately targeted. The GCHR’s analysis emphasises that...

November 04, 2025 - India -  Prominent Indian journalist and columnist Rana Ayyub has reported multiple death threats targeting both her and her elderly father, prompting the press-freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to call on Indian authorities to provide immediate protective measures. On November 2, Ayyub received a barrage of video calls, WhatsApp messages, and phone calls from an international number that reportedly referenced her go-to residence and explicitly warned that she and her father would be killed if she did not comply with demands. According to Ayyub’s complaint filed with the Kopar...

November 04, 2025 - Modova -  Investigative journalist and TV host Mariana Rață of the independent broadcaster TV8 was issued a death threat on October 30 following a live interview with politician Renato Usatîi, according to a statement by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Rață reported receiving a series of voice messages via Facebook Messenger from a user identifying as a supporter of Usatîi’s party, claiming knowledge of her home address and warning of serious consequences if she did not alter her reporting stance. The messages identified the sender as “Boris Cerlat,” alleging he acted...

November 04, 2025 - Venezuela -  Veteran Venezuelan crime reporter Joan Camargo was forcibly taken on the morning of October 30 as he left his home in the Cotiza district of Caracas, according to multiple press-freedom groups. Witnesses say an unidentified red vehicle and a motorcycle intercepted Camargo, forced him into the car, and drove off toward an unknown destination. His disappearance comes without official explanation or confirmation of his whereabouts. Camargo, known for covering violent crime and local security issues in the Venezuelan capital, was last seen riding a motorcycle shortly before the abduction....