I think I’ve done it because I’m an attention whore, to be honest. I grew up wanting to be an actress, but then I saw an agent once at 16 or 17. She took one look at me and she was like, “Well… do you speak Arabic?” I was like, “No,” and she was like, “I’m never gonna find you work,” and I was like, “Fair enough.”

Acting is not something I’m skilled at. I know that not because I’m modest, but because I’ve watched people whose gift is to be in front of the camera, and I know that’s not me. It’s just this job I always wanted to have. I felt like it was glamorous and outside my realm because of the way I looked, and that’s why I felt so motivated to put myself in my own stuff. I mean, for a sense of authenticity, because my work was so personal that it felt disingenuous to hire a more attractive person to do an impression. I might as well do it myself.

Right now I’m editing a TV show that I star in. After the experience of making The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which I’m not in at all, I feel like I should’ve just hired professionals to do this. This is such a compromise in so many ways because I wasn’t able to look at the monitor. I think that being an artist in any medium, you really have to know your own skill set. I’m much happier behind the camera than I am in front of the camera. I have ideas of things I’d wanna be in, but they’re a little bit sillier, not so dependent on the aesthetic of it, very casual projects with friends.

I learned a lot from acting in front of the camera, but at this moment in time that you’re catching me, I’m only feeling regret. I really don’t know how other people do it. I keep telling people around me to remind me that I don’t wanna do this again. Everyone’s like, “You should call Lena Dunham and ask how she does it,” and maybe I should. She does it beautifully. I think it’s about who’s around you and how protected you are. I usually rely heavily on my producer, Cecilia Frugiuele, who’s also my co-writer on Cameron Post and on the TV series. But she had just given birth when we went into production on the show, so she wasn’t there every day. When she was there it was kind of a game of catch up, so I couldn’t always rely on her and I think that made it really difficult.

What specifically did you gain from remaining behind the camera on Cameron Post?

You have perspective. You’re not exhausted. You’re just there. And I don’t know what director I heard say this but I think about it a lot, it’s a male director and he said, “I don’t make the film. I am the film.” Like the craftsmen around me, they make the film, but I am the film. And that’s how I felt on that set. Directing is evaluating what everybody around you needs to get their best performance, be it an actor or costume designer. What do you need, what slack do you need to pull, who needs you on top of them and who needs you to back the fuck off? That is such an exciting position to be in.

Are you planning to tell less autobiographical stories going forward?

I think that the way I will approach projects for a little while is gonna be kind of different. I’ll be more interested in material that’s outside myself. I’ve been making things that have been so personal and I’m a little exhausted. If I were to write something so personal again, I think it would be really hard to cast an actor, because you know that’s something that was inspired by people and situations in your own life and you wouldn’t wanna half-ass it in that way. But I also think my taste is changing, and these are things that I don’t need to express anymore.

The thing about Cameron Post that was so great was that it was based on a book. It feels very personal to me, but it’s not taken from my own life. I’m not Christian, you know, the parallels to me are symbolic so it was so great being able to hire actors to build that world. The challenge was to find where all those parallels lie while we were writing, and then while we were shooting it, and then editing it. Where is my in? I really got off on that and it made me realize I’m a director.

But, I think there’s always a crisis of identity. Before shooting that film I was like, “I’m not good enough for this. I just tell stupid fart jokes. Why am I directing actual actors? This is gonna be humiliating.” And then once I was actually there, it was the best creative experience of my life. You can’t know unless you put yourself in a situation where you’re in over your head.

Do you feel more vulnerable putting autobiographical work into the world?

Definitely. You have these moments where you’re like, “Am I a fucking idiot? What kind of a sociopath does this?” And then other moments where you’re like, “That’s self-serving. I clearly wrote this because I thought it was universal. It’s not the truth of me, it’s a version of the truth.” Scripts go through so many versions and so many hands, so it’s hard to be like, “This is the truth.” It’s no longer this thing that happened to me, but becomes this thing that we all kind of interpreted and everyone else brought their own personal experiences to the table. It takes on a life of its own. I’d like to think that I have the ability to (a) be fair to the people in my life, and (b) understand what’s entertaining and what’s masturbatory and be able to divide between the two.

Did it take you long in life to start sharing your creative writing with people?

No, no, I came in bursting with ideas. I started writing scripts at like nine or ten, but I don’t know if they were very personal, they were like sketch comedy stuff. I didn’t have many friends. I watched a lot of television, all the time, and so I made my own script of an episode of The Brady Bunch that we put on for school. I always had a lot of excitement and confidence… But I don’t even think it’s a confidence. It’s just an idiot’s ability to share things before they are ready to be shared.

It’s a stupid tendency on my part, but growing up, I always shared things and I was always excited about my scripts. It was my only way of reaching out to people, too. It’s not like I hung out with other kids my age, ever. I just watched TV all the time, so if I had a script, I was really excited to share it. I think I have a lack of shame when it comes to creative things. Other people are inherently nervous to share things that are personal, and for some reason, I don’t have that gene in me.

When did you start creating more personal work?

Making The Slope was such a eureka moment because I had been making short films at NYU’s film grad school, and so was Ingrid Jungermann, my co-director on The Slope. We were dating and we were both so frustrated because we had just spent so much money, like loan money, to make these films that we shot on Super 16. I spent $1,000 sending my short film out to different film festivals and was rejected from all of them.

Basically what happened was that I had homework to do for a class taught by Ira Sachs. This was before he made Keep The Lights On, but he was just about to and had this arc of excitement about making things. He told us all, “I don’t care what you do this semester. I’ll give you inspiring things to read and inspiring films to watch. At the end of this semester, I booked this room, invited your whole class, and you have to show something.” So I had this looming over me.

I kept having these conversations with my girlfriend where we were like, “God, we’re so homophobic. I think we hate lesbians.” And I had just come out of the closet, so it was really early in my gay life and we thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we were characters in a show and could be like really homophobic lesbians?” And she was like, “If we just recorded this conversation, that would make a really funny short film,” so we did. We shot it in two hours with our friend holding the camera, and it was a shitty camera.

When it screened, it was this feeling of excitement that I hadn’t felt since I was in high school doing theater. That kind of magic—that’s how you want to feel in the room when you’re screening your work. You wanna feel not alone. And for the first time since going to film school, I felt not alone, like people were laughing with me. So, we made another and then we made another. We made a bunch of these stupid short films that we wrote on Monday, shot on Wednesday, edited between ourselves Friday, and put online the next day.

And the best piece of advice I got was actually from Michael Showalter. We were asking him like, “What should we do? We wanna make a TV show. We wanna go to the networks,” and we had no idea what we were talking about. He said, “Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time. Make more of these. Figure out your voice, learn how you wanna work.” And making those, I think, 16 little shorts, was some of the most fun I’ve had making anything, and it made me figure out how I like working, where my strengths lie, and it set the stage for Appropriate Behavior.

How have you grown in comfort with acting in your work since The Slope?

I’m not comfortable at that. I’ll be super honest with you. With this last time directing and starring, it felt like writing with my toes. In terms of performance, though, it’s exciting. Everything is happening at once, and it just feels like there’s no time to waste and you just follow your instincts. In that way, it’s very exciting. And in writing it, it’s super exciting, because you’re writing for yourself and you know your abilities. But, the experience with Cameron Post kind of spoiled me and I think you’re always gonna compromise. Unless you have an endless supply of money and you can take your time, most things that people make will require a lot of time compromising and I think it’s really hard.

So what has driven you to act in other people’s projects?

I think wanting to learn from them and wanting to watch how things are made. Wanting to see how Mark Duplass makes shit was really important to me, and I learned a lot watching him and Patrick Brice shooting Creep 2. Also it gives you empathy for the people who work with you. I love the idea of acting in someone else’s film or television series and getting to enhance that, but there is definitely a big part of me that feels like I’m not making it better and that I shouldn’t do it anymore.

I think I do a decent job. I’m happy with everything that I’ve seen that I’ve done, but I’m never more insecure than when I’m on set as an actor. I feel like you do your best work when you feel like you get to bring yourself to the table, and that you did something that only you could do. Some directors really enable you to do that. You can feel it when a director gets to know you and relies on that. And then you can also feel it when you’re just a prop, and it feels shitty to be a prop.

I wonder if acting is feeling insecure and I’m just spoiled by being a director and leaving set being like, “I got what I need.” I think that it’s something I grapple with a lot. I don’t do it that often. I don’t audition. It’s not the center of my focus, so it’s sort of like if something comes across my plate, I’ll do it. I think acting is really hard and the actors I know live their life in that arena of ‘I don’t know if I did it well.’ And, as a director, you’re able to look at them and be like, “Fuck yeah! I got what I needed.” I think it’s a hard job and I may not have the constitution to leave that set feeling secure, but that’s also maybe just the nature of the job? I keep going back and forth.

Have your experiences as an actor influenced your casting process?

I don’t know if it’s acting that’s influenced my casting, but I’m much more confident with my casting now than I was before. If someone ever dropped out I would feel super insecure, but now after having made two films and a television series, I’m much more secure that it sort of just… people know what’s right for them. If someone drops out, it wasn’t right for them. You can’t strong arm someone into being in your project.

I think people know what they are good for and where they wanna go with their careers. Before I took it very personally, and now I have a really zen attitude about casting, where it’ll just happen the way it happens. You roll the dice or you take a leap of faith. And in terms of auditioning people, when you have the luxury of auditioning people, I think it feels less loaded, where you follow your gut instinct, and everyone’s a winner. If it doesn’t work out, you shouldn’t be in this project, and if it does work out, then great. I think I’m much more chill about the process now that I’ve been on both sides, and now that I’ve done a few things.

Any other key advice you’ve learned as a filmmaker?

If there are two other pieces of advice I would give: (1) Don’t wait for someone else to enable you. In the UK, people wait for government money and approval, but it’s not that much money and it’s not that much approval. Find a way to make something cheap and enable yourself. Even if it’s not gonna support you, get a 9-5, but do things that you can control, which is how The Slope felt to me. It cost no money to make and it was exactly what I wanted.

And (2) Don’t get into bed with people you think are bigger than you, someone who you think is doing you a favor. I’ve been in those situations and I’ve watched other filmmakers get into situations where they got hooked up with EPs, producers, financiers or whatever, and they were the smallest thing on their slate, and they always got screwed. They were not respected. When I’ve gotten into bed with people who wanted it and needed to prove themselves as badly as I needed to prove myself, it’s always been lovely. And I like to remind myself to do that. When you are both in the trenches and you both have so much to prove, it’s been such a good situation. Whereas, sometimes it looks so good on paper, and then the reality of it is… it’s just a mess.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Charlie Sextro.

“Serbian authorities must bring all those responsible for the attack on a journalist and camera operators for N1 TV and Euronews to justice,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Journalists must be able to report on demonstrations without fear of intimidation or violence. Authorities need to send a clear message that such attacks will not be tolerated.”

The demonstration on November 5 was seeking accountability for the infrastructure collapse at a Novi Sad railway station that killed 14 people on November 1. According to news reports, a group of masked individuals threw stones, sticks, and flares at the City Hall building during the event.

The individuals shouted insults at N1 TV reporter Žaklina Tatalović and her cameraperson, Nikola Popović, and another protester struck Popović’s hand, causing him to drop and damage his camera. Later a man hit and knocked Euronews camera operator Mirko Todorović to the ground. No injuries were reported.

SafeJournalists, a regional press freedom group, said that the incidents were reported to the authorities, but that police at the scene did not respond and instead “observe[d] the events silently”.

CPJ emailed questions to the press department of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police, but did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Cameras belonging to four journalists were seized outside a courthouse in Delphi, Indiana, on Oct. 18, 2024, ahead of a murder trial with strict media access restrictions.

In a ruling in June ahead of the trial for Richard Allen in the alleged murder of two teens in 2017, Special Judge Frances Gull wrote that “the court has lost confidence in the ability of the media to cover hearings appropriately.” Gull then gave a media orientation Oct. 17, the Indianapolis Star reported, specifying that photographs or video of jurors was forbidden, and that no electronic devices would be permitted in the courtroom.

Journal & Courier photojournalist Alex Martin told the Star that the following morning he saw two vans approaching the Carroll County Courthouse where tarps had been placed over the fences. Martin said he lowered one camera to his hip and placed a second on the ground.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

An unidentified NBC photojournalist was one of several journalists whose cameras were seized outside a courthouse in Delphi, Indiana, on Oct. 18, 2024, ahead of a murder trial with strict media access restrictions.

In a ruling in June ahead of the trial for Richard Allen in the alleged murder of two teens in 2017, Special Judge Frances Gull wrote that “the court has lost confidence in the ability of the media to cover hearings appropriately.” Gull then gave a media orientation Oct. 17, the Indianapolis Star reported, specifying that photographs or video of jurors was forbidden, and that no electronic devices would be permitted in the courtroom.

Journal & Courier photojournalist Alex Martin told the Star that the following morning he saw two vans approaching the Carroll County Courthouse where tarps had been placed over the fences. Martin said he lowered one camera to his hip and placed a second on the ground.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Olga Fedorova was detained while documenting a protest in New York City on Sept. 10, 2024. New York City police officers slammed her against a wall, damaging her camera, and ripped her equipment bag off her back.

Fedorova told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that a small group of demonstrators in “black bloc” — wearing all black and concealing their identities — gathered in Manhattan to protest a variety of issues, including the ongoing Israel-Gaza war.

In her footage, distributed via FreedomNews.TV, demonstrators are seen pulling trash bins and plastic barricades into the street to block traffic and spraying graffiti on a city bus and on a T-Mobile storefront.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Olga Fedorova was arrested by Chicago Police Department officers Aug. 20, 2024, while documenting a pro-Palestinian protest planned to coincide with the nearby Democratic National Convention. Law enforcement also confiscated her press credentials and cracked her camera lens.

A small gathering of protesters, unaffiliated with and more militant than other groups that had organized larger demonstrations earlier in the week, converged around 7 p.m. outside the Israeli Consulate in Chicago’s West Loop section. The demonstrators and police, who far outnumbered them, clashed repeatedly. The protesters were later ordered to leave the area and police began arresting them, Block Club Chicago reported.

Other journalists besides Fedorova were among the dozens detained, according to the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. CBS News reported that Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said three journalists were arrested for not complying with officers’ orders when police began moving in to arrest protesters who had attacked police.

Independent photojournalist Josh Pacheco, one of those arrested, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the scene was chaotic, with officers issuing conflicting, often inaudible commands to the crowd, and pushing people onto the sidewalk, which was already crowded with police bicycles. Pacheco said that members of the press were caught between protesters and police as officers tried to keep demonstrators out of the roadway and intersections.

Amid the chaos, Fedorova was arrested. Journalists Talia (Jane) Ben-Ora and Sean Beckner-Carmitchel both reported on social media that at the time of her arrest Fedorova was wearing Chicago–issued press credentials, which the police confiscated, and that her camera lens was cracked by the police.

Fedorova’s attorney Steven Baron confirmed to the Tracker that Fedorova was “swept up in the mass arrest and detained for many hours at the Area 3 Chicago Police headquarters.” She was released the following morning and her press credentials were returned to her later in the day.

Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, told the Tracker that Chicago police returned Fedorova’s credentials after NPPA and the journalists’ attorneys notified them “that such seizures were improper.”

Osterreicher also said that in advance of the DNC, he had offered the Chicago Police Department a training on interacting with the press similar to one he gave the Milwaukee Police Department before the Republican National Convention in July.

“They told me that they had been providing First Amendment training and they didn’t need anything from NPPA,” Osterreicher said. “Given the events of last night, I would have to say that that alleged training was an abysmal failure.”

The DNC’s Public Safety Joint Information Center confirmed that Fedorova had been cited for disorderly conduct — failure to obey police. It did not respond to an additional question about why she was arrested.

“Olga and the others were charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct for simply doing their jobs as reporters,” Baron told the Tracker. “We are disappointed that the City of Chicago chose to sweep the First Amendment under the rug with its heavy-handed tactics against working journalists.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Officials in Uvalde, Texas, revealed on Wednesday that they failed to release some officer body camera and dashboard footage related to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting as required by a settlement agreement with news organizations that sued for access.

After the city released hundreds of records on Saturday to news organizations, including ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, an officer informed the Uvalde Police Department that some of his body camera footage from the May 24, 2022, shooting was missing, according to a news release from the city.

In response, police Chief Homer Delgado ordered an audit of the department’s servers, which turned up “several additional videos.” The city did not say which officers or cruisers the missing footage belonged to.

According to information that Uvalde police initially provided to Texas Department of Public Safety investigators, seven of the 25 responding officers had their body cameras turned on the day of the shooting. Records released on Saturday only included footage from five of the officers’ body cameras. Whether the city’s discovery of additional materials is limited to the two remaining body cameras or includes additional footage from more officers is unknown.

The department shared the newly discovered footage with District Attorney Christina Mitchell for review. Delgado also ordered an internal affairs investigation into how the error occurred. That probe will determine which department employees are responsible and what disciplinary actions may be warranted, according to the news release.

“I have ordered an immediate review of all footage collection and storage protocols within UPD and will institute a new process to ensure our department lives up to the highest standards,” Delgado, who joined the department last year, said in a statement. “The Uvalde community and the public deserve nothing less.”

It’s unclear whether Mitchell, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, had access to the footage as she evaluated whether officers should be criminally charged for the flawed response to the shooting in which 19 children and two teachers died.

A grand jury in June indicted former Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo and officer Adrian Gonzales on felony child endangerment charges. Both men pleaded not guilty. No Uvalde Police Department officers have been charged.

News organizations, including the Tribune and ProPublica, sued several local and state governmental bodies more than two years ago for access to records related to the shooting. The city settled with the new organizations, agreeing to provide records that had been requested under the state’s Public Information Act, including body camera footage from all responding officers. Three other government agencies — the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office — continue fighting not to release any records.

City officials did not respond to requests for comment but said in a statement that they would evaluate the judge’s order governing the release of documents to ensure that they comply with the settlement terms reached with the news organizations.

Reid Pillifant, an associate attorney with Haynes Boone, a law firm that represents the news organizations, said he appreciated the Police Department’s “quick response in conducting an audit to ensure all relevant materials are shared with the public as soon as possible.”

The Tribune, ProPublica and FRONTLINE independently obtained a trove of investigative materials through a confidential source. That trove includes the body camera footage of two Uvalde police officers — Jesus Mendoza and Joe Zamora — that was not released on Saturday. The newsrooms analyzed Mendoza’s 25-minute-long body camera footage and his interview with state investigators as part of an investigation into law enforcement’s botched response that included a documentary and revealed that while the children knew what to do when confronted with a mass shooter, many officers did not.

Zamora’s body camera footage, which is only about eight minutes long, appears to show him at the house belonging to the gunman’s grandmother, whom the teen shot in the face before going to the school.

In the footage, a crying woman can be heard saying, “I knew it was my nephew.” She adds, “he didn’t want to live anymore.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Zach Despart, The Texas Tribune, and Lomi Kriel, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

Freelance photojournalist Jon Putman had his camera struck while documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

In footage captured by independent videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, Putman is visible in a black T-shirt and baseball cap photographing from the street as dozens of people mill around. At 0:23 in the clip, a man with a face bloodied after a fight can be seen knocking Putman’s camera aside with his hand. The same individual similarly attempted to prevent photojournalist David Swanson from photographing him earlier.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

An independent photojournalist was shoved and his camera was kicked, breaking the lens, while documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

The photographer, who asked not to be identified because he fears harassment, told the Tracker that he arrived at the protest with another photojournalist and verbally identified himself to protesters as a journalist, although he didn’t wear a press pass.

As the protest came to an end, he was attacked when someone in the crowd falsely said he worked for Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based international TV news network that the Israeli government has barred from operating in the country amid the Israel-Gaza war. The photographer denied that he worked for the news organization, but said no one could hear him in the chaos.

A large man then walked up to him and, standing chest to chest, pushed the journalist into the street with his torso, he recounted to the Tracker. Another person at the protest pulled the large man away.

The crowd around the photojournalist grew to at least a dozen people, he said. They were walking toward him and he was slowly walking backward.

“I felt my camera get kicked,” he told the Tracker. “It was in my hand. I sort of wrapped my strap around my hand, so it didn’t fly away.”

The lens, a Sigma 20 mm F1.4 Canon mount worth about $900, was broken in the encounter. He said he has since sent the lens to be repaired, which he expects to cost hundreds of dollars.

After the kick, the photographer’s friend and fellow journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel got between him and the crowd and told him to get away, which he did, despite several people grabbing at his backpack. Meanwhile, Beckner-Carmitchel and journalist Justin Jun were beaten.

The photojournalist returned to try to help the journalists who were being assaulted, but someone else walked him away. He returned one more time and when Beckner-Carmitchel shouted at him to get away, he did.

After the event, the photojournalist said he was particularly worried about people from the protest tracking him down and so now sleeps with a baseball bat by his bed.

“I still would happily do photojournalism,” he told the Tracker. “I’m just really disheartened that police didn’t even bother to stop any violence that was happening right in front of their eyes.”

He continued: “I’m scared for my safety at protests now. And I’m worried that I’m going to get targeted for no reason other than having a camera.”

The LAPD said in a news release that officers were investigating two reports of battery at the protest and that one individual had been arrested for having a spiked post. A spokesperson for the department told the Tracker via email June 27 that they have no further information.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Investigative journalist Kate Burns was beaten and had gear damaged and stolen while documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

Burns, who was posting live updates from the protest to social platform X for the investigative journalism outlet Left Coast Right Watch, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was clearly identified as a journalist with a press pass on a lanyard and a camera around her neck.

Burns said that several times she was surrounded by protesters who shouted misogynistic expletives and threats. Pro-Israeli protesters called her a terrorist and threatened to rape, behead and burn her at the stake, she recounted.

They also said they wished she had died of cancer, added Burns, a cancer survivor who wears a face mask because she is immunocompromised.

When, near the end of the protest, Burns went to the aid of a journalist who was being assaulted, a protester stole her iPhone and ran off. Another protester snatched her hat and mask and tripped her, she told the Tracker.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Independent photojournalist Nick Stern’s video camera was stolen and broken while he was documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

Stern, whose work is largely published in British outlets, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was wearing press credentials on a lanyard and was easily identifiable as a journalist by the two cameras strapped around his neck.

But that may have put him more at risk, he said, as the attacks appeared to be targeting journalists. “I think it would have been safer if I hadn’t,” he told the Tracker.

Stern said he and journalist Tina-Desiree Berg were standing on a grassy embankment when a pro-Israeli protester carrying a large yellow flag came up to them and tried to block his shot.

Another pro-Israeli protester shoved Berg off the embankment, then grabbed Stern’s video camera as he was recording. Stern shared the video of the snatch with the Tracker.

Stern said he chased the protester, who threw the camera down on the ground. Stern retrieved it, but the camera, a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 worth about $600, had a broken lens and battery pack, rendering it unusable.

Stern told the Tracker that as of June 28 he hadn’t yet reported his broken camera to police.

The LAPD said in a news release that officers were investigating two reports of battery at the protest and that one individual had been arrested for having a spiked post. A spokesperson for the department told the Tracker via email June 27 that they have no further information.

Stern told the Tracker that he plans to continue covering protests, but after witnessing the assaults on journalists on June 23, he expects to carry a Taser with him for protection.

“I think we’ve got to a point now where a journalist will get significantly injured or even possibly killed at a protest event,” he told the Tracker. “This needs to stop. As journalists, we need to do what we’re out there doing.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Shay Horse was pepper-sprayed and his camera smacked while documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.

The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.

Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.

Horse wrote in a post to the social media platform X that his camera was smacked by a masked individual who demanded that he delete his footage after filming an attack on a pro-Palestinian demonstrator. In the video, the man can be heard telling Horse, “Put your camera away” before striking at it with an open palm.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Independent photojournalist Michael Nigro was shoved and his camera equipment damaged by a New York City police officer while documenting a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Brooklyn on May 18, 2024.

Brooklyn Paper reported that the rally marking Nakba Day — which commemorates the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 — has been held in the Bay Ridge neighborhood for years without incident.

Nigro told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he has documented the rally six or seven times in years prior and described the demonstration as a generally family-friendly, community event. He said that the police response was markedly different this year, with officers in riot gear and from the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a heavily armored group used for crowd control, present from the beginning.

Shortly after protesters took to the street, Nigro said, officers made the first arrest of the day. Nigro said he filmed the detainment and had complied with orders to step back when an officer assaulted him.

“I didn’t see him coming,” Nigro said, “he just came over and smacked my camera. With the vibration in the camera and the sound that I heard, I thought, ‘He just broke my lens.’ Then I saw that the hood was cracked and thankfully the lens was not.”

In footage of the incident captured by another photojournalist, a commanding officer can be seen grabbing Nigro’s camera and using it to shove him back and to the side, striking the camera against another photographer in the process. As the first officer walks away, a second can be seen pushing Nigro backward.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Cameras in the common areas of Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center were supposed to make the troubled southern Illinois facility safer for the approximately 200 people with developmental disabilities who live there.

But in mid-February, a camera caught a mental health technician grabbing a patient by the shirt, throwing him to the floor and punching him in the stomach, according to court records.

Although the worker has since been indicted, for 11 days following the incident, the employee continued to work on the same unit without consequence or restriction until an anonymous letter prompted an investigator to go looking for the video. During that time, no one at the facility, including witnesses to the event, reported the abuse, according to public records.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration announced in March the plan to install cameras in the wake of an ongoing news investigation by Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica that unearthed a culture of cruelty, abuse, neglect and cover-ups at Choate. The administration also announced it would move 123 individuals from the facility. So far, 34 Choate residents have moved, mostly to other state-operated developmental centers.

The cameras were supposed to deter employees from mistreating patients or to quickly dispel false allegations of abuse by keeping a record of interactions. But a little-discussed provision, intended to protect workers’ rights and patients’ privacy, almost kept the incident from coming to light: The video can only be reviewed if there is an allegation of abuse or neglect.

The anonymous letter that sparked the investigation accused mental health technician John Curtis “Curt” Spaulding of attacking a patient on Feb. 12. The allegation led investigators to access video from that day to determine if the accusation was valid. Records show that it took until Feb. 23 for Choate security to review the video.

Within hours of that review, Spaulding submitted his resignation. Another employee, Shushya Salley, was placed on paid administrative leave after the video emerged. Though her involvement isn’t clear, the form referring the case to the state police, from the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General, noted that there were witnesses. If Salley witnessed the abuse, she was required to report it within four hours. She did not respond to requests for comment.

During a phone interview on Thursday, Spaulding denied abusing any patients. He said he resigned because he was tired of the poor working conditions and difficult schedules at Choate.

The OIG, which is charged with looking into allegations of abuse and neglect, investigated Spaulding five times in the past three years, records show. None of the prior allegations were substantiated.

“I was better to those guys than 90% of the people who work there,” Spaulding told a reporter. “But I was never one to let them walk all over me.”

Spaulding, who has worked at Choate since 2015, said he believed that policy revisions have kept patients who have had emotional outbursts from facing any consequences, and that in turn has led to the facility “going to shit.”

Tyler Tripp, the state’s attorney in Union County, where Choate is located, did not respond to questions about the incident, though Illinois State Police records indicate the agency presented the case to him in March. A grand jury indicted Spaulding on Thursday on a felony charge of aggravated battery and a charge of misdemeanor battery.

Spaulding has not appeared to enter a plea. He is scheduled to appear in court on July 1.

Of the more than 20 employees identified as being charged with felonies on suspicion of abusing patients at Choate or covering it up during the news organizations’ ongoing investigations, only two were convicted of a felony. One of those defendants was later allowed to withdraw his plea and plead down to a misdemeanor. Not one employee, even those who caused serious injuries, has received prison time for abusing a patient.

The governor’s office — which pushed for the cameras when it announced a plan to transition many residents out of Choate — credited them with bringing the incident involving Spaulding to light.

“Thanks to the addition of the cameras in the facility, the offenders were caught and promptly removed for their entirely unacceptable misconduct,” Alex Gough, spokesperson for Pritzker, said in a statement. “The vast majority of workers at the state’s 24/7 facilities perform their duties with compassion, but anyone who violates the sacred trust between care provider and patient should be held accountable.”

The OIG has repeatedly called for the installation of cameras. At least 21 times in six years, the OIG asked for cameras so it could more quickly assess the credibility of abuse and neglect allegations, but these recommendations were rejected because of budget and privacy concerns.

Last year, then-IDHS Secretary Grace Hou announced the cameras would be installed at all state-operated developmental centers, starting with Choate.

Barry Smoot, a longtime IDHS and OIG employee who also served as head of security at Chester Mental Health Center and Choate, said it is important for employees to be able to report without fear of retaliation or repercussions since video can only be accessed after an allegation is made and footage is not continuously monitored.

“Has it affected the culture? No. Has it been used to catch abusers? Yes. The only way the cameras can do their job is if someone reports it. And the staff that are identified as present and not stopping the abuse or reporting the abuse need to be severely dealt with,” Smoot said.

If staff and residents are fearful of speaking out, Smoot said, they can report their allegation anonymously to the inspector general and include the time, date and location so the video can be accessed.

Choate’s employee head count was full as of Tuesday, but IDHS records showed that 65 employees — nearly 14% of the workforce — were on administrative leave or reassigned to other duties while the inspector general investigated allegations of abuse against them.

AFSCME Local 141, the union that represents most Choate employees, did not respond to written questions. But eight days before the video was pulled and reviewed by the OIG, the union posted on its Facebook page: “Be professional when interacting with our individuals and please keep yourself safe. We know the cameras can be beneficial in our daily operations. Remember, you may be reviewed by cameras when allegations are presented. Again, be professional. You may be seen even though you are not a target of the accusations. Remember, you may be reviewed.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Beth Hundsdorfer, Capitol News Illinois.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

A news crew with KOMO-TV was harassed and its camera vandalized while reporting on student protests at the University of Washington in Seattle on May 7, 2024.

Students erected an encampment on the Liberal Arts Quadrangle, the main gathering place on campus, on April 29, The Seattle Times reported, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war, divestment from Israeli companies and for the university to sever any ties with Boeing, which is a supplier for the Israeli Air Force.

KOMO-TV reported that the demonstration grew to its largest size on May 7, with more than 200 pro-Palestinian protesters. Conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk appeared on campus that day for a speaking event and set up his own tent near the encampment.

Amid heightened tensions, KOMO-TV reported that its news crew witnessed at least one fight, and that individuals sprayed the crew’s camera with spray paint twice.

KOMO-TV News Director Philip Bruce did not respond to a request for additional information.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

TV reporter Blake Hanson injured a finger while covering a protest at the University of Texas at Dallas on May 1, 2024, when his camera was hit with bolt cutters by a Collin County Sheriff’s Office deputy.

Hanson, a reporter and weekend evening news anchor at KDFW in Richardson, said in a post on the social network X that he was reporting on law enforcement’s dismantling of a pro-Palestinian encampment and the arrests of protesters.

The posted video of the incident shows a man wearing a uniform with a “Sheriff” label on his chest, who smacks Hanson’s camera with bolt cutters. Hanson shouts, “Fox 4 media! Media!” The man responds, “Get back!” Hanson repeats, “Media! You’ve got to warn me first!” The man orders him a second time to get back.

The station reported that law enforcement had shown up in riot gear to dismantle the encampment, and that some were using bolt cutters to remove objects chained to trees.

Hanson wrote on X that he was filming the arrest of a protester at the time of the attack. “I realized I was standing in the man’s walking path, so I started backing up. That’s when he struck me and then told me to back up after,” adding, “I had a microphone in my hand, phone recording, clearly media.”

Hanson suffered a swollen finger but said he was otherwise fine. “But all law enforcement needs to respect the media’s right to operate in that highly-charged environment — obviously while respecting their area to work and do their duties.”

Neither Hanson nor KDFW responded to requests for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

A spokesperson for the Collin County Sheriff’s Office told the Tracker via email that the incident had been referred to their Internal Affairs Section for investigation. “As of now, we have no comment, nor do we have any further information to share,” she wrote.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

“The 2.5 year prison sentence handed to journalist Andrei Tolchyn on unfounded charges is yet another demonstration of Belarusian authorities’ vindictiveness toward current and former members of the press—like Tolchyn—for their independent coverage of the country’s 2020 mass protests,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Belarusian authorities must immediately drop all charges against Tolchyn and release him, along with all other jailed journalists.”

A court in the southeastern city of Homel convicted Tolchyn of facilitating extremist activity and defaming the president, according to the banned human rights group Viasna and Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile.

His trial began on March 5, and he has been detained since September 2023, when authorities searched his home and seized his equipment, including a laptop. Authorities have detained Tolchyn multiple times and fined him in connection to his work and coverage of the 2020 protests demanding Lukashenko’s resignation. Tolchyn left journalism in 2020.

CPJ was not immediately able to confirm whether the charges were connected to his 2020 reporting or if Tolchyn plans to appeal.

Belarus was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2023 prison census, with at least 28 journalists, including Tolchyn, behind bars on December 1. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

WHDH-TV reporter Grant Hermes was grabbed from behind by a passerby while setting up for a live shot outside the TD Garden arena in Boston, Massachusetts, on Nov. 18, 2023.

Hermes, who was preparing to report on a hockey game inside the arena, shared a video on Instagram of the assault. In the video, a man approaches him from behind as Hermes stands in front of the TV camera, shouts “Yeah, boy! Whoo!” and grabs Hermes around the shoulders. Hermes shakes the man off and chases him out of frame.

Hermes wrote in a comment that accompanied the video that he and his photographer were fine after the incident. “But I wanna be clear how not ok this is,” he wrote, adding, “The people you see on TV are at work, at a job where people make threats at us regularly. So we don’t know when you yell at us, run into our live shots or grab us, we don’t know what you’re there to do.”

Hermes told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker by email that he didn’t know what the man was going to do next. “Thankfully he just ran off,” Hermes said.

“Our job can come with inherent dangers because we need to be where the news happens and it’s a privilege to be in those places,” Hermes said. “But a routine live shot isn’t what we should mean when we talk about danger.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

WHDH-TV reporter Grant Hermes was grabbed from behind by a passerby while setting up for a live shot outside the TD Garden arena in Boston, Massachusetts, on Nov. 18, 2023.

Hermes, who was preparing to report on a hockey game inside the arena, shared a video on Instagram of the assault. In the video, a man approaches him from behind as Hermes stands in front of the TV camera, shouts “Yeah, boy! Whoo!” and grabs Hermes around the shoulders. Hermes shakes the man off and chases him out of frame.

Hermes wrote in a comment that accompanied the video that he and his photographer were fine after the incident. “But I wanna be clear how not ok this is,” he wrote, adding, “The people you see on TV are at work, at a job where people make threats at us regularly. So we don’t know when you yell at us, run into our live shots or grab us, we don’t know what you’re there to do.”

Hermes told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker by email that he didn’t know what the man was going to do next. “Thankfully he just ran off,” Hermes said.

“Our job can come with inherent dangers because we need to be where the news happens and it’s a privilege to be in those places,” Hermes said. “But a routine live shot isn’t what we should mean when we talk about danger.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Journalist Doni Chamberlain said she was assaulted by conservative activists in Cottonwood, California, on July 6, 2023, after they surrounded her at a meeting and demanded she leave.

Chamberlain, publisher and owner of A News Cafe, an online news magazine, was eventually escorted out of the gathering by deputies from the Shasta County Sheriff's Department. She has since filed charges against one of the activists, Mark Kent.

Chamberlain said that at one point Kent, who the Redding Record Searchlight describes as a far-right political activist, ordered Chamberlain to leave and grabbed her phone, which was hanging from a lanyard around her neck as she recorded the meeting for Facebook Live.

“It caused the strap to snap my neck and pitch my head forward,” Chamberlain told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. “It was momentarily like being hanged by my own phone strap.”

Chamberlain said she went to the emergency room the next day and was initially diagnosed with whiplash and a concussion. Later, her primary care physician diagnosed her with a traumatic brain injury. She said she has continued to experience severe confusion, aches in her neck and upper back, and tingling in her left hand.

Chamberlain explained to the Tracker that she found the invitation for the first of a monthly series of meetings posted on Facebook by Jesse Lane. Lane, who The Sacramento Bee calls “an up-and-coming leader in the local far-right movement,” had previously posted of Chamberlain, “I think it’s time we remove her from our way of living.”

Chamberlain said she was the only media present at what she considered a public gathering and added: “I maintain that as a journalist, covering meetings that most citizens are too afraid to attend, I had a right to be there to report.”

But immediately after she arrived at the community center where the meeting was held, she said she was approached by Lane, who told her to leave. She was then approached by several more attendees, who repeated the demand. One attendee blocked Chamberlain’s camera with her hands and face. Chamberlain said that while she was surrounded, the meeting opened with approximately 200 people who prayed for her “salvation.”

Lane ultimately called police to report her for trespassing and four sheriff's deputies subsequently arrived to escort her out of the building.

The sheriff’s office told the Tracker via email that the district attorney’s office for Shasta County is reviewing Chamberlain’s case, but declined to release the report of the sheriff’s investigation.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In March 2021, I received a tip to look into the police killing of a Bronx man who was shot dead in 2017 while in the throes of a mental health crisis. The source suggested I request the investigative files from the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division, the internal unit that spent two years probing the case.

At the time, I was in the midst of reporting for a book on the NYPD’s secretive disciplinary system, in which FID plays an integral role. So I filed a records request under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, but it seemed to go nowhere. Every few months, the NYPD requested an extension while deciding how to respond. Roughly nine months passed with no records. I was not shocked by these delays. When former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio conducted an audit that gave grades to the city’s agencies for their public record responsiveness, the NYPD received an F.

But then, on the last day of 2021, an email from the NYPD hit my inbox. The department had provided not just the investigative report on the Bronx man’s death, but the complete record of audio interviews with the officers involved in the case and their body-camera footage as well. This reporting got me interested in learning more about FID, which investigates every incident where an NYPD officer fires their weapon. I decided to file additional FOIL requests for the internal investigative files for a number of fatal shootings by the NYPD.

One case involved the police killing of a man named Kawaski Trawick, who was shot dead in his apartment while in the grips of a mental health crisis. Another involved the deaths of Officer Brian Mulkeen and a man named Antonio Williams in a public housing complex. After about a year, the NYPD sent me hundreds of pages from the final FID reports for both cases. But unlike the first batch I had received, this one contained none of the body-camera videos or audio of the FID’s officer interviews. So I appealed and, to my surprise, won.

The NYPD soon sent me all the video and audio related to the Trawick investigation. Along with the files, a sergeant in the NYPD’s Records Bureau included a note explaining that the omission appeared to have been an administrative “oversight.” The records system, he wrote, was “glitchy,” and the investigator had simply “just missed the upload of the case file.”

The records enabled ProPublica’s Eric Umansky and me to publish a revelatory story that exposed how the FID failed to probe key moments in the Trawick incident, including when one officer tried to stop his partner from shooting the man in crisis.

From a media perspective, the episode illustrated a triumph of New York’s public records laws. Or so I thought.

Two weeks after publication, I got another letter from the NYPD, this time denying much of the outstanding part of my records request in the Mulkeen-Williams case, in which police killed a suspect as well as a fellow officer. After releasing the full audio and video footage for two prior cases, the NYPD now claimed that providing the same types of files in this instance would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” for its officers. The letter referred me to the edited video compilation the department had publicly posted to YouTube after the shootings. If I wanted to contest their records denial, I would have to file a lawsuit, the department said — a time-consuming and potentially costly proposition.

In spite of the setback, I kept reporting and soon spoke to David Rankin, an attorney for the Williams family who offered to share the records that he had obtained from the NYPD through his own FOIL request. I was stunned: The department had provided him with some of the exact records that I had been denied — most notably, the complete body-camera footage. Separately, Rankin gave me access to audio of FID’s interviews, which he had obtained from the city Law Department as part of ongoing litigation.

As with the Trawick case, the complete record allowed me to piece together a fuller — and ultimately, more damning — picture than the one the NYPD had presented publicly. Time and again, the records showed, FID investigators stopped short in their questioning of officers, even when the conduct at issue led to the death of a colleague. This type of accounting would not have been possible without the video footage of the shooting and the audio of FID’s interviews with the officers.

Of course, I can’t say whether that — or my prior coverage — played into the NYPD’s decision to withhold the records from me. Prior to publication, I asked the department why it denied my request while granting the attorney’s. The NYPD did not respond.

Mike Hayes is a freelance journalist and author of “The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and The Broken Promises of Police Reform.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Mike Hayes for ProPublica.

Thai vanished from the streets just north of Bangkok, in Thailand’s Pathum Thani province, on April 13. Activists went to the area several days later to search for clues, attempt to track down security video and interview witnesses who saw what they believed to be Thai’s kidnapping.

It was closed-circuit video from just down the street that captured Thai’s panicked shrieks, and it may be the best available depiction of the kidnapping, according to Vietnamese-American human rights activist Grace Bui. 

One witness who was interviewed, who hadn’t seen the video, did an almost exact imitation of the screams – testimony that helped the activists confirm it was Thai’s cries in the video, Bui said.

“One guy told us that there were two white cars that blocked Thai Van Duong’s motorcycle – one in front and one in the back,” Bui said. “They stopped his motorcycle, and people jumped out and took him inside the car. And [the guy] mimicked the scream of Thai Van Duong exactly what we heard from the video.” 

Thai, 41, fled to Thailand in 2019 fearing political persecution for his many posts and videos that criticized the Vietnamese government and leaders of the Communist Party on Facebook and YouTube. He had been applying for refugee status with the United Nations refugee agency’s office in Bangkok.

Friends realized he was missing on April 13 after calls to his mobile phone that afternoon went unanswered. On April 16, police in Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province said he had entered the country via trails on its border with Laos. 

But Thai’s friends insist that he was likely kidnapped by Vietnamese security forces and brought back to Vietnam, where the government continues to arrest, convict and imprison dissidents and activists. 

Facebook livestream in the park

Those friends – including Bui – have sought to retrace Thai’s steps on the day he disappeared. They’ve spoken to neighbors, people at a coffee shop and a friend he met in a park, and they’ve asked store owners and local authorities to hand over security video.

One video from his rented home north of Bangkok shows him casually getting on a motorbike outside his house at about 3:30 p.m. Other videos show him driving along nearby streets, then turning right at 3:39 p.m. outside his neighborhood’s gate.

Footage from a coffee shop at Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi shows him standing at the front register buying coffee. Another video shows him driving through the university’s gate.

At 5:47 p.m., Thai appeared in a video live-streamed on Facebook. He talked about U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Hanoi and the recent trial in Vietnam of another blogger. 

“The Vietnamese Communist Party always propagates that ‘words go hand in hand with works’ – but they never do so,” he said. “On the day they welcome the U.S. secretary of state, they put Nguyen Lan Thang on trial.” 

Thang was sentenced to six years in prison and two years of probation on April 12. He was a long-time contributor to RFA’s Vietnamese service and participated in many roundtable discussions with the BBC, which contained contents prosecutors said sabotaged or smeared the Vietnamese government.

Charging Thang under Article 117 of Vietnam’s criminal code – often used by authorities to suppress free speech on social media – contradicted the government’s claim that it values freedom, democracy, human rights and freedom of speech, Thai said in his livestream.

“Why is answering foreign media bad?” he said. “It is not bad to answer foreign media, and doesn’t have anything to do with ‘toppling the government.’”

‘Vanished at that time’ 

The video with the screams came from a security camera on Soi Lamphu Road and had a timestamp of 6:07 p.m. Several local people told Bui and other Vietnamese activists the same thing – that a person riding a motorbike was blocked by two cars, physically subdued and then taken away.

“Both Duong and his motorcycle vanished at that time,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

Robertson went along with Bui and the other Vietnamese activists when they went to the street to look for witnesses.

Thai is being held in Ha Tinh province’s Huong Son district. Despite heavy news coverage of his arrest, police have not provided an update about his status.

Thailand for many decades has served as an informal safe haven for political refugees in the region. Robertson told RFA last week that he fears that Thai’s case is yet another example showing that a so-called “swap mart” exists between Thailand and repressive neighboring countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. 

“It is very unlikely that Vietnam government agents could have just come into Thailand and snatched a dissident without some local Thai officials knowing about this, and agreeing to look the other way,” he said. 

A missing persons complaint has been made to the Thayanaburi police station, which oversees the area where Thai was abducted, but police haven’t done much to follow up, Robertson said.

“A man was abducted in a community area in what can only be called a brazen, rights-abusing action, and the Thai authorities should get to the bottom of this matter and report what they find,” he said.

Translated by Anna Chau. Edited by Matt Reed and Tara McKelvey.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

Michael G. Seamans, staff photojournalist for the Morning Sentinel in Maine, was assaulted and his camera damaged while photographing a high school drama competition in Skowhegan on March 11, 2023.

Seamans told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he arrived at Skowhegan High School at about 6:30 p.m. and identified himself as a journalist to a woman in a hallway near the stage. She told him that photography wasn’t allowed. Seamans responded that he was confused why that would be the case, when high school sports are routinely photographed. He said she threw up her hands, told him to do whatever he wanted and then walked away.

Seamans then connected with the director of the Madison High School drama program, his primary focus. Seamans said the director and the Skowhegan vice principal both authorized him to photograph the Madison students in the pre-show area in the cafeteria where they were getting ready to perform.

“At this point I’m no longer photographing anything and only getting identifications of kids in my pictures,” Seamans said. “And now I hear the first person that I encountered, this woman, yelling at the Madison director about me.”

Seamans said he tried to intervene in order to diffuse the situation, saying that he was done and could leave the premises, but she kept yelling over him. He took a step back and made the gesture for a timeout.

“A man, who I later came to learn was her husband, was standing behind be and he points at me and yells, ‘You’re not going to tell her to shut up!’” Seamans said. “That’s when his finger turned into his fist. And his fist opened up, grabbed me by the throat and threw me into a wall. At this point, I’m on my tip-toes, he has me almost elevated off my feet.”

Seamans said that the man continued to hold him there for nearly a minute as he held his hands up and asked for the man to let him go and for someone to call the police. He said the man only released him when a principal from the Skowhegan school system arrived, by which point Seamans’ vision had started to darken from the periphery and he had become disoriented.

Seamans said that one of his cameras struck the wall during the altercation and was damaged.

The school officials then led Seamans to an office where they questioned him for nearly 30 minutes before consenting to his repeated requests for someone to call police. Seamans filed a police report and went to the emergency room where he was diagnosed with a concussion and significant bruising of the neck and throat. Seamans said his primary care physician instructed him during a follow-up visit to remain on leave from work until March 27.

“In nearly two decades of working in this industry, from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the locked-downed districts of Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic to the front lines of Ukraine, I’ve never been attacked so suddenly and abruptly before,” Seamans told the Tracker. “It’s a difficult scenario to articulate.”

When reached by phone, a Skowhegan Police Department officer said he could not discuss details from the investigation, but confirmed that the department had referred the case to the Somerset County District Attorney’s Office. DA Maeghan Maloney, in an emailed response to the Tracker, said that her office is reviewing additional footage from the incident and has not concluded its assessment.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

At a press conference Wednesday, April 26, at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, Democratic Voice of Burma editor-in-chief and CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner Aye Chan Naing handed the camera to Nagai’s sister Noriko Ogawa, who has long sought its return from Myanmar authorities and traveled from Japan for the event.

DVB gained access to the camera from an undisclosed source in Yangon and spirited it across the Myanmar-Thailand border after the February 2021 military coup and subsequent clampdown on the press, according to Aye Chan Naing. Nagai’s last footage contained in the camera was shown at the press conference.

CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn W. Crispin was invited by DVB and Nagai’s family to speak at the event, where he addressed Nagai’s still-unresolved killing and more broadly the continued killing of journalists with impunity in Myanmar.

Read Crispin’s remarks below:

We’re here today to honor the memory of fallen Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai, a courageous reporter who tragically lost his life in pursuit of the news.

The return to his family of the camera he was using to report when he was shot and murdered in the streets of Yangon while covering political protests is long overdue—over 15 years overdue.

DVB should be commended for its dogged journalistic pursuit of the camera and the exceptional risks it has taken to return it to Kenji’s family.

But ultimately, today’s event is an important and timely reminder that Myanmar’s military has and continues to kill journalists with impunity, and that the killings won’t stop until Kenji’s murder receives full justice—from the foot soldier who pulled the trigger to any commanders who gave shoot-to-kill orders to the military leaders who orchestrated the lethal repression.

The grotesque military mindset behind these killings is that with time they will be forgotten and thus forever unresolved. But may the recovery of Kenji’s camera and the moving personal footage it contains revive the call for justice and remind the world of the brutality and lies that have long characterized Myanmar’s military rule.

Then as now, killing with impunity is deeply engrained in the Myanmar military’s DNA and until the soldiers and their commanders responsible for Kenji’s murder are brought to account in court, if not locally than internationally, then the lethal silencing of journalists will endure.

Myanmar authorities have long sought to whitewash the circumstances of Kenji’s killing, claiming he was shot by an unknown shooter from a long distance and not by a soldier at point-blank range—as various media reports, including DVB’s on-the-spot footage of the fateful event, show was the case.

The Myanmar soldier who pulled the trigger has not been identified nor held to account for his crime against a working journalist, a killing that aimed to black out news reporting of the military’s lethal repression of anti-military street protestors involved in the then so-called Saffron Revolution.

The Japanese government, meanwhile, has after initial pursuit cynically allowed the case to go cold and forgotten over the years, and has implicitly helped to cover up the circumstances of Kenji’s murder by not publicly revealing the results of its own internal autopsy which reports indicate contradicts Myanmar’s official account.

An Asahi Shimbun report quoting a recently retired Japanese government pathologist, who was silenced while in government service but outspoken since, indicate Kenji was killed from a bullet at point-blank range and not by long-distance sniper fire, giving the lie to Myanmar’s official version of events.

Tokyo has shamefully prioritized maintaining good diplomatic relations and strong commercial ties with Myanmar’s generals over pursuing justice for Kenji’s murder.

That’s an important subtext to today’s event that hopefully the Japanese government will seek to reverse, particularly as the current military rulers continue to harass and target independent Japanese reporters.

While the return of the camera and the last shot footage it contains will hopefully bring a measure of closure to Kenji’s long-suffering family, who again have futilely sought the camera’s return from Myanmar authorities for over 15 years—it does nothing in respect to achieving justice for his death.

The military regime responsible for Kenji’s murder has been reincarnated in the junta government that is now terrorizing, shuttering, and literally killing Myanmar’s independent journalists and media outlets.

CPJ’s research shows at least four local journalists have been killed with impunity since coup-maker generals seized power from an elected government in February 2021.

Myanmar ranked eighth on CPJ’s 2022 Impunity Index, a ranking of countries worldwide where the killers of journalists go free. It marked the first time Myanmar appeared on our index, underscoring the severity of Myanmar’s post-coup press freedom crisis.

CPJ reporting shows several other reporters have been tortured while in military custody. And dozens are now languishing behind bars on trumped-up and bogus anti-state charges, including a handful of intrepid DVB reporters.

Make no mistake, Myanmar’s generals will continue to harass, jail, and kill media members as long as they feel they can get it away with it.

But may they be reminded today that the world hasn’t forgotten about Kenji’s murder at the military’s hands, nor will it give the regime a pass for the crimes it’s committing now, every day, against the independent journalists who literally risk life and limb to report the news.

The world is watching and CPJ will continue to call for justice until Myanmar’s journalist-killing soldiers are put where they belong, behind bars in the same prisons they now use to jail and silence the free press.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s event.

[Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the date of the press conference.]

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Jennifer Dunham.

In the western territory of Xinjiang, known as the Uyghur Autonomous Region, China has created intense surveillance networks to monitor and persecute the population. Cameras line the streets, as well as the doors of homes and mosques, anchoring a system of repression that has led to the mass detention of thousands of people.

Hikvision’s cameras make up a large part of this system. But the world’s largest security camera manufacturer has always denied their complicity in the violation of human rights against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

In 2019, facing increasing U.S. sanctions, Hikvison commissioned a human rights review of its five largest police projects in Xinjiang, which has a population of over 25 million. The company hired Pierre-Richard Prosper, the former ambassador-at-large for war crimes in the Bush administration State Department and a war crimes prosecutor at the United Nations in the late 1990s.

The full review remained secret, but Hikvision released one sentence saying the company did not knowingly engage in human rights abuses. A recent leaked recording, however, illustrated how much more Hikvision actually knew — and that these Hikvision projects were connected to companies that the U.S. just sanctioned.

The outer wall of a complex which includes what is believed to be a reeducation camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan in China’s western Xinjiang region on May 31, 2019.

Photo: Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Surveillance cameras are seen outside the headquarters of Chinese security technology company Hikvision in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province on May 22, 2019.

Photo: Chinatopix via AP

Related

▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​▄​

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Georgia Gee.

WVUE Fox8 News photojournalist Steven A. Wolfram told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was repeatedly attacked by a man while reporting on shooting deaths in Slidell, Louisiana, on March 29, 2023.

Wolfram said he and WVUE reporter Olivia Vidal were filming outside a home where police had discovered what appeared to be a murder-suicide following a standoff with SWAT officers. Vidal told the Tracker two other news crews were at the scene, and that family members had made it clear they did not want to speak to the press and didn’t want anyone approaching the house. By approximately 8 a.m. the other news crews had left the scene.

Vidal told the Tracker that when preparing for the 9 a.m. live broadcast, she asked Wolfram to keep an eye out, as something felt off. When they completed the report, Wolfram left the station’s camera and live unit set up on a tripod and he and Vidal returned to their vehicle.

“This young man starts marching toward the camera,” Wolfram said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’ve been doing it in some of the toughest neighborhoods in New Orleans. I wasn’t expecting it, and I think that was my first mistake.”

Wolfram said he got out of the car and tried to deescalate the situation and explain why they were there, but the man grabbed the tripod, camera and live unit and threw it on the ground. Though Wolfram was able to soften the blow, a piece of the wireless microphone broke.

While he was turned away, the man struck Wolfram in the side of the head.

“My first thought was, ‘I can’t believe that didn’t knock me out,’” Wolfram said. “I was stunned but was able to retreat back to the car. He starts banging on the window. We told him, ‘We’re calling the cops! We’re calling the cops!’”

Vidal said the man came around to the passenger side where she was sitting, attempted to open the door and continued pounding on the glass.

Three individuals pulled the attacker away, providing an opportunity for Wolfram to retrieve the equipment and load it into the vehicle. When Wolfram attempted to photograph the man to show police, the man once again charged the photojournalist.

Wolfram said the man missed making contact and fell, then got up to charge him again. That’s when he grabbed the man by the collar and tried to restrain him on the ground. The other individuals intervened again and separated the man from the photojournalist.

Wolfram said he drove the vehicle around the corner to distance the pair of journalists from the situation while waiting for the police. The man broke away from the group restraining him and ran to a nearby car, Wolfram said, where he reached into the glove box.

“At that point we got the hell out of there,” Wolfram said. “This guy wanted to hurt me if not kill me, and I saw him go run for a weapon.”

Vidal told the Tracker three officers and an ambulance met the journalists in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant. Wolfram sought medical care after speaking with sheriff’s deputies about the incident, and reported minor injuries.

The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a summons was issued in connection with the incident for simple assault and criminal damage.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

On February 8, three men threatened and attacked a three-person crew for Top Channel‘s investigative TV show Fiks Fare, consisting of reporter Antela Lika, camera operator Daniel Shkulaku, and driver Mark Arra, according to reports by the broadcaster and SafeJournalists, a regional website tracking violence against journalists, as well as Denisa Haxhiaj, the show’s deputy director, who communicated with CPJ via email.

“Albanian authorities must conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the recent attack on Top Channel reporter Antela Lika and her crew, find the perpetrators, and hold them to account,” said CPJ Europe Representative Attila Mong. “Journalists covering environmental issues are acting on behalf of the public; attacking or intimidating them is totally unacceptable and just shows that the attackers have something to hide.”

The team was using a drone to film an alleged illegal mining operation near the town of Fushe Kruje in central Albania when a man shot at the drone, forcing the crew to land it, according to those sources and video published by Top Channel.

Three armed men, one of them wearing a mask, then approached the crew, pointed guns at them, and demanded they leave the area and delete their footage. When they refused, one of the men grabbed the camera out of Shkulaku’s hand, hit him, and threw the camera to the ground, breaking it, according to those reports and Haxhiaj.

The crew escaped after about 30 minutes and then met with police, according to those reports. The Albanian national police are investigating the incident and have identified two of the attackers but no arrests have been made as of Thursday, according to SafeJournalists and Haxhiaj.

Haxhiaj said Shkulaku suffered minor bruises, but was doing well.

During a joint press freedom mission to Albania in November 2022, CPJ and other press freedom organizations found that the safety of journalists continues to be an issue in the country.

“While serious physical assaults remain rare, recent cases of violence against journalists underscore the threats media professionals face due to their work. Delays in efforts to bring those responsible for attacks to justice results in impunity,” the joint statement said.

CPJ emailed the Albanian national police for comment, but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

The national in-charge of the BJP’s information technology department, Amit Malviya, tweeted this video with the same claim. Malviya accused the Congress party of exploiting religious sentiments for political gain. (Archived link)

Everything is choreographed in Bharat Jodo Yatra including who should be called in to tie the turban and its colour. What is offensive though is Rahul Gandhi refusing to wear the turban when there were no cameras…Exploiting religious sentiments for politics is in Congress’s DNA. pic.twitter.com/PFTr5P68r4

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) January 11, 2023

BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa made a similar claim while tweeting the viral video. He called the Bharat Jodo Yatra a gimmick. (Archived link)

“ अभी नहीं बाँधूँगा” – कैमरा और मीडिया वाले नहीं थे तो @RahulGandhi ने सिर पर दस्तार सजाने से मना कर दिया

भारत जोड़ो यात्रा में “टी-शर्ट” से लेकर “दस्तार” तक…हर हरकत एक नौटंकी और लिखी हुई स्क्रिप्ट का हिस्सा है

गांधी परिवार का सिख विरोधी चेहरा एक बार फिर बेनक़ाब@ANI @republic pic.twitter.com/9ioD3DoAJn

— Manjinder Singh Sirsa (@mssirsa) January 11, 2023

BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga also tweeted this clip claiming that Rahul Gandhi refused to don the turban in the absence of any cameras. (Archived link)

For @Rahulgandhi everything is for Votes and PR. अभी नहीं बाँधूँगा, अभी कैमरे नहीं है pic.twitter.com/bBs5wNJzjI

— Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga (@TajinderBagga) January 11, 2023

Similarly, BJP leader Chetan Bragta and TV9 Bharatvarsh journalist Tanmay Shankar also amplified the video and accompanying claim.

Fact Check

Alt News noticed that the viral video contained a logo that read ‘News State Punjab’. We performed a keyword search using this information and found a Facebook page by the same name. Here, we found a high-quality version of the clip in circulation. It can be clearly heard in this video that Rahul Gandhi actually refused a woman’s request to pose with her for a picture. 

On the same Facebook page, we found an interview of Manjeet Singh Ferozpuria, the man who  tied the turban on Gandhi. Ferozpuria explains that he ties turbans for a living and has 18 years of experience. He was called to adorn the Congress chief with the dastar.

A video capturing this can also be found on his YouTube channel.

We reached out to Ferozpuria for more information on this matter. He explained that just as he was about to tie the dastar on Gandhi’s head, a woman approached him, asking to take a picture. In response, the leader stated that he did not want to be photographed now, and would do so after the turban was tied. Manjeet also sent us a recording of his statement in which he is refuting the allegation leveled against Rahul Gandhi by BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

To sum it up, several BJP leaders shared a video of Rahul Gandhi falsely claiming that he refused to wear a turban in the absence of cameras. In reality, a woman approached him while he was in the middle of getting the turban tied. When she asked to take a picture with him, he refused, saying that he would do so after the turban was fixed.

The post Did Rahul Gandhi refuse to wear turban in absence of camera? False claim by BJP leaders appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Lauren Crosby Medlicott.

Arrested last month while flying through New York’s Kennedy International Airport on this way to a conference on the trade in endangered species, Kry is accused of abusing his position as director of Cambodia's Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity to facilitate the illicit export of endangered long-tailed macaques.

Lawyers retained for Kry by the Cambodian Embassy in Washington have maintained his innocence, as has the Agriculture Ministry, which includes Kry’s department. 

As part of a bail proposal to get him out of Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, the embassy last week offered to house Kry within its own premises as he awaits trial. A New York magistrate judge accepted Ambassador Keo Chhea’s offer on Monday, pending an appeal from prosecutors, who registered their objections on Tuesday.

Caught on camera

Lead prosecutor Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald rejected the claims of lawyers for the ambassador and Kry that the Cambodian wildlife official “does not represent a flight risk.” 

Not only do the crimes Kry is accused of carry lengthy sentences, but the evidence against him is “very strong,” Watts-Fitzgerald wrote in a motion to the court. In particular, he revealed for the first time that the U.S. authorities possess video evidence of Kry’s alleged role in the monkey smuggling plot.

“The defendant was captured on video delivering the illegally captured NHPs [non-human primates] to the putative ‘breeding facility’ where they were ‘laundered’ through the system, crated, and shipped, all under the cover of fraudulent paperwork,” Watts-Fitzgerald wrote.

At a Dec. 5 bail hearing, Ian McGinley, one of Kry’s lawyer’s, challenged the strength of the evidence against his client, noting that the last overtly criminal act alleged against Kry in the indictment took place in 2020. “If the evidence was so strong, they would have indicted him sooner,” McGinley said.

Kry and his direct superior Keo Omaliss, director of Cambodia’s Forestry Administration, were indicted earlier this year alongside six alleged co-conspirators, the owner and employees of Hong Kong-headquartered macaque breeder Vanny Bio Research. 

Together the eight are accused of illegally capturing wild macaques in Cambodia and Thailand and passing them off as having been bred in captivity at Vanny Bio Research’s two Cambodian breeding centers before exporting them to the U.S. for use in medical research.

Long-tailed macaques, also known as crab-eating macaques or cynomolgus monkeys, are prized by medical researchers for their physiological similarity to humans. They were one of three monkey breeds found to be receptive to the COVID-19 virus, and so played a crucial role in the development of vaccines against the virus.

Between 2017 and 2021, Cambodia reported exporting 93,834 long-tailed macaques globally. The U.S. imported 76,568 of them, more than half of which arrived in 2020 following the start of the pandemic.

To insure against contamination during experiments, only captive-bred macaques are supposed to be used in research. But because female macaques only give birth roughly once every two years and nurse their young for 420 days, breeding new specimens is a costly and time-consuming process. 

As such, many commercial breeders are incentivized to pass off wild-caught monkeys as captive bred to meet high demand. It is precisely this that Kry, Keo and Vanny Bio Research are accused of.

Flight risk

In opposing the bail request, Watts-Fitzgerald raised the possibility that members of the Cambodian government might help Kry to flee the country.

“The defendant’s connections to a GOC [Government of Cambodia] Department, and to a more highly placed co-defendant suggest that despite the sequestration of his passport, he may enjoy support within his government,” Watts-Fitzgerald wrote. “New travel documents and assistance in leaving the United States are a serious concern.”

The suggestion is a blunt rebuff to Ambassador Keo’s proposal last week that Kry could be effectively bailed into the custody of the embassy, which pledged to house Kry and guaranteed his attendance at trial under the deal. 

To secure the deal, the ambassador said he was willing to irrevocably waive the embassy’s diplomatic immunity, the guarantee under international law that embassy staff and premises will not be subjected to searches, arrest or interference from the authorities in their host country.

Watts-Fitzgerald argued in his motion on Tuesday that the proposal was “illusory and impracticable.” Firstly, he wrote, the embassy would be powerless to prevent Kry from fleeing while traveling the 500 miles between the Cambodian Embassy in Washington and Miami’s Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. federal courthouse, where his trial is set to take place.

“Once embarked on those trips, KRY would effectively be beyond the control of the embassy and free to flee the United States,” he wrote.

Less diplomatically, Watts-Fitzgerald questioned whether the Cambodian government would honor Ambassador Keo’s promise to irrevocably waive his embassy’s immunity.

“While the United States does not question the good faith of the current undertakings, they are subject to the future decisions of the GOC – including the possibility that the decision to waive the protections attached to Embassy premises may be revoked by that government,” he wrote.

“Sovereigns can be relied upon to act in their perceived best interests,” Watts-Fitzgerald added. “Should the policy or interests of the GOC be altered, and defendant be assisted in any way by diplomatic personnel to flee, there is little recourse for the United States or this Court.”

As of publication, Cambodian Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan and Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry had not responded to requests for comment on the suggestion that his government’s word might not be reliable.

At the Dec. 5 bail hearing, Mark MacDougall, another lawyer for Kry, had countered that such an about face was unlikely because “the consequences to the ambassador, to the embassy, and to the Government of Cambodia of violating the terms of this agreement would be enormous.”

If Ambassador Keo or any of his successors decide to help Kry escape, the strongest response open to the U.S. government would be to expel the ambassador, Watts-Fitzgerald argued.

“Since any such assistance would likely be at the direction of [the Government of Cambodia], the ‘recall’ of one of its diplomats would be of minimal effect,” he wrote.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jack Adamović Davies.

Tran Dinh Son, a 29-year-old Vietnamese YouTuber from the city’s Cu Chi district, runs the channel Đời thường TV, which has just over 10 followers.

He told RFA that communal police in the Tran Phu Trung district attacked him while he was making a fishing video on Monday. Son said he went fishing at a lake that also grows lotuses at the Tan Phu Trang industrial park, hoping to capture content that he would later put on his YouTube channel.

But Son says a security guard then came from the industrial park and asked him to stop fishing. After the two men argued for a while, Son says the guard called local police to come, who also asked him to leave. When he refused, Son says one of the police officers and the security guard took turns beating him. 

“A police officer slapped me two or three times and then held me so that the security guard could beat me. The three cops were very big while I was small. They hit me on the head and threatened me. While beating me the guard screamed ‘Give me your address, I’ll come kill your parents!’” Son said, recounting the details of the incident. 

Son says the police then subdued him and took him to the commune headquarters, where they confiscated the GoPro5 that he uses to create YouTube content, two cellphones, and his motorcycle before leaving. When other officers were assigned to deal with his case, Son says they asked him to write a report about the incident, which he refused to do, and demanded to know why he was violently beaten while he had not committed a crime. 

“At the police station, I was beaten again. They hit me a lot on my head and my arm with their bare hands. A police officer named Tai hit me and kicked me. Another strangled me and one who appeared to be the boss elbowed me in my face. Then they handcuffed me, knocked me down to the floor and dragged me to a room nearby and left me alone there.”

As Son shouted for help, a woman heard him and informed his mother, a local teacher. When Son’s mother, Nguyen Thi Ty, arrived at the headquarters, he said police agreed to remove his handcuffs and then repeated their request for him to write a report about the incident, where he would admit to “illegally” fishing at the park. 

Son says the police added that they would return all his belongings on condition that he deleted the videos of them beating him.

When police returned his belongings, they asked him to fill out a handover note. However, Son says some parts of his GoPro 5, which costs VND4 million (around USD $170), were destroyed. 

When the officers left for a break while he was filling out his paperwork and did not return, Son and his mother left the station. Another group of police officers, however, stopped him from going to the hospital to treat his injuries, he said.

One of the officers, surnamed Hai, asked Son to return the handover note that he filled out at the police station, threatening him with charges of “stealing state data” if he refused. 

In a video filmed at Son’s home, Hai, who was in uniform, denied having beaten Son. 

RFA contacted the Tan Phu Trung commune police office to verify the incident. However, the officers who answered the phone said they could not provide a response unless a reporter came directly to their office.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written by Nawar Nemeh.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The post In the Amazon, Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Camera Lens appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ed Rampell.

WCHS Eyewitness News Reporter Bob Aaron was assaulted on Aug. 4, 2022, in Putnam County, West Virginia, while reporting on the sheriff's plan to remove abandoned cars on roads and yards.

According to Aaron, who reported the incident in a newscast, he was nearly run over while filming the abandoned cars stationed along a main county road by a man who did not want him filming.

The reporter said the individual got out of his car and ripped the camera from his hands. Aaron, who did not respond to a request for comment from the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, reported that the man broke the camera light off and refused to return the camera until Putnam County Sheriff's deputies were called to the scene.

WCHS reported that Putnam County Sheriff Bobby Eggleton announced his intention to enforce a clean-up plan to remove the vehicles from public and private locations, adding that some had not moved for more than 20 years. Eggleton told WCHS the announcement provoked an “emotional response from residents in the county” who feared authorities would take their property. Eggleton said in a video posted to Facebook that it was not a county ordinance but in accordance with state law.

The sheriff’s office could not be reached for comment.

In an article about the altercation, WCHS said Aaron, 75, was doing fine and that there were pending charges against the man who attacked him.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

“Police are not the customers for Ring; the people who buy the devices are the customers.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Sam Biddle.

Around 5 a.m. on May 26, an unidentified person shot Ávila in the head while the journalist rode his motorcycle in Santa Cruz village near the department capital Choluteca, according to a report by C-Libre, a Honduran freedom of expression group. Ávila was taken to a hospital in the capital city Tegucigalpa where he died on May 29, according to a report by the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America.

C-Libre director Amada Ordoñez disputed the Honduran police comment that Ávila had been the victim of a robbery, telling CPJ by phone that the journalist’s belongings, including his money, cellphone, and motorcycle, were found with him, and adding that “C-Libre has confirmed that it was not a common robbery.”

“Honduran authorities should thoroughly investigate the killing of cameraman and TV host Ricardo Ávila and determine if he was attacked for his journalism,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program coordinator, in New York. “Honduras must end the pervasive impunity for the killings of journalists and conduct a thorough investigation to bring the killer to justice.”

Ávila, 25, worked as a camera operator and hosted a weekend news show for local independent station Metro TV. He covered social movements in Choluteca and protests against controversial economic development zones, known as ZEDEs, Ordoñez told CPJ. Metro TV is the only local outlet to cover these protests, Ordoñez said, adding that C-Libre believes the attack was in retaliation for Ávila’s reporting on these topics.

Since 1992, at least eight journalists in Honduras have been murdered in connection with their work, according to CPJ research. CPJ is investigating 27 additional cases to determine whether their deaths had any connection with their reporting.

CPJ messaged the Honduran security minister via a messaging app and messaged Metro TV on social media but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

After someone — we still don’t know who — leaked a Supreme Court “draft opinion” in Dobbs v. Jackson (the case in which the Court is widely expected to overturn Roe v. Wade), Chief Justice John Roberts  characterized the leak as a “betrayal … intended to undermine the integrity of our operations …. a singular and egregious breach of that trust.”

Emory Law professor (and former SCOTUS law clerk) Alexander Volokh explains succinctly, via CBS Atlanta, why Court prioritizes confidentiality and why the leak is so controversial: “Justices rely on the ability to be candid.”

Something about that claim reminds me of another recent, and very different, controversy:

Throughout the various investigations of former president Donald Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021  Capitol riot, Trump and his lawyers have fought tooth and nail to prevent the release of documents to the US House Committee exploiti … er, investigating … that event by the US National Archives, on grounds of “executive privilege.”

I’ve argued (and the courts seem to agree) that even if “executive privilege” is justifiable, it inheres in an office (e.g. the presidency), not a person (e.g. Trump). That is, the power to release or not release presidential documents belongs to the current president, not whichever former president may have happened to generate those documents.

I got some pushback on that argument from more than one acquaintance, and their counter-arguments universally went something like this:

“If a president asks for my advice, will I give my best advice if I have to worry that whatever I say may eventually become public?”

The “would I be candid if what I say wasn’t kept secret?” argument doesn’t carry any weight with me.

If you want to wield power over, and collect a paycheck from, the public, what you say and do pursuant such activities is the public’s business.

If you’re not comfortable with the public knowing what you’re up to, there are plenty of jobs to choose from in the private sector.

If you’re not willing to be “candid” with the public you claim to work for, you’re not a “public servant,” you’re a “public enemy.”

I’m not big on creating new government sinecures, but if Allen Funt still walked among us we could do worse than to appoint him to the position of “transparency czar.”

Government activity shouldn’t take place — at any level or in any department — “in camera.” It should all take place on Candid Camera.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

Independent photojournalist Josh Pacheco lost a camera during a skirmish while covering a reproductive rights rally that was met with a counterprotest in Los Angeles, California, on May 14, 2022.

JP told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that they arrived at the “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally outside of Los Angeles City Hall at about 11 a.m. to document the event and was heading toward the staging area where speakers were set to deliver remarks.

“I didn’t even make it to the stage because as soon as I got there, I immediately walked into a confrontation,” JP said.

A group of individuals had locked arms to create a barrier to keep counter protesters, who were demonstrating nearby, from engaging with those at the rally. The groups clashed after one individual pushed through the barrier.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

WKYC 3 Studios photojournalist Craig Roberson was harassed by individuals and his camera damaged while covering an arrest in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 22, 2022.

WOIO 19 News reported that journalists from multiple broadcast stations were covering a tense standoff in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood connected to a viral video of two men pointing guns at a police officer.

Kelly Kennedy, an investigative reporter with the WOIO team on scene, said in a report for the outlet that a few nearby residents were angry that there were journalists filming.

“When we got to the scene, some neighbors were really angry when they saw our cameras and one man actually tried to grab one of our photographers’ cameras and then he actually knocked over another TV station’s camera and broke it,” Kennedy said, referring to Roberson’s equipment.

According to the police report, the $9,000 WKYC camera was destroyed and broken into multiple pieces. The man was charged with felony vandalism, punishable by 6 to 18 months in prison and up to a $5,000 fine.

When reached for comment, WKYC President and General Manager Micki Byrnes confirmed that Roberson’s camera was damaged and that he was unharmed; Roberson did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

WOIO’s Kennedy wrote on Twitter that everyone was OK, and that the incident was just one example of the kind of harassment journalists face daily when just trying to do their jobs.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Philadelphia Inquirer (3/29/22)

This week on CounterSpin: A longtime reporter, at Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV since the 1960s, remembered spending shifts in his early days just listening to a police scanner, waiting for a crime to happen. The station’s decision to adopt a then-novel “Action News” format dictated that hyper-focus on crime. But, as detailed in a new report from the Philadelphia Inquirer, it also dictated that the scanner being monitored was in Kensington, a multi-racial, working-class neighborhood struggling with poverty and its attendant ills—and not someplace else.

“Lights. Camera. Crime” is an early installment of the Inquirer‘s “A More Perfect Union” project, aimed at examining the roots and branches of racism in US institutions, including media institutions. The story was reported by Layla A. Jones. We’ll speak to Layla Jones today on CounterSpin.

Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent coverage of FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, war coverage and “grooming.”

The post Layla A. Jones on ‘Lights. Camera. Crime’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

“We are deeply saddened by the death of Ukrainian journalist Yevhenii Sakun, who was killed in a reckless Russian attack on civilian infrastructure in Kyiv,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “All parties to the conflict must protect local and international journalists and stop targeting media facilities and equipment.”

Sakun, 49, was a camera operator for the Ukrainian television station LIVE, which had covered the Russian invasion, according to a post on Twitter by his former colleague, EFE Noticias reporter Olga Tokariuk, and a post on Facebook by Sergiy Tomilenko, the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, a local professional union. Tomilenko told CPJ via email that Sakun was working along with his colleagues at the time of the attack, and his body was identified by his press card.

Tomilenko told CPJ and wrote on Facebook that the Ukrainian National Police had confirmed Sakun’s death to the journalist’s union.

Four other people were killed in that attack, according to reports. Russian forces also shelled TV towers in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Lisichansk on Wednesday, according to news reports, which did not immediately report any casualties in those attacks.

Separately, on February 26, two journalists with the Danish newspaper Esktra Bladet were shot while reporting near the eastern Ukrainian city of Ohtyrka, according to news reports, a report by their employer, and Esktra Bladet chief editor Knud Brix, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

The journalists were reporting from the location of a suspected Russian airstrike when a bomb exploded nearby them and unidentified attackers fired “20 or 30 rounds” at the journalists, Brix said, hitting reporter Stefan Weichert once in the shoulder and photographer Emil Filtenborg Mikkelsen three times: twice in his legs, and once in his back.

The journalists were able to escape the scene and received treatment at a local hospital, Brix told CPJ, adding that they were in stable condition and were expected to recover.

Brix said that both journalists wore protective equipment that identified them as members of the press, and had shouted “press!” while they were under attack.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• U.S. reports record daily COVID-19 death toll as L.A. County says morgues are full.
• San Francisco indefinitely extends Stay Safer at Home public health orders.
• Maskless conservative Evangelicals clash with protesters in L.A. on Skid Row.
• Senate leader Mitch McConnell blocks vote on $2,000 stimulus checks, for 3rd day in a row.
• Family of Andre Hill speak out after police release body camera footage of his fatal shooting.

The post U.S. reports record daily COVID-19 death toll as L.A. County says morgues are full; Senate leader Mitch McConell blocks vote on $2,000 stimulus checks, for 3rd day in a row; Andre Hill’s family speak out after police body camera footage of his fatal shooting released appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.