#press-freedom

#press-freedom

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay delivers a speech Monday at the group's headquarters in Paris to announce the United States' request to resume membership in the organization.Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images The U.S. may soon rejoin UNESCO several years after exiting the body, in part because of what the Trump administration called a bias against Israel.

Russia faces growing calls to release Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been jailed for over a month on espionage charges that the United States considers bogus.President Biden used his speech at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday in Washington to denounce Mr. Gershkovich's detention, which the United States has declared wrongful, and to stress the importance of press freedom.

Parliamentary security guards confiscated reports and leaflets about Hong Kong from attenders of an event in Westminster in case they caused political upset, the Guardian has learned, in a move condemned by a senior Conservative MP as completely daft.Officers on the parliamentary estate forced people attending a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong last Monday to hand over copies of a report by the group about press freedom there, as well as leaflets campaigning for the release of the media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Lawyers for the Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has have requested an an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of his trial on national security charges.The 75-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily potentially faces a life term in one of the most high-profile cases by Hong Kong authorities as part of a crackdown on the city's pro-democracy movement.

Guatemalan journalist Jose Ruben Zamora, president of the newspaper El Periodico, arrives handcuffed and under police escort to listen to a Guatemalan court's ruling in a case against him, at the Palace of Justice in Guatemala City, on Wednesday.Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images One of Guatemala's most prominent journalists has been sentenced to six years in prison for money laundering, in a trial condemned by press freedom and human rights advocates.

Editors are calling on the Conservative Party to scrap undemocratic and detrimental fees imposed on the media for attending its annual conference.National, regional and international news outlets are refusing to sign up to the conference in the autumn following the decision by the party to implement a fee for reporting on the event.

Turkey said on Wednesday that it summoned the German ambassador to protest a police operation against Turkish journalists operating in Germany.Some early media reports spoke of the journalists' "arrest," although a statement from police and prosecutors later on Wednesday suggested they were briefly detained during a search operation and then released, but at no point were formally under arrest.

Russia cracks down on the free press and outlaws Meduza, a leading independent news site.Journalists for the independent news site Meduza in an apartment office in Riga, Latvia, in 2021.Credit...Janis Pipars for The New York Times Russian officials continued their campaign to stifle press freedom on Thursday, labeling the independent news website Meduza an undesirable organization and effectively outlawing its content.

Russian officials continued their campaign to stifle press freedom on Thursday, labeling the independent news website Meduza an undesirable organization and effectively outlawing its content.The move made Meduza the latest journalistic outlet to fall victim to the Kremlin's efforts to suppress criticism.

A Reporters Without Borders report says the last two decades have been especially deadly' for journalists.Nearly 1,700 journalists have been killed worldwide over the past 20 years, an average of more than 80 a year, according to an analysis published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).The two decades between 2003 and 2022 were especially deadly decades for those in the service of the right to inform, said the Paris-based media rights campaigners.

The raids on local offices of the BBC continue for a second day, weeks after it released a documentary critical of Prime Minister Modi.The move again raised concerns about press freedom.ASMA KHALID, HOST: Less than a month after the BBC released a documentary critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, tax authorities raided the British broadcaster's offices in Mumbai and Delhi.

Police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi used tear gas, water cannon and stun grenades late on Wednesday as they moved to break up the second straight day of protests against a foreign agents law which critics say would limit press freedom and undercut the country's efforts to become a candidate for EU membership.