Media & Communication: Research Guide

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for an end to Instagram’s censorship of the Tamil Guardian news website, whose account with this Facebook-owned social media platform has been disabled for nearly two weeks. RSF also calls on Facebook to be more transparent in cases like this. The London-based English-language website is one of the main sources of news about the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and the rest of the world and has more than 19,000 followers on Instagram, and ye

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) Germany has initiated legal action against the German intelligence agencies with the aim of curtailing their ability to hack into journalists’ digital communications and thereby spy on their activities. This is an issue that is equally crucial in France. RSF Germany has brought the lawsuits jointly with Whistleblower-Netzwerk, a Berlin-based NGO, and German investigative journalists.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Togo’s media regulator, the High Authority for Broadcasting and Communication (HAAC), to rescind the disproportionate and arbitrary suspensions of two publications that it has ordered in the past month.The latest victim is La Symphonie, a bimonthly that has been banned from publishing for two months.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) voices support for Sergey Savelyev, the whistleblower responsible for last month’s massive leak of videos exposing mistreatment, torture and sexual abuse in Russian prisons. The Russian authorities must drop all charges against this Belarusian citizen, who has fled to France, while the French authorities must grant his asylum request, RSF says.After placing Sergey Savelyev on a wanted list on 23 October and announcing his “">

NewsWhat with journalists being arrested, state media placed under military control and the Internet disconnected, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the clampdown by the armed forces in Sudan and its serious consequences for the freedom to report the news and for access to information. “Military forces stormed Sudanese Radio and Television headquarters in Omdurman [the twin city of the capital Khartoum] and arrested employees,” the information ministry ">

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Turkish authorities not to expel a Syrian exile journalist currently detained in Turkey over a humorous video, because his repatriation would expose him to extremely serious and probably deadly reprisals at the hands of the Syrian authorities.Majed Shama, a journalist working for the Syrian exile TV

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for an independent investigation into the murder of Nazim Jokhiyo, an amateur video reporter based near Karachi, the capital of southern Pakistan’s Sindh province, who posted videos about illegal hunting trips for Arab dignitaries from the Gulf. All those behind his murder must be identified and brought to justice, RSF says. “I am not scared.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) is unveiling the nominees for the 2021 RSF Press Freedom Awards, which will be awarded on 18 November. Journalists and media outlets from 11 countries have been nominated for the awards that will be given in three categories – journalistic courage, impact and independence.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) urges for the immediate release of Chinese Covid-19 journalist Zhang Zhan, whose health is rapidly deteriorating due to a partial hunger strike and who faces impending death if maintained in detention. Zhang Zhan, a Chinese journalist who covered the first weeks of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, was sentenced to four years in prison for ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’ b

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities in the Philippines to shed all possible light on the shocking and clearly premeditated murder of a journalist on the southern island of Mindanao and to prioritise the hypothesis that it was linked to his work. Reporter Orlando “Dondon” Dinoy died instantly when he was shot him six times in the chest and abdomen in his apartment in Bansalan, in Davao del Sur province, on the evening of 30 October.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate withdrawal of a draconian new set regulations that Pakistan’s information technology and telecommunication ministry plans to impose on social media platforms active in Pakistan. Analysis of these rules reveals alarming legal pitfalls, RSF says.Published on 14 October under the pompous name of “Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content (Procedure, Oversight and Safeguards) Rules 2021,” the ">

NewsIn an unprecedented effort to achieve justice in the killing of journalists, three leading press freedom groups have launched a People's Tribunal to hold governments accountable. The Tribunal, a form of grassroots justice, relies on investigations and high quality legal analysis involving specific cases in three countries. The launch takes place in The Hague on 2 November and will be attended by international media and legal experts.

NewsOn the eve of the United Nations COP26 climate change conference that is due to begin in Glasgow, Scotland, on 1 November, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and more than 60 environmental journalists of 34 different nationalities are appealing for respect for the right to cover environmental issues.These journalists – who are from every part of the world and every kind of media, and who have all kinds of backgrounds and political views – have joined RSF in signing an unpr

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores the sentences of up to four and a half years in prison that a court in the city of Can Tho, in southern Vietnam, has just passed on five journalists who produced an online newspaper specialising in coverage of corruption and related issues. The authorities have stepped up their persecution of Vietnam’s independent media, RSF says. Confirmed by pro-government media, the verdict and sentences were issued today by the Thoi

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) is concerned about the persecution of media personnel in the Aden region, in southern Yemen, where two journalists have been detained for the past several weeks with no reason being given and their families not knowing where they are held. They must be released at once, RSF says.Ammar Makhshef, a freelance sports journalist was arrested when members of the security forces went to his home in Aden on 7 October an

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterates its call for the immediate release of Roland Carreño, a Venezuelan newspaper and TV journalist who today completes a year in detention in Caracas on totally absurd, trumped-up charges. A former reporter for the El Nacional daily newspaper who also collaborated with three TV channels – Venevisión, Globovisión andTelevén – Roland Carreño

NewsLess than two months after President Alpha Condé’s removal by military coup d’état on 5 September, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has just completed a two-day visit to Guinea to consult with journalists and others and to provide the new authorities with a list of ten recommendations for safeguarding and promoting press freedom during the decisive transition that has just begun.Access to information, legal and institutional reforms, journalists’ safety, the media regulator’s independence, support for the media and professionalisation of the media were among the subjects d

NewsChinese Ambassador to Paris, Lu Shaye, once again lashes out at French journalists he accuses of “lying” about his country. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) insists that a diplomat has no right to give journalism lessons, especially when representing one of the worst regimes in the world when it comes to press freedom. In a statement in a vengeful tone published on Monday, 25 October 2021, Chinese ambassador in Paris Lu Shaye, a repeat offender infamous

NewsFrom 27 to 28 October, the UK High Court will consider the US government’s appeal against the court decision opposing the extradition of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. Despite continued barriers to access, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will again be attempting to monitor the proceedings, and calls again for the case to be closed and Assange to be immediately released.During the two-day hearing, the US government will argue against the 4

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the leaders of the Awami League, the party that has ruled Bangladesh since 2009, to end all intimidation of journalists who dare to continue criticising Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s policies after fleeing the country.Pressure on family members, judicial harassment and even physical violence have been used by Awami League supporters since the start of September, with the backing of the authorities, to persecute

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the violent smear and hate campaign that members of Pakistan’s ruling party are waging on social media at the government’s instigation against a well-known columnist with the BBC’s Urdu-language service. This campaign is an unacceptable violation of press freedom, RSF’s says.The week-old campaign against Asma Shirazi, who writes a weekly column for BBC Urdu, is being conducted by online supporters of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) –

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire responds to the editor-in-chief of Chinese official media Global Times, who in a paranoid and incoherent editorial made thinly veiled threats to the organisation.In an editorial published on Saturday, 2nd October, the editor-in-chief of the Chinese o

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for support for investigative journalism to be a leading topic at the summit that the EU’s Slovenian presidency is organising with the Western Balkans, where journalists who investigate major stories such as corruption and the Covid-19 pandemic are threatened by a lack of judicial independence and must compete with disinformation.Although respect for press freedom is a condition for accession to the European Union, it is not on the ">

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) and its partner organisation, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), condemn the arrest and unwarranted detention of an independent journalist by police in central Somalia’s Galmudug region, and demand his immediate and unconditional release.

NewsEight months to the day after the military coup in Myanmar on 1 February, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is providing an update on the terror to which reporters in the field are being subjected, along with video testimony by one of the heroic reporters who, despite all the danger, is still covering this story. In the space of eight months, Myanmar’s military have succeeded in overtaking the Saudi and North Korean dictatorships in the ranking of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the sham justice to which a local reporter in southwestern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province was subjected at the ruling party’s behest in a blatant political reprisal after he reported that the authorities were seizing land from people who had farmed it for years. It is hard to imagine a more summary form of justice.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Tunisia’s newly appointed prime minister, Najla Bouden, to implement Tunisia’s undertakings as regard journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism, on the basis of Chapter 2 of Tunisia’s constitution and the country’s international obligations.

NewsReporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on local and federal authorities to conduct an exemplary investigation into this week’s murder of a journalist in Cuernavaca, in the central Mexican state of Morelos, and to ensure that those who ordered this apparent contract killing are brought to justice.Manuel González Reyes had just finished having lunch in the Patios de la Estación district of Cuernavaca on the afternoon of 28 September when he was gunned down by two men on a mo

NewsAs a court in Rabat prepares to resume hearing Maati Monjib’s appeal tomorrow, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the Moroccan authorities to end the years of judicial persecution of this journalist and historian with French and Moroccan dual nationality.

NewsAzerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has denied any involvement in the attempted murder of Mahammad Mirzali, a dissident Azerbaijani blogger who found a refuge in France, or in the harassment of other critics of his government who are now based abroad, and has instead accused Reporters Without Borders (RSF) of bias.In an inte