Russia Today’s 2017 documentary – “My Mother Sold Me” – depicted a young Cambodian woman selling her daughter’s virginity. The film went viral – but it wasn’t good news for Cambodian fixer, Rath Rott Mony, who worked for RT. Cambodian authorities labeled it fake news and jailed him for “incitement to discriminate.” Now, Mony’s family says the Russian government, which bankrolls RT, should be working to get him free
In Eritrea, many journalists have been held for more than a decade and denied access to lawyers or family members. Despite positive changes in the region in 2018 as Ethiopia and Eritrea declared an end to a 20-year war, the country continues to hold the unenviable title of the worst country in Africa for jailed journalists
Ethiopia’s historic strides toward democracy and openness have given journalists in the country hope for greater freedom to report the news
World Press Freedom day is celebrated on May 3 each year, but the realities faced by journalists in many parts of the world are increasingly hostile. A new report by an international media watchdog group says press freedoms deteriorated in 2019, fueled in part by increasing aggression toward journalists
The journalists, who were awarded a Pulitzer Prize last week for their Rohingya exposé, were sentenced in September 2018 after a lengthy series of hearings and a trial. They were not present at Tuesday’s hearing in Naypyidaw
The 2019 World Press Freedom Index report, conducted by Reporters Without Borders, said “authoritarian regimes continue to tighten their grip on the media,” resulting in a “hatred of journalists” that has “degenerated into violence, contributing to an increase in fear.”
Rights groups and diplomats have condemned the sentencing of the the reporters, saying their convictions have dealt a blow to freedom of the press in the developing democracy
Ranked 178th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index, Turkmenistan is a “black hole from which little news and information emerge and where the few independent journalists risk severe persecution,” the Paris-based media watchdog said
Chimengul Awut, an editor at the Kashgar Publishing House in the XUAR’s Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture, is one of 14 people who worked at the company to be detained at a political “re-education camp” since last year
Veteran Beijing journalist Li Xinde said many “market-oriented” papers are meeting the same fate, while papers under direct party or government control are subsidize by a system of compulsory subscriptions