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Tag: CPJ

  • Over 250 journalists in jails worldwide in 2018 – CPJ

    Over 250 journalists are imprisoned around the world for their professional activities, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Thursday, citing its annual global survey.

    “Fresh waves of repression in China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia sustained the global crackdown on press freedom in 2018.

    “For the third consecutive year, at least 251 journalists are in jail in relation to their works.

    “Turkey is still the world’s worst jailer of journalists,’’ the CPJ said.

    The committee said that 70 per cent of the jailed journalists were charged with anti-state activities, including being part of groups considered as terrorists by authorities,

    The report noted that 98 per cent of those journalists were detained in their home countries, while only five of them were jailed in states that they were non-citizens. (Sputnik/NAN)

  • CPJ condemns Liman’s killing

    The Catalyst for Global Peace and Social Justice (CPJ) has condemned the killing by Boko Haram of Miss Hauwa Liman, one of the aid workers with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

    The CPJ said in a statement by its convener Abraham Sam Aiyedogbon and Chas Nwam that it received the news of the killing of Leman with shock and blamed the federal government for the poor handling of the abductions of Leman and other health workers.

    The group added that it was troubled due to the lack of strategy on the part of the federal government, adding that the poor handling of the abductions was an ample evidence that this present administration is indifferent to issues of life and death, just like the past administration.

    The peace and justice group noted that it took the federal government a very long time to engage the abductors of the lecturers of the University of Maiduguri, as well as the Police officer’s wives over their release.

    “When the door of engagement finally opened between the government and the ISWA group, the health workers were already in captivity. Rather than take all the matters together, it seemed to serve the officials better to separate and play with the captors over the lives of the captives. Confronted with similar challenges, neighbouring Cameroon appears to have a clear set strategy that works for it. The result is that every high profile Cameroonian captives are regularly released without much ado from the hands of the same terror group,” CPJ explained.

    CPJ noted that the federal government had also lost the initiative even in the negotiations it belatedly opened for the release of Leah Sharibu and the remaining health workers.

    “We are embarrassed that this government is acting helplessly and declaring that it did everything possible to save Leman. That is never the language of a government. For instance, what were the contents of the ultimatum earlier handed out by the insurgents? Were the conditions outside of the scope of what the government had worked with before?” the group queried.

  • Christian leaders demand release of Leah Sharibu, Chibok girls

    A Christian civil society organization, Catalyst for Global Peace and Social Justice Initiative, CPJ, in conjunction with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has demanded for the release of Leah Sharibu, the Dapchi schoolgirl who, for over seven months, has remained in Boko Haram captivity along with the remaining 112 Chibok girls.

    The group made this plea at a prayer session held for Leah and the abducted girls which took place at the National Christian Center in Abuja on Tuesday.

    Read Also:Anglican primate to FG: Don’t forget other Chibok Girls, Leah Sharibu

    The group expressed its displeasure at the threat by the Boko Haram terrorists to kill Leah Sharibu and two others in their custody, non-release of the remaining Chibok girls, as well as the inability of security agencies to arrest the activities of kidnappers, ritualists, and insurgents.

    The Convener, CPJ Global, Pastor Abraham Aiyedogbon, condemned the abductions by Boko Haram, referring to it as “a show of gutless brutality by a group with a false claim to Islamic principles and endowed with criminal access to weapons of cruelty and mass murder.”

    He called on the federal government to use all its power to ensure the immediate release of Leah Sharibu before the threat deadline approaches to avoid the same situation that happened when Boko Haram murdered Suifura Khorsa, the Red Cross health worker.

    “It is bad enough that following the abduction of over 200 Chibok girls in 2014 during Jonathan’s administration, the Buhari administration would allow a recurrence of that incident with the February 2018 kidnapping of Dapchi girls,” he stated.

    “It is much worse that Leah was held back by her abductors on account of her heroic refusal to renounce her Christian faith when government negotiated the release of the Dapchi girls.

    “It is inexcusable that some eight months after her abduction, the Federal Government has not been able to secure Leah Sharibu’s release.”

    He also called on security agencies to bring kidnappers, ritualists, and terrorists to book, and adjured the FG to ensure that the 2019 elections remain credible, free, and fair.

    The General Overseer of the All Christians Fellowship Mission (ACFM), Rev. William Okoye, who represented the President of CAN, Olasupo Ayokunle, commended the initiative made by the groups to hasten the release of the girls and health workers in captivity and urged the federal government to harken to the cries of Christians.

    He made it clear that as long as the girls remain in captivity, the Independence Day celebrations and the 2019 elections are all in vain.

  • 262 journalists jailed in 2017 – rights group

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says no fewer than 262 journalists were jailed in 2017 for “doing their work”.

    The group said at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Friday that journalists were regularly threatened, attacked and killed, and also being imprisoned in record numbers around the world.

    CPJ is a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation promoting press freedom and advocating for the rights of journalists worldwide.

    It warned that these practices undermined not only the fundamental human rights of the reporters themselves, but also the public’s right to receive and impart information.

    According to CPJ, at the end of 2017, 262 journalists jailed included over 70 in Turkey, 40 in China, and 20 in Egypt, while about 52 per cent of those jailed, were behind bars because of their reporting on human rights violations.

    A May 2018 report by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) mandated with safeguarding the freedom of the press and the safety of journalists – decried the rise in the arbitrary imprisonment.

    UNESCO stated that “arbitrary imprisonment of journalists, which fosters self-censorship and impinges on the public’s right to access information, has reportedly continued to rise.

    “Many governments have maintained that particular journalists have been imprisoned for reasons unrelated to their journalistic work”.

    CPJ’s Executive Director, Joel Simon, declared that “governments around the world routinely use emergency laws to censor media outlets and publications.

    “Increasingly they also bring ‘fake news’ charges against journalists who contradict official statements. They try journalists in military courts, they hold them in pre-trial detention indefinitely.

    “These are all actions that contradict international human rights law, and the standards set by the UN”.

    Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guarantees the “freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

    The universality of this was reinforced in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

    In 2013, the UN General Assembly declared November as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, which is increasingly observed across the world.

    The event at UN headquarters on Friday highlighted in particular five cases of journalists currently imprisoned, including Alaa Abdelfattah from Egypt, Azimjon Askarov from Kyrgyzstan.

    They were both arrested while covering alleged human rights abuses by security forces, and Shahidul Alam from Bangladesh, imprisoned while covering students protests.

    Others are the high profile case of two Reuters journalists in Myanmar, Kyaw Soe Oo (also known as Moe Aung) and Wa Lone (also known as Thet Oo Maung).

    They were sentenced to seven years in jail on charges of violating the country’s Official Secrets Act while covering the story of a massacre of Rohingya men by the Myanmar military in September 2017.

    “Their conviction and draconian seven-year sentence are a travesty of justice and it is up to the government to set them free,” their legal counsel, world-renowned human rights lawyer, Amal Clooney, told the meeting at UN Headquarters.

    Early September, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, said the two journalists’ coverage of the massacre – for which the military subsequently admitted responsibility – “was clearly in the public interest as it may otherwise never have come to light”.

    She called for their convictions “to be quashed and for them to be released, along with all other journalists currently in detention for their legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression”.

    The UN warns that the “imprisonment of journalists for their legitimate work not only fosters a culture of self-censorship but also impinges on the broader rights of society to obtain information”.(NAN)

  • No journalist in detention in Nigeria, FG replies CPJ

    The Federal Govern-ment has debunked report by the press freedom organisation, Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ), that a certain Nigerian journalist has been in detention for the past two years.

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed who issued the rebuttal in Abuja, said the person the CPJ was referring to was never a journalist.

    “Let me state here, without equivocating, that contrary to the report by the Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ), no journalist is in detention in Nigeria.

    “Clement Abiri, who is being referred to as a journalist, is not one. He does not belong to any chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists.

    “He was arrested for pipeline vandalism and crude theft, including militant activities in the Niger Delta,” he said.

    The minister restated the commitment of the present administration to press freedom and gave the assurance that the media has nothing to fear under the present dispensation.

    “We are proud the Nigerian media is one of the most vibrant in the world.

    “We are proud of the role that the Nigerian media has played in our long march to democratic governance.

    “This administration will continue to provide the enabling environment for the journalist to function unmolested,” he said.