Mostafa has faced threats, surveillance, and online gender-based violence across several countries—including Germany, Switzerland, Kenya, and Lebanon—in connection with her reporting as documented by the UN Special Rapporteurs’ report (AL EGY 6/2024).

Egypt remains one of the world’s top perpetrators of transnational repression, employing tactics such as arresting journalists’ relatives, blocking exiled media outlets, targeting journalists with spyware, and denying consular services.

Read the full statement in English here and Arabic here.

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

The main suspect – a man in his 30s who stabbed Akaravong three times in the throat and torso on Saturday – was arrested on Tuesday in Nîmes, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) from the city of Pau, Pau public prosecutor Rodolphe Jarry said in a statement on Wednesday. The suspects were not named.

Akaravong was rushed to a hospital in Pau in critical condition after the attack. His condition has since stabilized, Jarry told French media.

The public prosecutor’s office in Pau has launched an investigation into what they are referring to as an “attempted assassination.” Authorities did not confirm if the attack was politically motivated at this time, reported France’s Le Monde.

Human rights advocates say the attack fits a broader pattern of targeting activists abroad. Rights group Manushya Foundation described the attack as an example of “transnational repression.”

“The attack on Joseph is part of a dangerous and escalating pattern, in which authoritarian regimes continue to monitor, pressure, and even harm activists across borders,” the foundation said in a statement.

Akaravong, one of the most prominent critics of the communist government in Laos, fled the Southeast Asian nation in 2018 after criticizing the collapse of a saddle dam at the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower project in Attapeu province that killed dozens of villagers. He was granted political asylum in France in March 2022, the foundation said.

According to the Manushya Foundation, Akaravong was attacked while he was meeting with another Lao woman activist who had recently traveled to France after completing a five-year prison sentence in Laos last September for her criticism of the government on Facebook.

The foundation did not name the woman activist, but last September, Houayheuang Xayabouly was freed from prison in southern Laos. She was arrested in September 2019 after she criticized the government on Facebook for delaying a flood rescue effort.

In recent years, other Lao activists have gone missing or faced violence both inside Laos and outside the country, typically in neighboring Thailand.

The Pau public prosecutor’s office did not immediately respond to RFA’s request for comments.

Written by Tenzin Pema. Edited by Mat Pennington.

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

Hong Kong police have questioned two relatives of actor and journalist Joe Tay in the latest case of authorities targeting the family of wanted overseas pro-democracy activists.

Tay, who lives in Canada, is among six pro-democracy campaigners that the Hong Kong government in December accused of violating a national security law, offering rewards of HK$1 million (US$130,000) for help in arresting them. The six were accused of crimes including incitement to secession, subversion of state power, and collusion with foreign forces.

Tay has lived in Canada since 2020. In 2021, he set up a YouTube channel, HongKongerStation, focusing on Chinese government repression in Hong Kong. He recently ran, unsuccessfully, as a Conservative Party candidate in Canada’s federal election.

On Thursday, officers from Hong Kong’s National Security Department brought in Tay’s cousin and the cousin’s spouse for questioning, Hong Kong media reported. After several hours, they were released and escorted out by police.

In response to media inquiries, Hong Kong police confirmed that two individuals had been summoned on Thursday to assist in an investigation. They added that the case remains under investigation and no arrests have been made.

Earlier this month, a 57-year-old male cousin of Tay and that cousin’s spouse were also taken from their home by national security police for questioning and later released.

Authorities allege that Tay, 62, violated the National Security Law by publishing videos and posts promoting Hong Kong independence and calling for foreign sanctions on China and Hong Kong, including invoking the Magnitsky Act – U.S. legislation to sanction human rights abusers - to target Hong Kong officials.

Hong Kong authorities in recent weeks have questioned the relatives of other accused activists, including the parents of Frances Hui, a pro-democracy advocate based in the United States.

Earlier this month, Hong Kong police made the first formal prosecution of a relative of a wanted individual. They charged Anna Kwok’s father, Kwok Yin-sang, with “attempting to handle the assets of an absconder,” making him the first family member prosecuted under the National Security Law passed last year. Kwok, 68, was granted bail last week.

Anna Kwok is executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

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

“Blocking journalist Ahmad Noorani’s YouTube channel and filing a criminal case against him is indicative of Pakistan’s relentless campaign against exiled journalists,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “It also appears that the journalist’s family is being targeted back home in Pakistan. The brutal intimidation of journalists and their families must stop, and the Pakistan government must allow the media to report freely.”

On May 12, YouTube told Noorani that it had blocked his channel, with 173,000 followers, in Pakistan based on a legal complaint from the government, according to the journalist and a copy of YouTube’s email, reviewed by CPJ.

On May 13, Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency opened an investigation into Noorani, accusing him of running hate campaigns against the armed forces, under the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, for which he could face up to three years imprisonment.

The investigators cited two of Noorani’s posts on the social media platform X that criticized Pakistan’s army during last week’s conflict with India, according to a copy of the First Information Report (FIR), reviewed by CPJ.

On March 18, about two dozen individuals identifying themselves as police forcibly entered and searched Noorani’s family home in the capital Islamabad and took his two brothers to an undisclosed location for 30 days.

U.S.-based Noorani told CPJ that he believed his brothers’ forced disappearance was because of his March 17 investigative report, which said the military was misusing its influence over civilian institutions.

CPJ’s text message to information minister Attaullah Tarar requesting comment received no response.

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

Myanmar’s exiled civilian government held a meeting with the chair of the regional bloc ASEAN for the first time, amid mounting international pressure over the bloc’s engagement with the war-torn country’s military regime.

The virtual talks between delegates from the National Unity Government, or NUG, and Anwar Ibrahim, the Malaysian Prime Minister who also serves as the bloc’s chair, focused on Myanmar’s worsening humanitarian crisis, compounded by ongoing civil conflict as well as a recent devastating earthquake, according to the NUG.

“What we have said continuously is that we want ASEAN to simply recognize, accept and understand Myanmar’s reality. We think it’s a start,” Nay Bone Latt, the spokesperson for the NUG’s Prime Minister’s Office, told Radio Free Asia.

“We hope that more than this, the Myanmar people will be better understood and from this, we can probably come to create a good situation.”

Ibrahim also expressed hopeful views, calling the conversation “constructive.”

“Trust-building remains essential, and it is vital that this continues to be an ASEAN-led effort,” he said on his X social media account. “We will continue to engage all parties in support of peace, reconciliation and the well-being of the people of Myanmar.”

Ibrahim’s move is widely seen as an effort to balance or mitigate criticism following a separate in-person meeting on Thursday in Bangkok between him and junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, which was also attended by Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The leaders discussed aid by ASEAN in the aftermath of last month’s earthquake that killed more than 3,700 people in Myanmar, the country’s state-run broadcaster MRTV reported.

The ASEAN has played a frequent, though largely ineffective, role in trying to resolve Myanmar’s deepening civil war since the junta seized power in a 2021 coup.

In the aftermath of the coup, ASEAN put forward the Five-Point Consensus – a peace framework calling for an immediate end to violence, the delivery of humanitarian aid, the release of political prisoners, and inclusive dialogue involving all parties.

However, Myanmar’s junta has consistently defied these conditions while remaining a member of the bloc. As a result, ASEAN has barred the junta’s political representatives from its high-level summits but has stopped short of taking more forceful action.

Critics say the bloc’s principle of non-interference has rendered it powerless to hold the junta accountable, allowing the regime to prolong the conflict without consequence. Human rights groups and pro-democracy advocates have also accused ASEAN of legitimizing the military by continuing to engage with it diplomatically.

Several ceasefires – including China-brokered ones – have repeatedly collapsed, as fighting between the military and dozens of ethnic rebel groups and pro-democracy forces continues to rage across the country.

‘Step forward’

For Myanmar’s opposition groups, the meeting marks a rare and significant step forward, said China-based analyst Hla Kyaw Zaw.

“For ASEAN, this is the first time it has formally engaged with revolutionary forces,” she said. “Strangely, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing accepted this time that the ASEAN chairperson would meet with the NUG.”

Her remarks refer to Ibrahim’s statement that the junta did not object when he informed them of his plan to speak with representatives of the NUG – a shift in tone, given the junta’s previous stance.

Since the 2021 coup, the military regime has labeled the NUG and its allies as “terrorists” and has consistently opposed any international recognition or engagement with them.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Taejun Kang.

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

The WUC said in a statement Wednesday that Dilshat Reshit, has been its Chinese-language spokesman since 2004. The WUC said its presidency had decided at an emergency meeting to remove Reshit from his position “in line with our commitment to integrity, transparency, and the safety of our community.”

Reports citing the Swedish prosecution authority said an unnamed Uyghur resident of Stockholm had been detained a the weekend on suspicion of spying on fellow Uyghurs in Sweden. The WUC said that a court document identified the individual as Reshit.

RFA was not able to contact Reshit or a legal representative for him for comment.

The WUC is the main global umbrella group advocating for Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group that is severely persecuted inside China.

Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement Wednesday that the man “is suspected of having illegally collected information and intelligence on people in the Uyghur environment on behalf of the Chinese intelligence service,” Reuters reported.

The Chinese embassy in Sweden told Reuters in an email it was not aware of the case and did not comment further.

The WUC statement provided no further explanation about how their organization was allegedly infiltrated by someone spying for Beijing, but said it has long warned of the international reach of Chinese espionage networks.

It said it has implemented “internal counterintelligence measures” but “we lack the institutional and financial resources to confront the full scale and sophistication of transnational repression on our own.” It called for closer cooperation with foreign governments on counterintelligence.

The statement said China’s efforts to silence dissent abroad “not only endanger the safety and cohesion of Uyghur diaspora communities, but also pose a direct threat to the sovereignty, public safety, and national security of host countries.”

China is deeply sensitive, and summarily rejects, international criticism of its harsh treatment of Uyghurs, which researchers say is well-documented and which the U.S. government says amounts to genocide.

In 2022, a United Nations report said that China’s “arbitrary and discriminatory detention” of Uyghurs and other Muslims in the far western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity.

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

Around midnight on March 18, about two dozen individuals, identifying themselves as police, forcibly entered and searched Noorani’s family home in Islamabad. They assaulted the journalist’s two brothers, Mohammad Saif ur Rehman Haider and Mohammad Ali, dragged them into vehicles, and took them to an undisclosed location, according to Noorani, his mother, and a copy of a petition about the abductions  filed by the family’s lawyers with the Islamabad High Court, which CPJ reviewed. Noorani and the petition identify the abductors as agents of Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence.

Khehtran disappeared on March 13 from his home district of Barkhan in Balochistan province, and there has been no information about his whereabouts, according to independent news outlet ANI news and human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari, who is following the case and spoke to CPJ.

“It is deeply concerning that journalist Asif Karim Khehtran, as well as Mohammad Saif ur Rehman Haider and Mohammad Ali, brothers of journalist Ahmed Noorani, have been forcibly disappeared. This is indicative of a severe media crackdown in Pakistan,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must ensure their safety, immediately release them, and respect the rule of law.”

On March 17, Noorani published an investigative report detailing the alleged control that Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, has consolidated since assuming the country’s top military position in 2022. Both Noorani and the petition filed on behalf of his family in the Islamabad High Court claim that this report led to the enforced disappearance of his brothers.

In 2024, Khehtran had faced persistent threats from military authorities, who pressured him to halt his reporting on human rights issues in Balochistan. His family members had previously been forcibly disappeared, as well, according to Mazari.

Noorani is a journalist with the investigative news website FactFocus, which extensively publishes on Pakistan, and Khehtran has worked with Daily Awami and Quetta Voice.

Abductions and forced disappearances of journalists in Pakistan have been widely documented, including the high-profile cases of Imran Riaz Khan and Sami Ibrahim, who were abducted in May 2023 and later released.

CPJ’s messages for comment to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar have received no response.

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

Hui’s assets--funds totaling more than US$300,000--were frozen by court order on Feb. 17 after an application by the city’s Department of Justice, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.

Hui had transferred this amount to his wife and mother prior to leaving the country in 2020, while he was out on bail.

The move comes amid an ongoing crackdown by Beijing on public dissent in Hong Kong under two security laws.

The statement said Hui had committed “numerous heinous crimes,” including “conspiring with foreign politicians in 2020 to forge documents and deceive the court with false information in order to obtain the court’s permission to leave Hong Kong while he was on bail,” and added that he had “jumped bail and absconded overseas.”

But Hui is also accused of committing offenses “endangering national security” overseas, the statement said, adding that he stands accused of “inciting secession” and “inciting subversion of state power,” as well as “colluding with foreign or external forces to endanger national security.”

Hui said the confiscation order was “absurd and a blatant violation of my human rights,” and a form of political retaliation amid the crackdown.

According to the government, Hui had transferred nearly $2.5 million Hong Kong dollars (US$321,500) in personal assets as gifts to his mother and wife before he skipped bail.

Under Hong Kong law, if a defendant benefits from committing an offense endangering national security and makes a gift at any time from six years before the date of prosecution onwards, the property held by the recipient of the gift may be regarded as the defendant’s property and confiscated, the spokesman said.

Laws against dissent

Since Beijing imposed the two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city and blamed “hostile foreign forces” for the resulting protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Many are continuing their activism and lobbying activists, yet they struggle with exile in some way, worrying about loved ones back home while facing threats to their personal safety from supporters of Beijing overseas

Hong Kong’s leaders have vowed to pursue activists in exile for life.

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Hui said in a post to his Facebook page that the money he had given to his mother and wife had been intended as living expenses in his absence.

“That works out at 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$1,286) a month over the six years since I left Hong Kong,” Hui said. “Some people might not even think that’s very much.”

“The people of Hong Kong can see all too clearly what is happening, and they’ll be sure to take their money overseas.”

He told RFA Mandarin in a later interview: “Luckily, my parents sold their home in Hong Kong a few years ago and transferred the proceeds elsewhere.”

‘No Money left in Hong Kong is safe.’

He said the authorities had already frozen his bank accounts in Hong Kong after he fled the city amid a crackdown on dissent and political opposition.

“What they confiscated on this occasion was our only asset left in Hong Kong,” he said. “This has shown us that our concerns were reasonable.”

“A regime that violates human rights will do anything, and no money left in Hong Kong is safe,” Hui said.

The government has also hit back at criticisms of the move.

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has noted the unfounded smear and malicious attacks online regarding the actions taken by the Court in accordance with the law,” the statement said. “The HKSAR Government strongly condemned and opposed this.”

The authorities “will do everything possible and use all legal means to pursue and combat criminals who endanger national security,” he said.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the authorities' claim that Hui’s writings on Patreon had somehow paid for the money given to his wife and mother were ridiculous.

“Now this precedent has been set, as long as they can attach a ‘national security’ label to it, everyone’s assets and personal freedom are under threat,” Sang said.

Taiwan-based Hong Kong activist Fu Tong said the move on Hui’s assets is very worrying for Hong Kongers in exile.

“I’m worried because their methods are escalating,” Fu said. “Anyone who continues to speak out overseas will find they can go after people you care about back in Hong Kong, to silence you.”

But he said he would continue to protest and advocate for the return of Hong Kong’s former freedoms.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

From his new home in Maryland in the United States, Linnith told Radio Free Asia about working as an Uber driver and trying to experiment with new music, but also generally “feeling lost.”

“In my country, I don’t have to work like this – 50 hours a week, or something like that,” he said last week.

After the coup, Linnith and many other artists took to the streets in protest. They also wrote music and posted on social media against the military dictatorship.

Subsequent crackdowns by the junta left hundreds dead and thousands in police custody as censorship and threats of violence forced many artists into hiding.

(Rebel Pepper illustration/RFA)

But the aftermath of the coup has also brought underground and ethnic artists into the spotlight, as widely popular anti-coup music proliferates both online and off and artists navigate a new music industry with unique challenges.

“Everything is different now, it’s not only the production, literally everything,” Linnith said, adding that he’s had to transition from making music in a major studio with a team and professional equipment to working independently.

“After the coup, I can make music in my bedroom with my laptop with one cheap mic. I don’t even have a soundproof room, you know? That’s it.”

Others are embracing the new underground nature of the music industry, where online platforms have given rise to popularity of new artists.

“My priority is politics, so I write down all these things that I think about politics that I think about in my rap,” said an underground rapper asking to be identified as T.G. “I talk about the military coup and how we should unite and fight them back to get democracy for our generation.”

New challenges

But addressing politics can be a matter of life and death.

At least three hip-hop artists have been arrested for their role in anti-junta movements, two later dying at the hands of the junta. Yangon-based 39-year-old Byu Har was arrested in 2023 for criticizing the military’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy on social media, and later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But others have met worse fates. Rapper and member of parliament for the ousted National League for Democracy party Phyo Zayar Thaw was executed in 2022. Similarly, San Linn San, a 29-year-old former rapper and singer, died after being denied medical treatment for a head injury sustained in prison linked to alleged torture, according to a family member.

Many others have been injured protesting the dictatorship.

Like many fleeing the country to avoid political persecution and to find work, much of the music industry has also shifted outside of Myanmar.

A former Yangon-based rapper who asked to be identified as her stage name, Youth Thu, for security reasons moved to Thailand when she saw her main job in e-commerce being affected by the coup and economic downturn.

“When I came here, I was trying to stay with my friends because I have no deposit money to get a room because I need to get a job first,” said a singer asking to be identified as her stage name, Youth Thu, for security reasons.

Now working at a bar in Bangkok, she’s starting to incorporate her experiences into music that will resonate with others in the Myanmar diaspora.

“I never expected these things. I never expected to be broke as [expletive deleted]. I never expected to live in that kind of hostel,” she said.

“Especially migrants from Myanmar who are struggling here, I’m representing that group so my songs will be coming out saying all my experiences.”

For those left inside the country, economic factors are also taking a toll on music production, Linnith said.

“Because of inflation, the exchange rates are horrible… All the gear, the prices are going so high, like two or three times what it was,” Linnith said. “So most people can’t upgrade their gear or if something is wrong, they can’t buy a new thing.”

Starting again

The challenges have also ushered in new music and different tastes from audiences, as well as a boom in the underground industry and in rap and grime, a type of electronic dance, artists told RFA.

T.G. said he’s seen a new appreciation for ethnic music coming from the country’s border regions, where languages other than Burmese dominate the music scene and everyday life. He’s also seen a revival of revolutionary music popularized in 1988, when student protests across Myanmar ended in a violent military coup that has drawn comparisons to the junta’s 2021 seizure of power.

“After the [2021] coup, a lot of people from the mainland, a lot of people are going to the ethnic places like Shan, Kachin, Karen and then, Karenni,” he said. “They started to realize there are a lot of people willing to have democracy, so they started to realize that ethnic people are also important for the country.”

Artists are also dealing with new feelings on a personal level. Depressed, anxious and struggling to cope with changing realities, Linnith and others have found new feelings to draw from.

“The lyrics are literally ‘I give everything, I don’t believe in anything. I’m lost.’ That’s the kind of feeling I’ve got at the moment…I wrote it in my head while I was driving, again and again and again,” he said.

“This is perfect timing, a perfect song for me…. Not just a perfect song, but the best song. It came from real feelings, real pain.”

Youth Thu says while her music isn’t inherently political, she is also writing about her new life in ways she hopes will resonate with her audience.

“I got to meet with other girls who are coming to Thailand to survive too. We have different goals, but still we are sharing lunch, sharing rooms, sharing the hostel – and they have no voice,” she said.

“I have a voice – voice means the songs. I can write a song, I can say I’m not afraid in the songs and include all these things.”

Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA.

Police took away Chung’s wife and son from their home on Tuesday morning “to assist in a national security police investigation,” according to multiple local media reports.

Chung, 64, a former researcher for the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute left for the U.K. in April 2022 after being questioned amid a city-wide crackdown on public dissent and political opposition to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

He is accused -- alongside Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung -- of “incitement to secession” after he “advocated independence” on social media and repeatedly called on foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing over the crackdown, according to a police announcement.

“I don’t really know how to explain this -- I can’t read their minds,” he told RFA Cantonese in an interview on Tuesday, after his wife and son were questioned.

“Some say that maybe they’re sending some kind of a signal to intimidate us,” he said. “I don’t want to speculate on that.”

But he said a “capable and responsible” government should also be able to deal with public opinion research.

“[They] should understand that public opinion actually exists, regardless of how you deal with it,” he said. “A capable government should be able to face up that, and deal with it.”

The Institute has published a number of politically sensitive reports in recent years, including poor popularity scores for the city’s leaders, and people’s perceptions of disappearing press freedom.

Police announced a warrant for Chung Kim-wah’s arrest and a HK$1 million (US$128,400) bounty on his head in December, making him one of 19 overseas activists wanted by the Hong Kong government.

Since Beijing imposed two national security laws banning public opposition and dissent in the city, blaming “hostile foreign forces” for the protests, hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet amid plummeting human rights rankings, shrinking press freedom and widespread government propaganda in schools.

Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Many are continuing their activism and lobbying activists, yet they struggle with exile in some way, worrying about loved ones back home while facing threats to their personal safety from supporters of Beijing overseas.

‘Intimidation’ tactics

The questioning of Chung’s family members came after national security police raided the home of the current head of the Institute, Robert Chung, to investigate whether he or the organization had provided any kind of assistance to Chung Kim-wah.

Chung Kim-wah told RFA Cantonese by text message that he hadn’t had any contact of any kind with Robert Chung since he left Hong Kong, other than a holiday greeting message.

He said the move could be a bid to intimidate the Institute ahead of its current research project on public opinion among Hong Kongers both in Hong Kong and overseas.

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National security police also said they had “conducted a surprise search on Jan. 13 based on a court warrant at a residential building and a commercial building unit on Hong Kong Island.”

While police declined to identify the person, he is widely assumed to have been the Institute’s current CEO, Robert Chung.

“The investigation believes that someone is suspected of using his organization to assist a wanted person who has fled overseas to continue to engage in acts endangering national security,” they said in a statement on the Hong Kong government website.

Police seized a batch of evidence, including computers, tablet devices, mobile phones and bank documents, and also “invited” a director and two staff members of the Institute to the police station to assist in the investigation, the statement said.

No arrests have yet been made in the investigation.

Ongoing investigation

Secretary for Security Chris Tang told journalists on Tuesday: “Whether or not this person or his organization assisted absconders has nothing to do with the research conducted by that organization.”

“We will only discover the truth through investigation,” he said.

Asked if public opinion researchers should now be worried about prosecution under the city’s national security legislation, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee warned people not to “contact, help or support” anyone who commits “crimes endangering national security.”

“As long as they do their work professionally and realistically and do not have any intention of endangering national security, I believe they can carry on their daily activities with peace of mind,” he told journalists on Tuesday.

Robert Chung told journalists on Jan. 9 that he had considered shutting down the Institute, but decided that it was better to continue for as long as it was allowed.

“I think, as a scientist and an intellectual, that I should speak the truth ... so we should do that because we are allowed to continue to search for such truth as we can find,” he said.

He said he had had “little contact” with Chung Kim-wah since he left Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei, Yam Chi Yau.

“Guatemalan authorities must end their baseless pursuit of journalist Juan Luis Font, drop all criminal proceedings against him, and ensure he can return home to work safely and without fear of retaliation,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “Using the justice system to persecute journalists is a blatant tactic of intimidation that undermines press freedom and democratic principles.”

In March 2022, the former communications minister Alejandro Sinibaldi accused Font of unlawfully associating with former anti-corruption judge Erika Aifán, pointing to Font’s radio interviews with Judge Aifán and tweets in which Font criticized “criminal groups” for allegedly harassing the judge. 

Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. for obstructing corruption investigations, told digital news outlet Xela News that Font had a “pre-existing relationship” with Aifán, citing the fact that Font and Aifán have followed each other on the social media platform X since 2020.

Font told CPJ he denies the allegations, describing them as part of a campaign to discredit him. If convicted, Font faces a potential prison sentence of six to eight years under Guatemalan law.

Font left Guatemala in March 2022 due to harassment.

CPJ’s WhatsApp message to the prosecutor’s office spokesperson for comment did not receive a response.

CPJ has extensively documented how Guatemala’s judicial system and prosecutor’s office misuse criminal law to harass and silence journalists. This includes the case of journalist José Rubén Zamora, who spent more than two years in prison and is currently under house arrest awaiting a retrial.

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

Governor Powes Parkop of Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby has appealed to West Papuans living in his country to carry on the self-determination struggle for future generations and to not lose hope.

Parkop, a staunch supporter of the West Papua cause, reminded Papuans at their Independence Day last Sunday of the struggles of their ancestors, reports Inside PNG.

“PNG will celebrate 50 years of Independence next year but this is only so for half of the island — the other half is still missing, we are losing our land, we are losing our resources.

• READ MORE: West Papuans in Port Moresby host family day
• Other West Papua reports

“If we are not careful, we are going to lose our future too.”

The National Capital District governor was guest speaker for the celebration among Port Moresby residents of West Papuan descent with the theme “Celebrating and preserving our culture through food and the arts”.

About 12,000 West Papuan refugees and exiles live in PNG and Parkop has West Papuan ancestry through his grandparents.

The Independence Day celebration began with everyone participating in the national anthem — “Hai Tanaku Papua” (“My Land, Papua”).

Song and dance
Other activities included song and dance, and a dialogue with the young and older generations to share ideas on a way forward.

Some stalls were also set up selling West Papuan cuisine, arts and crafts.

Governor Parkop said: “We must be proud of our identity, our culture, our land, our heritage and most importantly we have to challenge ourselves, redefine our journey and our future.

“That’s the most important responsibility we have.”’

West Papua was a Dutch colony in the 9th century and by the 1950s the Netherlands began to prepare for withdrawal.

On 1 December 1961, West Papuans held a congress to discuss independence.

The national flag, the Morning Star, was raised for the first time on that day.

Encouraged to keep culture
Governor Parkop described the West Papua cause as “a tragedy”.

This is due to the fact that following the declaration of Independence in 1961, Indonesia laid claim over the island a year later in 1962.

This led to the United Nations-sponsored treaty known as the New York Agreement.

Indonesia was appointed temporary administrator without consultation or the consent of West Papuans.

In 1969 the so-called Act of Free Choice enabled West Papuans to decide their destiny but again only 1026 West Papuans had to make that choice under the barrel of the gun.

To this day, Melanesian West Papua remains under Indonesian rule.

Governor Parkop encouraged the West Papuan people to preserve their culture and heritage and to breakaway from the colonial mindset, colonial laws and ideas that hindered progress to freedom for West Papua.

Republished with permission from Inside PNG.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The father, retired senior military officer Sok Sunnareth, was arrested on Wednesday by military forces in southern Kampong Speu province, according to Sorn Dara.

A family member who asked for anonymity for security purposes, confirmed the arrest in a brief interview with Radio Free Asia on Thursday.

The 70-year-old is being held in Kampong Speu Provincial Prison, the relative said. RFA was unable to reach provincial authorities on Thursday.

Thousands of viewers watch Sorn Dara’s talk shows on Facebook during which he has routinely attacked Hun Sen. Sorn Dara lives in exile in France and has sought asylum there.

His political commentary prompted then-Prime Minister Hun Sen in May 2023 to threaten to fire Sorn Dara’s relatives from their government jobs

“You want to try me if your parents don’t teach you lessons. I will fire your parents – including your relatives – from their jobs,” he said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh.

“You are so rude. I will invite your father and your sister-in-law to learn some lessons and don’t complain that I am taking your relatives as hostages,” an apparent reference to firing them.

At the time of Hun Sen’s comments, Sok Sunnareth was an army colonel and the deputy chief of staff of the Kampong Speu Provincial Operations Area. He’s also a longtime supporter of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.

Sorn Dara’s sister-in-law works at the Ministry of Interior.

‘I have no intention or hate’

Sorn Dara’s parents appeared in a short video in February 2023 that was posted by the pro-government Fresh News, saying they had severed ties with their son. Sok Sunnareth publicly implored his son on Feb. 22 to stop criticizing Hun Sen and his government.

Sorn Dara is a former official of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, which was dissolved by the country’s Supreme Court in November 2017. He said his father disowned him that same year because he had refused to join the CPP.

Sorn Dara has continued to criticize Hun Sen and the government on his Facebook live show. He said on Thursday that he cut contact with his parents long ago, and urged authorities not to punish his father for his comments.

“I would like to reiterate that I have nothing to do with my parents,” he said. “I have no intention or hate for Samdech and the ruling party, CPP.”

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Samdech is an honorific often used to refer to Hun Sen. Sorn Dara added that his father had served loyally in the military.

“I think Hun Sen can consider and have sympathy for him and Samdech should target me instead,” he said.

Hun Sen continues to use hardball political tactics to target critics and opposition activists, said Seng Sary, a Cambodian political analyst who was granted asylum in Australia.

The arrest of Sok Sunnareth is reminiscent of Hay Vanna, a Japan-based overseas activist whose brother was arrested in August while trying to flee the country following similar public threats against Hay Vanna’s family from Hun Sen.

Last month, Hay Vanna apologized to Hun Sen and Prime Minister Hun Manet for his role in organizing protests among overseas Cambodian workers in August in Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia. He also announced that he was joining the CPP.

On the same day, Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Yi Sokvouch signed a warrant ordering the release of Hay Vanna’s brother from Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, pending his upcoming trial.

The strategy of targeting a family member was effective for Hun Sen and could also work for him in his effort to quell Sorn Dara, Seng Sary told RFA.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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

Erhaim applied for British citizenship in October 2023. Despite the process typically taking six months, her case has been delayed for over a year. The U.K. Home Office informed Erhaim that external “agencies” were conducting investigations into her application without providing a timeline.

The letter expressed concern that, given Syria’s previous efforts to interfere with the journalist’s travel and U.K. residency, this delay may be another instance of persecution for her journalistic work. The letter urged U.K. authorities to be “fully transparent about the nature of its enquiries” into her application and ensure that Erhaim is not again exposed to the persecution she was forced to flee.

Read the full letter here.

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

Authorities in China are moving to seize more than 3 billion yuan (US$435 million) in assets belonging to a former high-ranking official from the northeastern province of Heilongjiang who has fled to the United States, claiming to be a persecuted critic of the government.

According to the Mudanjiang Intermediate People's Court, former Jixi vice mayor Li Chuanliang stands accused of holding illegal assets including real estate, companies and engineering equipment worth 3.1 billion yuan, according to details it published in the Oct. 11 edition of the People's Court Daily, a specialist legal newspaper.

Li, 61, who has served as vice mayor of both Jixi and Hegang cities, stands accused of embezzling public assets, accepting bribes and appropriating public funds by awarding contracts to companies he secretly owned, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported.

Li fled China in 2018, two years before China issued an international "red notice" arrest warrant for him via Interpol.

But unlike many former officials targeted by ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, Li has fought back, lawyered up, had the red notice canceled, and claims he is being persecuted because he witnessed widespread official corruption during his time in office.

Now, the authorities are moving to confiscate what they say are his "illegal gains," something that usually takes place only after a person has been convicted of corruption by a court.

"Since the investigation began in 2020, authorities have frozen over 1.4 billion yuan (US$197 million) of his funds and seized 1,021 properties, 27 parcels of land, eight forest plots, 38 vehicles and 10 sets of mechanical equipment," the China Daily reported.

The confiscation of the assets will go ahead if Li fails to present himself for trial within the next six months.

‘Let the bullets fly’

But Li told Radio Free Asia that he hasn't received any legal papers regarding the alleged case against him.

"They haven't actually taken any action against me," he said in an interview on Tuesday.

"The point of weaving this yarn about these assets and these apartments is firstly revenge, secondly, robbery, thirdly, to intimidate and fourthly, to send out a warning," Li said. "Let the bullets fly -- I'm a free agent now and have the opportunity to clarify and explain."

"I think the whole system is rotten to the core, and that these officials are lawless," he said. "I definitely want more democracy, more freedom, more transparency, more openness, and more justice in China."

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While the investigation began in 2020, Li hasn't even been able to hire a lawyer in China to represent him.

"They would need to formally prosecute me and notify me before I can hire a lawyer," Li said. "But they never have."

Since Li fled the country, the authorities have prosecuted dozens of Li's relatives and former associates instead, according to a lawyer representing one of them, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

The lawyer said that the authorities are acting illegally, and that many of the accused had done nothing wrong.

"You say this person has committed a crime, so you need to convict him first," a lawyer representing the family who asked not to be identified told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. "Only then can you start the process for confiscating his assets, according to the Criminal Procedure Law."

"Right now, they're trying to confiscate his assets before the trial has even been held, which is totally illegal," the lawyer said, adding that they are worried the authorities could try him in absentia.

Online searches by RFA Mandarin turned up no cases against Li filed by the Heilongjiang provincial state prosecutor's office, which approved his formal arrest in absentia in September 2020. 

Guilty by association

The sheer scale of the allegations has sparked a storm of outrage on Chinese social media platforms, but Li claimed many of the properties listed were legitimately owned and operated by him and his relatives.

"A lot of those funds and assets were run in total compliance with the law and regulations by either myself, my relatives or my friends," Li told Radio Free Asia. But he said he had never heard of many of the assets listed by the Mudanjiang court.

"I don't know anything about a lot of them, but they may belong to my partners or their affiliated companies," he said. "All of the assets I know about are unproblematic."

The lawyer said some of the properties listed were part of a residential complex developed by Li but still unsold, but that the authorities had listed each apartment separately, giving the impression of a much longer list.

He said the government appears to be considering the assets of anyone connected to Li as fair game, as if they were guilty by association.

"How come everyone else's money is all included in there?" he said. 

Xia Ming, politics professor at New York's City University, said Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive typically targets Xi's political rivals, rather than seeking to root out rampant graft throughout the system.

"Xi Jinping wants to enhance his personal reputation and build his legitimacy by playing the anti-corruption card, but I don't think it's working," Xia said, adding that public anger is simmering over the current economic downturn.

"This decline has done damage to everyone, and people are disgusted," he said. "They link the current failure of Xi's anti-corruption campaign to the incompetence and hypocrisy throughout the Communist Party system."

Criticizing the Chinese government

In a 2022 statement, Li's U.S. lawyer Michelle Estlund said he was being targeted for giving media interviews criticizing the Chinese government after he arrived in the United States.

Li fled to the United States in 2020 with the assistance of the U.S.-based Chinese Democratic Party, Estlund's law firm said in a news release at the time. 

"Upon his arrival to the United States, Mr. Li spoke out against the Chinese government and its corruption," the statement said. "He gave multiple interviews, criticizing both the CCP and the Chinese government’s corruption and its attempts to cover up certain aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak."

The authorities filed the first charges against Li "a few weeks" after his first media interview, it said.

In 2020, Li gave an interview (in Chinese) to RFA Cantonese, in which he spoke about rampant official corruption during his tenure, with officials snapping up confiscated private-sector assets like coal mines after targeting the owners with allegations of corruption or other wrong-doing.

"The local leaders have the final say in who gets investigated; they are selectively anti-corruption," he said. "Take a look at some of these departments and check out their families' assets; take a look at what they're wearing, what kind of car they drive, where they live and what kind of food they eat."

Li is now challenging the Chinese authorities to take him to court in the United States, and make all of the evidence against him public.

"I just want everything to be made public, for an open trial, and for the chance to defend myself in public," he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei and Wang Yun for RFA Mandarin.

“The Cuban government appears to be engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the country’s non-state media to force them into silence or exile,” said Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s U.S., Canada, and Caribbean program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “CPJ calls on the Cuban authorities to respect the rights of journalists to freely express themselves and report the news.”

Cuban news website El Toque, which operates from exile, reported that the journalists were summoned as part of investigations into accusations that the journalists engaged in “mercenary” activities, including receiving foreign funding in violation of state security. If convicted, the journalists face prison sentences of 4-10 years.

CPJ confirmed eight cases of journalists being questioned and is investigating more than a dozen others. Four journalists publicly confirmed they were summoned and questioned by Cuban authorities:

• Jorge Fernandez Era, a freelance writer and satirical columnist who works with El Toque, was summoned and questioned twice for an hour, reporting that authorities “expressed concern” about his writings in El Toque.
• Maria Lucia Exposito, a freelance reporter, posted on a colleague’s social media that authorities questioned her for more than 6 hours and confiscated US$1,000 and her cell phone.
• Alexander Hall, a freelance essayist who works with El Toque.
• Katia Sanchez, a freelance communications strategist who has collaborated with El Toque and SembraMedia, a nonprofit that supports digital media entrepreneurs, was questioned and threatened with prosecution by representatives from the Ministry of the Interior for receiving a U.S. embassy grant to train journalists, she told CPJ. Sanchez subsequently left Cuba on September 13.

Several journalists questioned by Cuban state security work for exiled Cuban outlets — including El Toque, Periodismo de Barrio, Cubanet, Magazine AMPM, and Palenque Vision. Government officials told CPJ they consider these journalists and the media outlets to be subsidized by funding from foreign governments, in contravention of Article 143 of the Cuban penal code.

A representative of the Cuban government’s International Press Center (CPI) told CPJ by text message that he recommended investigating whether the U.S. government financed these media outlets and pointed to U.S. law that imposes a public disclosure obligation on persons representing foreign interests. “Investigate and you will find Hypocrisy,” he wrote.

In some cases, the questioning occurred in unofficial locations by plainclothes officers, who pressured the journalists to sign confessions admitting to “subversive” acts under threat of criminal proceedings, according to four journalists who spoke to CPJ. Two journalists told CPJ they faced intense psychological pressure to confess. 

Several journalists told CPJ that officers warned them to stop working as journalists outside of official state media and told them it was a crime to participate in foreign-funded training and support programs, or to receive grants from foreign governments.

One journalist told CPJ they were pressured to become a state security informant and spy on other media and foreign governments. In return, they would be free to continue work outside the state sector.

These acts come as a new social communication law, which bans independent media outlets in Cuba, went into effect on October 4. The new law was promulgated after anti-government demonstrations swept the island in July 2021, resulting in the prosecution of persons who reported or shared videos of the events online.

El Toque reported that between 2022 and 2024, at least 150 Cuban journalists went into exile due to harassment by state security agents.

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

Aramyan, the co-founder of the student publication DOXA, is currently in exile alongside three DOXA editors — Alla Gutnikova, Natalia Tyshkevich, and Vladimir Metelkin — after authorities convicted them in April 2022 on charges of involving minors in illegal protests that same year. The court also banned them from administering websites for three years. 

“Russian authorities’ persecution of journalists in exile through arrest warrants in absentia highlights their escalating repression of those who have had to flee the country following a crackdown on their reporting and journalism,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “The authorities must immediately stop the prosecution of DOXA co-founder Armen Aramyan, and the transnational repressions aimed at silencing exiled Russian journalists.”  

Russian authorities placed Aramyan on the federal wanted list in August 2023 after he left the country in April 2022.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation declared DOXA an “undesirable” organization in January 2024. 

Organizations that receive the “undesirable” classification are banned from operating in Russia or distributing their content, and anyone who participates in them faces up to six years in prison and administrative fines.

CPJ emailed the Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee for comment on Aramyan’s arrest in absentia but did not immediately receive a reply.

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

The ministry accused Timchenko — winner of CPJ’s 2022 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award — of participating in the creation of “foreign agent” content, speaking out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and of spreading “false information” about the Russian government and military.

“The designation of Galina Timchenko as a “foreign agent” is the latest move by Russian authorities to exert pressure on Meduza’s independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities should immediately repeal their infamous legislation on ‘foreign agents,’ one of their preferred tools to harass journalists and media in exile, and let the press work freely.”

Individuals designated as “foreign agents” must regularly submit detailed reports of their activities and expenses to authorities, and their status must be listed whenever they produce content or are mentioned in news articles, according to the law. Noncompliance can lead to a two-year prison sentence. In recent years, Russian authorities have designated hundreds of media outlets and journalists as “foreign agents,” including Meduza.

In 2023, Meduza was also banned as an “undesirable” organization,” which means it cannot operate in Russia and makes it a crime to distribute the outlet’s content, such as sharing it online, or to donate to it. In June, a Moscow court fined Timchenko 14,000 rubles (US$160) for participating in the activities of an “undesirable” organization.

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

Authorities sought the arrest one exiled journalist and added two to their wanted list of suspects sought on criminal charges. More than 95,000 people are named on the the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ online database and risk arrest if they enter Russia.

In addition, five were prosecuted for working with “undesirable organizations,” which are banned from operating in Russia. Anyone who participates in or works to organize the activities of such outlets faces up to six years in prison. It is also a crime to distribute the organizations’ content or donate to them.

Another three journalists were added to the “foreign agents” register, which legally requires them to regularly submit detailed reports of their activities and expenses to authorities and to list their status as “foreign agents” on any published content. Two journalists were fined for failing to comply with this law.

Arrested in absentia

• On June 26, a Moscow court ordered ex-state TV host Farida Kurbangaleeva’s arrest in absentia on charges of justifying terrorism and spreading “fake” information about the Russian army after she interviewed a soldier of a pro-Ukrainian Russian paramilitary group on her YouTube channel. A person arrested in absentia would be immediately held in pre-trial detention if they traveled to Russia or if they traveled to a country that could extradite them to Russia.

On June 20, the Prague-based journalist was also added to the government’s wanted list and on June 28, she was designated a foreign agent.

Wanted list

• On July 17, the Ministry of Internal Affairs added Andrei Zakharov, an investigative journalist and host of The Insider Live YouTube channel, to its wanted list on unspecified charges. Zakharov is facing criminal charges for failing to list his status as a foreign agent in two Telegram posts in March. Zakharov was labeled a foreign agent in 2021, after which he fled Russia.

• On July 18, the Ministry of Internal Affairs added Svetlana Prokopyeva, a journalist with the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Sever.Realii website, to its wanted list on unspecified charges under the Criminal Code. In 2023, Prokopyeva was fined for “discrediting” the army for an interview with a historian about the war in Ukraine. Prokopyeva, a CPJ 2020 International Press Freedom Awardee, left Russia in 2022.

Prosecuted for ‘undesirable’ activities

• On June 27, a Moscow court fined Asya Zolnikova, a journalist with the Latvia-based independent news site Meduza, 12,000 rubles (US$136) for “participating in an undesirable organization.” At least four other journalists with Meduza, which was labeled as undesirable in 2023, have faced similar charges this year.

Four exiled journalists were prosecuted for “participating in an undesirable organization” for working with Latvia-based investigative outlet The Insider, which was banned in 2022:

• On June 27, journalist Vladimir Romensky was fined 7,500 rubles (US$85) by a Moscow court.

• On July 2, a Moscow court registered a case against The Insider’s founder and editor-in-chief Roman Dobrokhotov.

• On July 15, journalist and editor Timur Olevskiy was fined 10,000 rubles (US$114) by a Moscow court.

• On July 18, a case was registered against journalist Marfa Smirnova.

Designated foreign agents

Between June 28 and July 5, the Ministry of Justice added at least three more exiled journalists to its foreign agents register:

• Aleksandr Shurshev, editor-in-chief of the investigative outlet Khroniki (Chronicles Media).

• Olesya Gerasimenko, who told CPJ that she worked with the BBC until January when she became a freelance journalist.

• The Insider’s investigative reporter Sergey Yezhov.

Fined under foreign agent legislation

Two journalists were fined by a court in the western region of Pskov for failing to comply with the foreign agent legislation:

• On July 1, Denis Kamalyagin, the exiled editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, and the legal entity the journalist created to comply with the law, were fined 330,000 rubles (US$3,785).

• On July 19, the legal entity created by journalist Lyudmila Savitskaya was fined 300,000 rubles (US$3,441). Savitskaya was labeled a foreign agent in 2020 and left Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russian authorities have effectively clamped down on independent reporting in the country since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Hundreds of Russian journalists have fled into exile, where they are now increasingly harassed by the authorities with fines, arrest warrants and jail terms in absentia.

CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs requesting comment but received no immediate response.

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

Nieves, editor of the independent news site El Toque, believes that the message came from agents of Cuban state security because he previously received other threatening messages from “Mabel” and “Franco,” the names used by police officers who interrogated him while he was still in Cuba, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. El Toque is a leading news website covering Cuba, and has angered authorities for its coverage of protest movements and the country’s economic struggles.

“The recent threats made against El Toque editor José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas are troubling,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “It is vital that U.S. authorities ensure that Nieves can work in exile without concern for his safety and thoroughly investigate the source of the threats against him.”

Nieves told CPJ he filed a complaint with the FBI on July 2. The FBI did not immediately respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment on the complaint.  

The threat came as Cuban authorities sought to suppress reporting related to commemorative events ahead of the anniversary of the July 11, 2021 anti-government protests in Cuba.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

In his acceptance speech, Tsering dedicated the award to Tibetans inside Tibet and in exile, and to the Dalai Lama, acknowledging the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader’s role in defending democracy and human rights for all Tibetans.

"I am an ordinary person, but His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the architect and spirit behind everything that we are now or what we have today,” he said. during the award ceremony at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. 

“This award is for the people I serve,” said Tsering, who is head of the Central Tibetan Administration.

The award, which honors people defending democracy worldwide, was also given to former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and Free Belarus leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Since taking office after winning the 2021 democratic elections which saw a 77% voter turnout, Sikyong Penpa Tsering has worked to counter Chinese influence and mobilised Tibet’s allies to speak up against the suppression of cultural identity within Tibet, said Castro.  “In recognition of those efforts, it’s my honour to present the 2024 democracy service medal to Sikyong Penpa Tsering on behalf of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Also on Thursday, the Tibet Action Institute received the endowment’s Democracy Award for its work in documenting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to erase Tibetan children's identity by forcibly enrolling them in state-run boarding schools in Tibet. 

The Regional Center for Human Rights and the Waey Organisation also received the Democracy Award.

The National Endowment for Democracy, founded in 1983, promotes democracy worldwide through grants funded primarily by the U.S. Congress.

Resolve Tibet Act

The ceremony came a day after the U.S. Congress passed the Resolve Tibet Act, urging China to resolve the Tibet-China dispute through dialogue. It now awaits President Joe Biden's signature to become law.

It calls on Beijing to resume dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who is the spiritual leader of Tibet, and other Tibetan leaders about how Tibet is governed. No formal talks have taken place since 2010.

Tsering welcomed the passage of the bill and expressed hope that Biden would sign it into law soon. 

He also confirmed that a congressional bipartisan delegation led by Rep. Michael McCaul and which includes Pelosi, is set to meet with the Dalai Lama and Central Tibetan Administration leaders in India on June 19.

Tsering also presented Pelosi — a long-time Tibet supporter and strong China critic — with her award, while lauding her unwavering fight for democracy, and against authoritarianism, everywhere.

Pelosi commended the endowment for its efforts to highlight global injustices.

“One of the cruelest tactics used by oppressors is to imprison people and make them disappear, hoping they will be forgotten.” she said. 

“But we do not forget them,” she said. “Our members of Congress, in a bipartisan manner, consistently raise their names—whether on the House floor, in meetings with heads of state, or during visits to other countries.”

Additional reporting by Yeshi Tashi and Tenzin Pema. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tenzin Dickyi and Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan.

Secretary for Security Chris Tang revoked the Chinese passports of U.K.-based activists Christopher Mung and Finn Lau, former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, former British consular employee Simon Cheng, who co-founded the advocacy group Hongkongers in Britain, and overseas YouTube hosts Johnny Fok and Tony Choi. 

Tang warned that anyone found engaging in any financial transactions with them would be prosecuted.

The six, who already have arrest warrants and bounties on their heads, have been named as "fugitives" under the "Article 23" Safeguarding National Security Law passed in March, the government said in a statement.

"We are targeting these six specified fugitives who have fled to the U.K. [because] we have noticed that the British government, many politicians, organizations and media have deliberately tried to discredit our government," Tang told journalists in a briefing on Wednesday.

"The British government is prosecuting one of our colleagues at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London on trumped up charges for violating the U.K. National Security Law," Tang said. 

He said the six activists "have been sheltered in the U.K. as they continue to advocate for subversion" of the Chinese government in Beijing.

Bill Yuen, an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London has been charged with spying for Hong Kong, along with British Border Force officer Peter Wai. A third defendant, former Marine Matthew Trickett, was found dead in a park last month, although British police say they aren't treating his death as suspicious.

The trio were charged with "assisting a foreign intelligence service" and "foreign interference" under the National Security Act 2023, and stand accused of forcing and entering a property in the United Kingdom and of targeting exiled Hong Kong activists on British soil, according to the Metropolitan Police and the prosecution.

Could target others

Back in Hong Kong, Tang warned that "anyone who uses any means, regardless of platform, to provide funds for these people or handle funds for them is in violation of our laws."

The authorities have also placed restrictions on real estate owned by the activists in Hong Kong, preventing them from selling it or renting it out to anyone, and revoked some of their professional qualifications and directorships, a largely symbolic move given that they are unlikely to return.

Tang said the authorities could also issue similar sanctions targeting other prominent overseas activists.

Police warned that anyone acting for the "fugitives" in financial or property matters could risk a seven-year jail term under the Article 23 legislation. 

Finn Lau said via his X account that the move was announced on the fifth anniversary of a mass protest in 2019 that "symbolizes the unity of Hong Kongers," and was another example of "transnational repression" by the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities.

Lau said the cancellation of his Chinese passport was meaningless, as he has only ever held a British National Overseas, or BNO, passport, and that he would continue to advocate for human rights and democracy. 

"The fighting spirit of Hongkongers, including mine, prevails," he tweeted.

‘Will only strengthen our resolve’

Simon Cheng said the measures were "politically motivated and ineffective."

"Our lives and advocacy continue unaffected in the U.K.," he said via his X account. "The attempts to silence us will only strengthen our resolve to fight for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong."

The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the move was the first time the authorities had used the Article 23 law to target the passports of activists in exile.

"Hong Kong Watch condemns this outrageous manoeuver by the Hong Kong authorities to further target, intimidate and silence these six pro-democracy activists living in the UK who have simply advocated for their freedoms," the group's Chief Executive Officer Benedict Rogers said in a statement.

"It is no coincidence that the authorities have canceled their passports on the same day that millions of Hong Kongers are commemorating the fifth anniversary of the 2019 anti-extradition law protests in Hong Kong," he said.

On June 12, 2019, Hong Kong police fired rubber bullets, pepper spray, and tear gas as tens of thousands of people surrounded the city's legislature in a bid to block a debate on a law allowing extradition to mainland China.

Crowds of mainly young people shouting "Withdraw the law!" and "No China renditions!" surrounded government headquarters and the Legislative Council, which was forced to postpone a debate on the government's changes to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.

Wielding umbrellas and wearing masks, protesters used metal road barriers to block off access to the LegCo chamber, charging past police in full riot gear to gain access to the street outside government headquarters in Admiralty district.

While the bill was eventually withdrawn months later, protesters had by then expanded their campaign to demand fully democratic elections in the city.

By 2020, China had imposed a national security law banning criticism of the authorities and criminalizing calls for Hong Kong to hold onto its promised freedoms, ushering in a crackdown on all forms of public dissent that continues today.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

On Wednesday, June 5, the Basmanny district court in the capital, Moscow, ordered the arrest in absentia of exiled journalist Dmitry Kolezev, saying that he distributed false information about Russian armed forces in unspecified social media posts in April 2022 about the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

“These publications were absolutely true, as confirmed by numerous international investigations, but it doesn’t matter to the [Russian] Investigative Committee,” Kolezev, the former editor-in-chief of the independent media platform Republic and founder of the Yekaterinburg-based online outlet It’s My City,  said in a Wednesday Instagram post. 

Kolezev has been placed on an international wanted list and, upon extradition to Russia or being detained within the country, faces two months of detention, according to the press service of the Moscow courts. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years imprisonment under the criminal code.

“By relentlessly targeting exiled journalists, Russian authorities demonstrate their nonstop commitment to silencing independent voices,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, from New York. “The arrest warrant issued against journalist Dmitry Kolezev and the ongoing harassment of other exiled journalists must be halted immediately.”

Kolezev was designated a “foreign agent” and added to the federal wanted list in November 2022.

Republic, was labeled a “foreign agent” in October 2021 until the publication voluntarily relinquished its status as a media outlet registered with Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor in September 2022. 

In May 2024, Republic was once again labeled a foreign agent.

Russian authorities took the following actions against journalists, at least two of them in exile, this week:

• The Russian financial intelligence agency Rosfinmonitoring added Anna Loiko, an exiled journalist and reporter with independent news outlet SOTA, to its list of “terrorists and extremists” on May 29.

A Moscow court ordered Loiko’s arrest in absentia on charges of “justifying terrorism” and put her on the wanted list in November 2023. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison under the criminal code. 

Loiko told CPJ the case stems from her October 2020 and January 2021 articles detailing legal proceedings against alleged members of the Lebanon-based Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Russia deems a terrorist organization.

SOTA reported that authorities searched Anna Loiko’s flat in Moscow, although nothing was taken, and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (SKR) questioned her mother in October 2023.  

“It was so long ago that, honestly, when I found out about the search in my apartment, I did not immediately think that it had something to do with my articles about the Hizb ut-Tahrir,” Loiko told CPJ. “I wrote them at the beginning of my career, and after such a long time, and even in emigration, I didn’t think about them at all, but it turned out that the investigators did.” 

• Rosfinmonitoring included Maria Menshikova, an editor at the student-run online magazine DOXA, in the list of “terrorists and extremists” on May 29.

The prosecutor general’s office listed DOXA as an “undesirable organization” in January 2024. 

• On Tuesday, the Ostankinsky district court in Moscow initiated an administrative case against Asya Zolnikova, a reporter with Latvia-based independent news site Meduza, on charges of involvement with an “undesirable” organization. If convicted, she faces a fine of up to 15,000 rubles (US$170). CPJ was unable to confirm further details about the charges. 

On January 26, 2023, the Russian prosecutor general’s office declared Meduza “undesirable,” effectively banning it and stating that its activities “pose a threat to the foundations of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order and national security.”

• On Tuesday, the Basmanny district court in Moscow initiated a similar proceeding against Andrey Soldatov, the editor-in-chief of Agentura.ru, a news website covering Russian state surveillance. Soldatov told independent news outlet Mediazona that he believes the case is connected to a comment he gave Meduza. A court hearing has been scheduled for June 17.

CPJ’s emailed requests for comment to Rosfinmonitoring and Moscow’s Basmanny and Ostankinsky district courts did not receive any replies.

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

Valle left Cuba for the United States on Wednesday, June 5, after serving nearly three years in prison, according to local press freedom group the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), and the Miami Herald. 

Valle was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2022 for contempt and sharing “enemy propaganda” in connection with a video posted on his YouTube channel, Delibera, of pro-democracy leaflets thrown from a building in the capital, Havana. 

ICLEP reported that Valle Roca arrived in the United States on humanitarian parole, and that his release from prison was on the condition that he leave Cuba. 

“Although we welcome Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca’s prison release, it is disconcerting that the Cuban government has forced Valle into exile rather than allowing him to do his job,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The Cuban government should allow journalists to work freely, without fear of imprisonment or forced exile.” 

ICLEP general manager, Normando Hernández confirmed in a text message to CPJ that Valle had safely landed in Miami with his wife on Wednesday.

“After almost three years of unjust imprisonment, Yuri is finally free,” Hernández wrote on the ICLEP’s website. 

Valle’s expulsion of Valle Roca is the latest example of a crackdown by Cuban authorities on independent media that began following street protests in July 2021 which began in response to longstanding frustrations with the government and restrictions on rights and scarcity of food and medicines. As a result of the government crackdown, journalists, activists and other civil society members were either jailed or forced to leave the island.

Cuban law prohibits the establishment of independent media organizations outside the country’s socialist state system. Journalism is not one of the legally permitted professions under Cuba’s 2021 legalization of private business activity. Cuba’s updated ‘Social Communication Law,’ approved by Cuba’s National Assembly on May 26, 2023, prohibits the dissemination of information that aims to “subvert the constitutional order and destabilize the socialist State of law and social justice.”

Valle had been held in pretrial detention since June 15, 2021, when he was arrested after police summoned him to allegedly close a 2020 contempt investigation. In June 2022, prosecutors requested a six-year sentence in his case.

Valle has suffered from multiple health conditions during his detention, including complications related to his previous hunger strike, according to CPJ research.

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

The report, “Exiled, then spied on: Civil society in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland targeted with Pegasus spyware,” identified at least seven people whose devices were targeted between 2020 and 2023 by Pegasus, a form of zero-click spyware produced by the Israeli company NSO Group.

“Today’s report raises major concerns about the use of spyware against journalists and shows once again that the press is among the main targets of Pegasus spyware,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Journalists should not be spied on, and these new attacks mean that governments urgently need to implement an immediate moratorium on the development, sale, and use of spyware technologies.”

The targets included four named journalists and one Lithuania-based exiled Russian journalist whose device was targeted in June 2023 around an event in Riga, Latvia, and who requested to remain anonymous. The report describes the following attacks on the four named journalists:

• Latvia-based exiled Russian journalist Maria Epifanova’s device was infected in August 2020, “the earliest known use of Pegasus to target Russian civil society,” the report said. Epifanova is the CEO of independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe, which Russian authorities outlawed as “undesirable” in June 2023. The report said the infection occurred when Epifanova was chief editor of Novaya Gazeta Baltija — which covers Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — and “shortly after she received accreditation to attend exiled Belarusian democratic opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s first press conference in Vilnius,” the capital of Lithuania.  

“Regardless of who is behind this attack, invasion in private life is unacceptable. I am now working with a lawyer to decide on the next steps and will do my best to bring more light onto my own case and cases of my colleagues,” Epifanova told CPJ.

• Latvia-based exiled Israeli-Russian journalist Evgeniy Erlich’s device was infected in late November 2022 while on vacation in Austria, the report said. Erlich, an independent producer, has worked with various media outlets, including broadcaster Current Time TV and Votvot, an on-demand Russian-language streaming platform. Both outlets are affiliated with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Erlich told CPJ that “we will most likely never know” who ordered the attacks.

• Latvian journalist Evgeniy Pavlov’s device was targeted in November 2022 and April 2023. Pavlov, a former correspondent with Novaya Gazeta Baltija and a freelance journalist for Current Time TV’s “Baltija” program, told CPJ that he was in Latvia at both times. Access Now was unable to confirm if the attempts were successful.

“If the intelligence services of any country can interfere with the activities of journalists in this way, it poses a very great threat to free and safe journalism. And to free speech in general,” Pavlov told CPJ.

• Poland-based exiled Belarusian journalist Natalya Radina’s device was infected twice in December 2022 and once in January 2023, the report said. The first infection occurred the day after the journalist participated in an anti-war conference in Vilnius. Radina is the editor-in-chief of independent news website Charter 97 and a CPJ 2011 International Press Freedom Awardee.

“My phone was illegally tapped in Belarus, where I was persecuted for political reasons, prosecuted, and imprisoned by the KGB [Belarusian national security service],” Radina told CPJ. “I know that…my absolutely legal journalistic activity can be of interest only to Belarusian and Russian special services, and I am only afraid of the possible cooperation in this matter of the present operators, whoever they are, with the KGB or the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service].”

In an email response to CPJ, the vice president of global communications for NSO group, Gil Lainer, maintained that the organization complies with all laws and regulations, emphasizing that it only sells to vetted intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and to allies of Israel and the United States. Lainer added that NSO group investigates all credible claims of misuse, adding that a number of investigations resulted in the suspension or termination of accounts.

A 2022 CPJ special report noted that the development of high-tech “zero-click” spyware like Pegasus — the kind that takes over a phone without a user’s knowledge or interaction — poses an existential crisis for journalism and the future of press freedom around the world. The report included CPJ’s recommendations to protect journalists and their sources from the abuse of the technology and called for an immediate moratorium on exporting this technology to countries with poor human rights records.

CPJ has also joined other rights groups in calling for immediate action to stop spyware threatening press freedom.

In September 2023, an investigation released by Access Now and Citizen Lab revealed that the phone of Galina Timchenko, the head of independent Russian-language news website Meduza, who has lived in Latvia since 2014, was infected by Pegasus while she was in Germany in February 2023.

The next day, Epifanova, Pavlov, and Erlich said Apple had notified them that their phone could have been targeted by hacker attacks.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

Since late last year, Tajik law enforcement agencies have repeatedly summoned, interrogated, and threatened relatives of five Azda TV journalists in relation to the journalists’ work, according to Azda TV director and chief editor Muhamadjon Kabirov, who spoke to CPJ by telephone. Kabirov said the harassment of the journalists’ family members has been going on for several years but has intensified in recent months.

Separately, four of the five Azda TV journalists feature alongside at least a dozen exiled Tajik journalists in a Russian interior ministry wanted list published by Russian media earlier this year. Kabirov told CPJ there was “little doubt” Russian authorities placed them there at the request of the Tajik government.

International rights organizations regularly name Tajikistan as one of the world’s most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression – the silencing of overseas dissent by tactics including a suspected assassination, rendition, and family intimidation. CPJ has repeatedly documented how Tajik authorities harass relatives of exiled journalists in retaliation for the journalists’ work.

“Tajikistan continues to uphold its dismal reputation as one of the world’s worst perpetrators of transnational repression. Having forced dozens of journalists into exile, authorities continue to hound and harass them by targeting their relatives. No journalist should have to endure the anguish of knowing they are putting their loved ones at risk,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Tajik authorities must stop this appalling practice of transnational punishment. Exiled journalists play a crucial role in delivering independent news and countering Russian propaganda in Tajikistan, and Western governments and journalist organizations should support them.”

Azda TV was formed in 2019 and publishes primarily on YouTube, where it has almost 180,000 subscribers across its Tajik and Russian-language channels, which feature a popular flagship daily news show. The outlet’s website has been blocked in Tajikistan, according to Kabirov.

Kabirov told CPJ that Tajik police and prosecutors have summoned his father, father-in-law, and mother-in-law on “dozens” of occasions in the past months, pressuring them to persuade Kabirov to cease his work and convince him and his wife to return to Tajikistan. Kabirov’s 72-year-old father-in-law passed away from a heart attack the day after one of these repeat interrogations, he said, but added that he didn’t have enough information to say whether this was related to authorities’ harassment.

Tajik law enforcement have similarly harassed relatives of Azda TV presenters Firuz Hayit and Shuhrat Rahmatullo, and journalists Amrullo Nizomov and Mahmadsharif Magzumzoda – at times summoning them two or three times a month over the journalists’ work, according to information from the journalists passed to CPJ by Kabirov. Nizomov told CPJ that police detained his two brothers for a week last September and beat them, and have continued to summon them since, which he believes is due to his work for Azda and critical posts on social media.

Tajik authorities have not officially announced a ban on Azda TV as “extremist” as they have with other exiled media, but in 2022 they justified a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to journalist Abdullo Ghurbati in part with his subscription to Azda TV’s YouTube channel, saying the outlet was linked to “extremist and terrorist” opposition groups.

Several Azda TV staff fled Tajikistan along with what reports say could be dozens of journalists in 2015-17, amid a crackdown that followed the banning of the country’s main opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). Kabirov and several of his colleagues are closely related to prominent exiled or jailed IRPT leaders, while Kabirov is also a well-known human rights activist, and his and his colleagues’ family members have previously been targeted for these reasons, but the journalists told CPJ they are certain that recent pressure is due to their journalistic work.

Harassment of the journalists’ family members has peaked in relation to Azda’s coverage of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s visits to Europe in September and April, which accompanied a wider wave of pressure on relatives of Europe-based Tajik activists, Kabirov said, but the harassment has strengthened over the past two years as Azda’s reports have become more analytical and as alternative critical voices have increasingly been silenced.

CPJ has previously documented how Tajik authorities have harassed relatives of exiled journalists Humayra Bakhtiyar, Mirzo Salimpur, and Anora Sarkorova. Last year, Shavkatjon Sharipov, head of broadcasting at exiled news outlet Payom, alleged that Tajik authorities extradited his brother from Russia on what he described as spurious extremism charges in retaliation for Sharipov’s work.

In February, independent Russian outlet Mediazona published the Russian interior ministry’s full database of wanted individuals. CPJ has identified the names of a dozen Tajik journalists on the list: Kabirov, Rahmatullo, Nizomov, and Magzumzoda from Azda TV; journalists Sharipov, Abdumanon Sheraliev, Tahmina Bobokhonova, and Soima Saidova from Payom;  Muhamadiqbol Sadriddinov (Sadurdinov), founder of exile-based broadcaster Isloh TV; independent journalist and activist Temur Varky (Klychev); and ethnic Pamiri journalists Anora Sarkorova and Rustam Joni (Djoniev).

Some of the journalists told CPJ they were aware of retaliatory criminal cases or convictions against them, and others have previously been reported in the media, while Tajik authorities confirmed a criminal case against Sarkorova following the publication of the Mediazona report. Kabirov said he, Nizomov, and Magzumzoda were not aware of any criminal prosecution against them in Tajikistan but that they weren’t surprised  to find themselves on the wanted list. “The Tajik government uses any mechanisms and opportunities to target activists and journalists,” Kabirov said, adding that the Azda journalists “usually avoid travelling to post-Soviet countries” due to the risk of extradition to Tajikistan.

CPJ emailed Tajikistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Office of the Prosecutor-General for comment, but did not receive any replies.

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

On Thursday, May 16, officers with the Belarusian State Security Committee, or KGB, and representatives of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties sealed the apartment of exiled freelance journalist Zmitser Kazakevich after breaking down the door in the northeastern city of Vitebsk, according to media reports and Kazakevich, who spoke to CPJ and Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

On Friday, law enforcement officers in the capital, Minsk, searched the apartment of Barys Haretski, the deputy head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), in connection to an unspecified criminal case, according to BAJ and Haretski, who spoke to CPJ. It is unclear whether officers seized anything in the apartment, as Haretski left Belarus in 2021 and had no belongings there.

BAJ is an exiled advocacy and trade group that documents press freedom violations and provides support for Belarusian journalists.

“After stifling independent media inside the country, the Belarusian authorities will stop at nothing to put pressure on exiled journalists like Zmitser Kazakevich and on those like Barys Haretski who defend repressed members of the press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately reveal any charges filed against Haretski and Kazakevich and stop harassing independent media both inside and outside the country.”

Kazakevich told Radio Svaboda he did not know whether the apartment was searched and that law enforcement officials asked his neighbors if anyone lived in the apartment a day before the raid. The journalist told CPJ he did not know what charges he faced or when they were filed.

“I consider the break-in and sealing of my house in Belarus as revenge. This is an invitation to be executed, which I decline,” Kazakevich told CPJ.

Authorities previously searched Kazakevich’s apartment three times between 2020 and 2021, he told CPJ, including in July 2021. Kazakevich, a freelance journalist who covered the 2020 protests against the disputed reelection of Aleksandr Lukashenko, has been fined and detained in connection to his work and left Belarus in 2021, he told CPJ.

Authorities labeled BAJ as “extremist” in February 2023. Belarusian authorities have obstructed BAJ’s work, raided its offices, and, in 2021, dissolved the organization, prompting its staff to leave the country.

“Searches and criminal proceedings against journalists who have left the country are aimed at intimidating media representatives in general,” Haretski told CPJ. “Authorities cannot influence the independent media, which work from abroad, but they keep reminding them: we are watching you, your every action, every content is monitored. Thus, the authorities force even journalists who have left Belarus to be in fear, to feel persecution and attention of the special services.”

Belarusian authorities recently initiated criminal proceedings against several exiled journalists, according to multiple media reports and BAJ. CPJ is working to determine whether their prosecution is connected to their journalism.

“Independent media still effectively deliver their materials to the audience in Belarus,” Haretski said. “Undoubtedly, this causes anger of the authorities, and they try to pressure people using the means available to them.”

CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the KGB, and the Ministry of Taxes and Duties for comment but did not receive any response.

Belarus was the world’s third worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

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

On April 16, a Moscow court ordered that Zygar, the former editor-in-chief of the now-exiled Russian broadcaster Dozhd TV (TV Rain) and a CPJ 2014 International Press Freedom Awardee, be arrested in absentia on charges of disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army. The order against Zygar is the latest in a growing list of repressive actions recently used by Russian authorities to punish journalists already under detention and stifle the voices of independent journalists in exile.

On April 10, Russian authorities added imprisoned journalist Igor Kuznetsov to the list of “extremists and terrorists.” Kuznetsov, a Russia-based correspondent of the independent RusNews site, has been detained since September 2021 and is currently serving a six-year prison sentence on charges of inciting mass riots ingroup chats on Telegram.

On April 12, Russian law enforcement searched the former Moscow apartment of exiled journalist Zalina Marshenkulova, who currently lives in Germany, on charges of “justifying terrorism.” Marshenkulova runs the Telegram channel Zhenskaya Vlast, covering feminism and women’s rights, with over 18,000 followers.

On the same day, the Russian Justice Ministry designated two exiled journalists, Ilya Barabanov and Ivan Filippov, as “foreign agents.” 

“In a blatant attempt to silence and punish journalists simply for doing their job, Russian authorities continue prosecuting and harassing independent journalists in exile, as well as those in detention,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities should drop all charges against independent journalists, repeal their ‘foreign agent’ and ‘fake news’ laws, and allow independent media to work freely and without fear of reprisal.”

Marshenkulova told CPJ via a messaging app that she believed the charges were related to her journalistic work and activism as a feminist. She explained, “I’m a feminist and feminism is forbidden in Russia.” In her Telegram channel, Marshenkulova wrote that the criminal case was “absolutely surreal and outrageous.” 

In a statement, the BBC condemned the “foreign agent” designation for Barabanov, a BBC Russian correspondent. “We are incredibly proud of all our journalists, and our priority right now is to support Ilya and all his colleagues to ensure that all are able to continue their jobs reporting on Russia at such an important time,” said the broadcaster. Barabanov has covered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the operations of the Russian Wagner mercenary group in Mali.

Filippov is the author of the Telegram channel “All Quiet on the Zzzzz Western Front,” where he analyzes the content of Telegram channels and blogs belonging to supporters of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Will I stop talking and writing about the war? No, of course not. … I will continue to write in this channel about what I learn from reading hundreds of [pro-war] channels,” Filippov wrote in the channel on April 15, commenting on his “foreign agent” designation. “I suspect that it’s the stories I dig up from the texts of war supporters that have caused such a strong reaction from the authorities, which means I’m doing the right thing.” 

Russia held at least 22 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its 2023 prison census, making it the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists that year. CPJ’s prison census documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023.

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

“The shameful issuing of an arrest warrant for Mikhail Zygar by the Russian authorities shows both their determination to intimidate journalists in exile and their fear of independent information,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately drop all charges against Zygar, remove him from their wanted list, and stop prosecuting voices speaking out from abroad against their war in Ukraine.”

On Tuesday, media reported that the Russian Ministry of the Interior issued an arrest warrant for Russian journalist and writer Mikhail Zygar. He is a former editor-in-chief of now-exiled Russian broadcaster Dozhd TV (TV Rain) and a CPJ 2014 International Press Freedom Awardee.

On March 13, state news agency RIA Novosti and Telegram channel Baza reported that Zygar was charged with spreading “fake” information about the Russian army. Zygar told CPJ that the arrest warrant for him was based on this specific charge.

The charge against Zygar allegedly stems from a June 2022 post on the Russian social media platform Vkontakte about the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, according to Baza. If convicted, the journalist, who currently lives outside of Russia, could face up to 10 years in prison, according to the Russian criminal code.

Since the start of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities have been harassing several exiled journalists over their reporting on the war, including Zygar.

In late 2023, Russian authorities issued an arrest warrant for U.S.-based Russian-U.S. journalist and writer Masha Gessen after charging them [Gessen uses the pronouns they/them] with allegedly spreading “fake” information about the Bucha massacre. In early March 2024, Russia issued arrest warrants for Washington, D.C.-based journalist Tom Rogan and Latvia-based journalist Aleksandr Kushnar on unspecified criminal charges.

Russia held at least 22 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its 2023 prison census, making it the world’s fourth-worst jailer of journalists that year. CPJ’s prison census documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023.

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

Hanayesh, also known by his birth name Abdul Aleem Saqib, was returning home on the evening of April 3 when he was attacked in the G6 residential sector of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, according to news reports and a person familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

The journalist, who owned two radio stations in northern Afghanistan before he fled to Pakistan when the Taliban took power in 2021, was taken to hospital to undergo surgery for injuries to his foot and treatment for a head wound, which was not critical, those sources said.

“The assault on Ahmad Hanayesh requires a thorough investigation by Pakistani authorities, who must ensure that the culprits are held to account,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s Program Director. “It is imperative for Pakistan to safeguard the hundreds Afghan journalists who have sought refuge within its borders, out of fear for their lives, because of the Taliban’s crackdown on media freedom.”

The motive for the attack remains unclear.

Hanayesh is known for reporting from Afghanistan’s northern provinces for the Afghan Service of the U.S. Congress funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), known in Afghanistan as Radio Azadi.

He also owned Radio Kahkashan in Parwan province and Radio Khorasan in neighboring Panjshir province, north of the capital, Kabul. The Taliban have since converted Radio Khorasan to a military base, according to Afghanistan’s Hasht-e-Subh Daily newspaper.

Hanayesh and his family had been waiting to relocate to a third country, according to the person familiar with the case.

CPJ has documented how many Afghan journalists are trapped in limbo in Pakistan, unable to find jobs without work authorization and facing restrictions on their movement and the threat of deportation if their visas are not renewed.

Since 1992, 64 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in Pakistan, CPJ’s data shows. The country ranked 11th on CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which ranks countries by how often killers of journalists go unpunished.

CPJ’s text messages to information minister Attaullah Tarar and Syed Shahzad Nadeem Bukhari, acting Inspector General of Police in Islamabad, requesting comment on the shooting did not receive any replies.

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

Pouria Zeraati, 36, a presenter for Iran International, was outside of his home in Wimbledon, south London on March 29 when a group of men attacked him. The assailants fled the scene by car, and Zeraati was hospitalized for treatment.

Although no motive has been identified in the case, nor any suspects apprehended, the incident led authorities to launch a counterterrorism investigation, since there has been an alarming increase in instances of critics abroad being targeted by the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic government in Iran has regularly used tactics of extraterritorial repression, including multiple assassinations in Western nations, that have gone unprosecuted.

“UK authorities must thoroughly investigate the attack on Pouria Zeraati and all threats to Iranian journalists and news organizations,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ program director in New York, on Tuesday. “Iranian journalists in exile remain highly vulnerable to extraterritorial repression. It is crucial that they have the protections they need and those responsible for these attacks are held accountable.”

Adam Ballie, a spokesperson for Iran International told CPJ on Tuesday that “along with our colleagues at BBC Persian, Iran International has been under threat, very heavy threats, for the last 18 months since the IRGC Commander Hossien Salami said in October 2022 on live TV ‘we’re coming for you,’ which they have consistently repeated.” 

“Our live coverage of Iran matters such as UN human rights, protests, Evin prison fire, economic and social welfare, all of which are not welcomed by the Iranian government and made us a target,” Ballie said.

The stabbing of Zeraati comes after a plot to assassinate two other Iran International news anchors – Sima Sabet and Fardad Farahzad – was uncovered late last year.

Sima Sabet, a former TV presenter with Iran International, told CPJ on Monday that the Metropolitan Police asked her to leave her home safety, after Zeraati’s attack, for her safety. In August 2023, Sabet resigned from her job despite her prime time show having the highest rating of any Farsi-language TV program due to heavy online attacks. Sabet shared that the attacks ramped up after her coverage of nationwide protests in Iran, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in custody, and the revelation terror plot against Sabet. But Sabet said the threats have not stopped. 

On Monday, Zeraati, in a post on his personal X account, said that he had been released from the hospital, and he and his wife have been moved to a safe house under the supervision of London’s Metropolitan Police. He also noted that counterterrorism police were making “good progress” and that “the suspects had purposefully planned this attack” and posed no threat to the general public in London or the rest of the UK.

The Islamic Republic claims it was not behind the attack.  

“We deny any link to this story of this so-called journalist,” Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Chargé d’affaires at Iran’s embassy in London, wrote on his X account.

CPJ emailed the Iranian Foreign Ministry for comment on Iran International’s case of Pouria Ziaratti’ stabbing but did not receive a response.

According to CPJ research, Iran is among the world’s leading jailers of journalists.

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

The two-day seminar, organized by the Thai opposition Move Forward party at the Parliament House in Bangkok on Saturday and Sunday, also discussed humanitarian aid to the war-torn country. 

It was titled, “Three Years after the Coup: Towards a Democratic Myanmar and its Impact on Security along the Thai Border.” 

Speakers included Zin Mar Aung, the NUG’s foreign minister, United Nations Special Representative for Human Rights in Myanmar Tom Andrews and the permanent representative of Myanmar to the U.N. in New York, Kyaw Moe Tun.

Leaders of Myanmar’s minority ethnic groups, civil society organizations and student union leaders also attended the seminar.

But the event angered the military junta, which sent a letter to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the event tarnished Thai-Myanmar ties.

Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara was scheduled to give a keynote speech, but this was canceled at the last minute without explanation.

“We have no comment on this matter because the Thai foreign ministry was not the event co-organizer,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.

The minister said in February Thailand was stepping up efforts to aid suffering citizens in Myanmar by opening a humanitarian corridor to Myanmar in about a month.

The US$300 million plan has the backing of Southeast Asian nations, including Myanmar.

It also has the support of the United States. On Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink said the U.S. wanted to work closely with Thailand to ensure regional security and prosperity.

“I praised in great detail and repeatedly the Thai government’s ongoing and long-standing efforts to support refugees who have fled violence in Myanmar and the more recent efforts by Prime Minister Srettha’s government, in the ASEAN context, to again increase the humanitarian assistance across the border,” he told a teleconference.

In spite of meeting National Unity Government representatives at last weekend’s seminar, Thailand’s government prioritized establishing relations with the junta, officially known as the Military Council, following the February 2021 coup.

Still, just the fact that the seminar was held may point to a shift in stance in the Thai government, a former Burmese military officer who is now a political analyst, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA.

"It is undeniable that the current Military Council regime is facing defeats on the battlefield, their credibility has declined, and now the democracy activists have been invited for discussions,” he said.

Rangsiman Rome, the head of the lower house committee of parliament, one of the organizers of the two-day seminar, said he hoped the meeting would help pave the way for Myanmar to solve the crisis through a peaceful and long-term solution, Reuters reported.

After the seminar, Thai Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat wrote on X that they are closely monitoring the politics of Myanmar and will help in solving the crisis.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

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

“We are very worried about the critical situation in Cambodia such as the Chinese military presence, cybercrime, corruption, forced evictions, territorial integrity, lack of court independence,” the former parliamentarian told Radio Free Asia from Japan, where she met with Cambodians living there. 

“We must seek solutions and this movement is a solution,” she said.

The Khmer Movement for Democracy was founded in Washington DC in September. Its website says it’s open to Cambodians of every political affiliation.

“Decades of corruption and authoritarian rule have left our people impoverished, our democracy dismantled, and our natural resources plundered,” the organization said. “The democratic space inside Cambodia has been simply shut down.”

Mu Sochua said the group won’t transform into another opposition political party. Instead, it’s a way to organize and unite Cambodians around the world. 

Until her recent resignation, Mu Sochua was vice president of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, or CNRP. It had been the country’s main opposition party until it was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017 after it made substantial gains in local communal elections.

The Khmer Movement for Democracy will largely be funded by donations from Cambodians, Mu Sochua said. It currently has enough funding for one year.

As the organization’s president, she recently traveled to Australia, New Zealand and South Korea to meet with Cambodian workers and exiles.

“The immediate goals within the next six months are to send messages to people to stop their fear, to work with NGOs, to do work to urge the Paris Agreement signatories to fulfill their duties and to initiate people to stand up and stop crying and being afraid,” Mu Sochua said.

The 1991 Paris Peace Agreement formally ended decades of war in Cambodia and paved the way for parliamentary democracy.

Arrested, fled or co-opted

In the years since the CNRP’s dissolution, all of Cambodia’s independent media outlets have been forced to close and pro-democracy activists have either been arrested, fled the country or have been co-opted by Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.

In last year’s national election, the CPP won 120 of 125 seats in the National Assembly. Hun Sen stepped down as prime minister in August, paving the way for his eldest son, Hun Manet, to take over as head of the government.

The CNRP still exists as an organization in Cambodian communities in Australia, the United States and elsewhere. 

The party’s leader, Sam Rainsy, lives in France and has been convicted in absentia several times since 2016 in cases opposition officials have criticized as politically motivated. 

In October, a Cambodian court sentenced Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy and 10 other activists to prison terms in a case connected to social media comments made in 2021. 

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Li Sokha also issued an arrest warrant for Mu Sochua, Sam Rainsy and two other CNRP leaders, all of whom live outside of Cambodia. Mu Sochua lives in the United States.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.

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

“No fugitive should imagine they can evade criminal prosecution by absconding or leaving Hong Kong,” Andrew Kan, deputy commissioner of the city's national security police, told journalists in comments reported by the Beijing-backed Wen Wei Po and the official Chinese police account on Weibo.

“Hong Kong police officially list Agnes Chow as wanted,” China’s official police account posted on Wednesday. “Unless she surrenders, she will be hunted for the rest of her life.”

Chow, 27, a prominent democracy activist who has already served a seven-month prison sentence for “illegal assembly” linked to protests outside Hong Kong’s police headquarters on June 21, 2019, was out on bail at the time of her departure, for which she obtained a permit to travel from the Hong Kong police.

But soon after leaving the city, she announced via her Instagram account that she wasn’t going back. She later said she is considering whether to apply for asylum in Canada.

Chow, a founding member of the opposition party Demosisto, which dissolved in 2020 when the national security law took effect, had worked alongside jailed activist Joshua Wong in protests and civil disobedience movements dating back to 2012.

After serving her first sentence, she was rearrested under the national security law on suspicion of “collusion with foreign forces,” then released on bail pending investigation, and subjected to a travel ban.

She was forced to go on a patriotic “study trip” to mainland China and kept under surveillance by police, who later allowed to leave the city to study in Canada on condition that she return by the end of 2023. Chow has also spoken out about the impact of that period on her mental health.

Bounties offered

Chow has become the 14th overseas activist on the government’s wanted list, although Kan didn’t say whether there is a HK$1 million bounty on her head, as is the case with the other 13.

Police offered bounties for information leading to the arrests of eight wanted activists last July, with a further five activists added to the list in December 2023.

Several of the wanted activists recently held closed-door meetings with State Department officials in Washington, as part of their campaign for further sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials linked to the suppression of the city’s promised freedoms, according to the State Department’s X account.

“Honored to meet with courageous advocates for Hong Kong’s democracy and human rights who’ve been unjustly targeted for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Daniel Kritenbrink posted on Feb. 5.

“We call on Hong Kong authorities to immediately cease all efforts to intimidate people in Hong Kong and around the world, including those who call the U.S. home.”

U.S.-based activist Frances Hui, who is Policy and Advocacy Coordinator for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said she had shared with officials her “personal encounters with CCP’s transnational repression, including receiving physical death threats and being spied on by Chinese agencies.”

She called on Washington to call for the release of specific Hong Kong political prisoners like Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong, and to consider further sanctions on officials.

“The world is counting on the US to stand on the forefront in supporting human rights and democracy, and most importantly, to protect the people living under its roof who have sought refuge from authoritarianism,” Hui wrote in a post to her X account.

Naturally inclined to emigrate

Fellow wanted activist Elmer Yuen, who is working toward setting up a Hong Kong parliament in exile, said he had called for relaxed immigration rules for Hong Kongers seeking to flee the crackdown to the United States.

“Now that Hong Kong is like this, naturally everyone is inclined to emigrate,” Yuen said. “I want them to relax the rules and allow more Hong Kong people in and make it easier to get a visa.”

“The safe haven policy has not yet been implemented, and we need to go to Congress to work on that further.”

Hong Kong police said on Tuesday they have made 290 arrests so far under the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and has resulted in the mass arrests and trial of dozens of former opposition activists and the trial of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai.

Kan said “national security” would remain at the top of a list of police priorities for 2024, when the city’s legislature is expected to pass a second national security law critics say will potentially criminalize more peaceful activities, including making critical or protest-related comments on overseas websites or interviewing exiled activists like Chow.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called on the United States “not to be a safe haven for criminals,” and not to support “anti-China disruptors who flee Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs and do not require the intervention of any external forces,” Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung and Kwong Wing for RFA Cantonese.

Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of the exiled Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, was charged in December with failing to comply with the country’s foreign agent law, according to news reports published this week and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

Kamalyagin told CPJ that he was charged under Article 330.1, Part 2, of the criminal code, which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail. The journalist and the newspaper relocated to Latvia, amid raids in March 2022 on Pskovskaya Guberniya’s office and Kamalyagin’s home in the western region of Pskov following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is the second criminal case brought against Kamalyagin, who was charged in late 2023 with discrediting the Russian army, for which he could be jailed for up to five years under Article 280.3, Part 1, of the criminal code. He had previously been fined 35,000 rubles (US$390) for discrediting the army in October 2022.

“By bringing fresh charges against exiled journalist Denis Kamalyagin, Russian authorities show that they are ready to use the ‘foreign agent’ law to intimidate journalists who continue to report independently from abroad,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately drop all charges against Kamalyagin, repeal the country’s infamous foreign agent law, and let the press work freely.”

Kamalyagin was one of the first journalists to be labeled a “foreign agent” in 2020. Individuals designated as “foreign agents” must regularly submit detailed reports of their activities and expenses to authorities and their status as “foreign agents” must be listed whenever they produce content or are mentioned in news articles, according to the law.

The latest charge stems from the journalist’s failure to list his “foreign agent” status on his Telegram posts, Kamalyagin told independent news website 7×7, adding that he stopped doing so as soon as he left Russia. 

In 2023, Kamalyagin was fined three times for not listing his “foreign agent” status and for failing to file a report to the Ministry of Justice, according to independent news website Mediazona. A warrant was also issued for his arrest in December, although it did not specify the charge, Mediazona reported.

Kamalyagin told U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s project Sever.Realii that the foreign agent case against him was “predictable,” after authorities opened a similar criminal case against a Pskov activist. “The first foreign agents appeared in Pskov, the first criminal cases, too,” he was quoted as saying.

On January 31, the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, adopted amendments allowing the authorities to confiscate property from people convicted of spreading “fake” news about the Russian army and of calling for activities directed against Russia’s security.

“It is a terrible law that should terrify all those who have left Russia,” Kamalyagin told CPJ. “People inside Russia have been mostly silent for a long time [after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine]. Now the authorities want those who have left to be silent too. They hoped that we would leave and remain silent. But that didn’t happen,” he said.

Russia held at least 22 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its latest annual prison census, which documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023.

CPJ’s call to the Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency in charge of criminal investigations, went unanswered.

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

Kamalyagin, editor-in-chief of the exiled Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya, was charged in December with failing to comply with the country’s foreign agent law, according to news reports published this week and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app.

Kamalyagin told CPJ that he was charged under Article 330.1, Part 2, of the criminal code, which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail. The journalist and the newspaper relocated to Latvia, amid raids in March 2022 on Pskovskaya Guberniya’s office and Kamalyagin’s home in the western region of Pskov following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is the second criminal case brought against Kamalyagin, who was charged in late 2023 with discrediting the Russian army, for which he could be jailed for up to five years under Article 280.3, Part 1, of the criminal code. He had previously been fined 35,000 rubles (US$390) for discrediting the army in October 2022.

“By bringing fresh charges against exiled journalist Denis Kamalyagin, Russian authorities show that they are ready to use the ‘foreign agent’ law to intimidate journalists who continue to report independently from abroad,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately drop all charges against Kamalyagin, repeal the country’s infamous foreign agent law, and let the press work freely.”

Kamalyagin was one of the first journalists to be labeled a “foreign agent” in 2020. Individuals designated as “foreign agents” must regularly submit detailed reports of their activities and expenses to authorities and their status as “foreign agents” must be listed whenever they produce content or are mentioned in news articles, according to the law.

The latest charge stems from the journalist’s failure to list his “foreign agent” status on his Telegram posts, Kamalyagin told independent news website 7×7, adding that he stopped doing so as soon as he left Russia. 

In 2023, Kamalyagin was fined three times for not listing his “foreign agent” status and for failing to file a report to the Ministry of Justice, according to independent news website Mediazona. A warrant was also issued for his arrest in December, although it did not specify the charge, Mediazona reported.

Kamalyagin told U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s project Sever.Realii that the foreign agent case against him was “predictable,” after authorities opened a similar criminal case against a Pskov activist. “The first foreign agents appeared in Pskov, the first criminal cases, too,” he was quoted as saying.

On January 31, the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, adopted amendments allowing the authorities to confiscate property from people convicted of spreading “fake” news about the Russian army and of calling for activities directed against Russia’s security.

“It is a terrible law that should terrify all those who have left Russia,” Kamalyagin told CPJ. “People inside Russia have been mostly silent for a long time [after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine]. Now the authorities want those who have left to be silent too. They hoped that we would leave and remain silent. But that didn’t happen,” he said.

Russia held at least 22 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its latest annual prison census, which documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023.

CPJ’s call to the Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency in charge of criminal investigations, went unanswered.

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

On Tuesday, the Telegram channel Baza and state news agency Tatar-Inform reported that Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national and an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), had been charged with spreading “fake” information about the Russian army. Russian authorities have detained Kurmasheva since October on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent.

On Wednesday, Dmitry Chitov, the lawyer for Ponomarenko, told Russian human-rights news website OVD-Info that authorities had formally charged the journalist for allegedly using violence against staff of the prison where she is being held. Ponomarenko, a correspondent for independent news website RusNews, has been serving a six-year prison sentence since being convicted in February of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military.

RusNews had reported about the new charges, which carry a potential additional sentence of up to five years in prison under Article 321, Part 2 of the Russian Criminal Code, in early November. Chitov told CPJ via messaging app that the new case against Ponomarenko was opened on October 26 and that she was formally charged on December 8.

Separately, the Russian Ministry of the Interior recently issued an arrest warrant for Masha Gessen after charging the U.S.-based Russian-U.S. journalist and writer with allegedly spreading “fake” information about the Russian army and its involvement in the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha during their September 2022 interview with Russian journalist Yury Dud. According to documents that Gessen, who uses they/them pronouns, shared with CPJ via email, the case against them was opened in late August 2023 under Article 207.3, Part 2 of the criminal code, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in jail.  

“By opening additional charges against imprisoned journalists Alsu Kurmasheva and Maria Ponomarenko, and prosecuting exiled journalist Masha Gessen, Russian authorities show how far they are willing to go to retaliate against their independent reporting,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Authorities must immediately drop all charges against them, release Kurmasheva and Ponomarenko, and let the press work freely.”

The new charge against Kurmasheva stems from her alleged involvement in the distribution of a book based on stories of residents in Russia’s southwestern Volga region who oppose the country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to those sources, RFE/RL, and Current Time TV, a Russian-language project of RFE/RL. The book was published by RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir service in November 2022. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, under Article 207.3, Part 2 of the criminal code.

“Whatever new cases are brought against Alsu, it is clear that this heartless system is holding her hostage in the Kazan detention center for being a U.S. citizen and a [RFE/RL] journalist,” Kurmasheva’s husband Pavel Butorin, who is director of Current Time TV, posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

“We strongly condemn Russian authorities’ apparent decision to bring additional charges against Alsu,” Jeffrey Gedmin, acting president and board member at RFE/RL, said on Tuesday.

Authorities have held Kurmasheva since October, when she was detained in the western city of Kazan on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent, for which the penalty is up to five years in prison, according to Article 330.1, Part 3 of the criminal code. Kurmasheva and RFE/RL have both rejected that charge.

Kurmasheva’s detention was last extended on December 1, and she will continue to be held until at least February 4, 2024.

In addition to Gessen, Russian authorities have recently been harassing several exiled journalists over their reporting:

• In November, Russian authorities arrested in absentia Anna Loiko, an editor with independent news outlet Sota, after putting her on the country’s international wanted list on charges of justifying terrorism. The charges stem from Loiko’s January 2021 report on banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Russia deems a terrorist organization, the journalist told CPJ via email. The court ordered Loiko to be held for one month and one day if she were extradited to Russia or returned there. If convicted of terrorism charges, she could face up to seven years in prison, under Article 205.2 of the criminal code. 

• In late November, exiled Russian newspaper Pskovskaya Guberniya reported that its editor-in-chief Denis Kamalyagin had been made a suspect in a case of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army. “Russian authorities had previously fined Kamalyagin 35,000 rubles (US$390) for discrediting the Russian army in October 2022, according to media reports. Kamalyagin told CPJ via messaging app that the charges stem from a Pskovskaya Guberniya video on the Russian attack on the Ukrainian central city of Uman in April 2023. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison, under Article 280.3, Part 1 of the criminal code. 

• On Wednesday, a Moscow court upheld the 11-year prison sentences of exiled Russian journalists Ruslan Leviev and Michael Nacke. Leviev, the founder of the Russian independent investigative project Conflict Intelligence Team, and Nacke, a Lithuania-based video blogger, were both convicted in absentia in August for allegedly spreading “fake” information about the Russian army in several YouTube videos.

Russia held at least 19 journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its 2022 prison census, which documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2022.

CPJ emailed the Russian Ministry of Justice for comment but did not receive any response.

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

On October 23, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the Weekly Blitz, published a separate article in the right-wing digital media outlet HinduPost, reviewed by CPJ, alleging Saer Khan had been deported from Hungary to the United Kingdom, where he was “funding and promoting pro-Hamas and anti-Israel rallies.”

Saer Khan, an independent investigative journalist, told CPJ by phone that he denied all allegations, which also extended to accusations of involvement in drug trafficking and fraud. He said he has been targeted in a campaign that seeks to discredit his work and could potentially endanger his safety.

Saer Khan said he believed he was being targeted in retaliation for his upcoming report on alleged high-level government corruption in Bangladesh to be published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). On September 25, two days before the latest round of Weekly Blitz articles against him, the journalist sent a series of emails requesting comment from the subjects of his investigative article.

In recent years, the Weekly Blitz has repeatedly published articles, reviewed by CPJ, accusing Saer Khan, along with other journalists critical of the Bangladesh government, of criminal activities.

On March 17, four unidentified men beat Mahinur Khan, Saer Khan’s brother, with iron rods in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, accusing the latter of “writing about the PM [prime minister]” and “against the government.” As of November 22, no suspects had been held accountable, Saer Khan said.

Choudhury told CPJ via email that the Weekly Blitz stood by its reporting and was unaware of Saer Khan’s upcoming report for the OCCRP.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

The “Hongkonger” app is similar to the Mee app that once helped supporters of the 2019 protest movement find and support businesses in the city that were sympathetic to their cause, but which have since been targeted by the authorities under a draconian national security law.

With a welcome screen showing a bunch of cheerful and bespectacled young people in front of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the app welcomes users to "connect with professionals" and "plant the seeds of kindness." 

It then offers the user classified ads, shop and small business listings, restaurants, artists and craftspeople, healthcare, emotional support and personal services, based on the user's geographical location.

It is aimed at more than 172,000 Hong Kongers who have settled in the country since the British government launched its British National Overseas visa pathway to citizenship, which prompted China to stop recognizing the Hong Kong BNO passport in protest in January 2021.

Classes and things to do are also in among the listings, which app author “Jay” said are intended to create a sense of community among Hong Kongers who have recently emigrated to the United Kingdom.

"We all crossed mountains to get to the U.K.," said Jay, who gave a pseudonym for fear of reprisals. "I hope we will now support each other and that we will now be able to see each other."

"Everyone is scaling the mountain in their own way," he said, in a reference to a strategy of the 2019 protest movement allowing people to take different approaches to working for freedom and democracy.

‘Long arm’ law enforcement

The escalating crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong, which saw warrants and bounties placed on the heads of eight prominent overseas activists in early July, has sparked international criticism of the authorities' ongoing attempts at "long-arm" law enforcement overseas.

Hong Kong's three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities as “incitement of hatred,” and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world. It has prompted a mass exodus of permanent residents from the city.

In the United Kingdom, Hong Kongers have been calling on the British government to sanction officials linked to human rights violations in the city they once called home, despite apparent attempts at sabotage and the threat of violence by supporters of the Chinese Communist Party.

Against that background, Jay's project is a call to stand together and to boost Hong Kongers' visibility – at least to each other.

Jay, who once taught math in a Hong Kong school and now works for a government-funded organization, wrote the code and produced the artwork with the help of the ChatGPT AI chatbot and the AI artmaker Midjourney, he said.

"I'd been paying close attention to the way artificial intelligence was developing for the past seven years," he said. "I had no knowledge or experience in this area, so when the app was successfully launched, I was moved to tears."

‘Yellow Pages’

Jay said the app is intended as a kind of "Yellow Pages" for Hong Kongers in Britain to find each other. The parallel also plays on the "yellow economic circle" of pro-democracy businesses in Hong Kong, that has been increasingly targeted under the national security law and colonial-era sedition laws.

"People from all walks of life have come to the U.K., including a lot of teachers, healthcare workers, accountants, utilities workers, builders and decorators," he said. "There are a lot of people like me who weren't able to continue in their old jobs."

"It's not always so easy for Hong Kongers to find services, so I hope this will be a platform that helps everyone find each other," Jay said.

Asked if he sees himself as part of the "yellow economic circle," Jay said he hopes his app doesn't put anyone at risk.

"Clearly there is an erosion of freedom in Hong Kong, and I'm unhappy watching the news," he said. "We all see ridiculous things, and they keep happening every day."

"Our app only works in the United Kingdom and doesn't extend to Hong Kong for now," he said. "I hope that makes it safe for the time being."

But he said uptake of the app, which came soon after Hong Kong officials likened the eight wanted overseas activists to "rats crossing the street" and vowed to pursue them for the rest of their lives, had been less than enthusiastic.

Under scrutiny

U.K.-based Finn Lau, who is among the eight, said he feels he is under constant surveillance, even overseas.

"I have to be more careful, both online and in real life, and check to see if I'm being followed," Lau told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. "I rarely reveal my location on social media."

"This is something I do every day now," he said, adding that he had been approached by a person claiming to be a reporter for Radio Free Asia during the 20th party congress in October 2022, but had declined after finding out that the "reporter" was fake.

He has also been targeted on social media, with 60 or 70 attempts to steal his identity on X, including his profile photo.

"There was a campaign to spread false information [about me] that initially deceived some people who knew me, who thought I had a new account," Lau said. "Then they asked me about it later, so it was exposed [as fake]."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung for RFA Cantonese.

Over 50 years since the United States forced them out in order to build a military base on the island of Diego Garcia, exiled residents of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean continue to pressure Britain and the U.S. to pay reparations and apologize for expelling residents. We speak with prominent Chagossian activist Olivier Bancoult, who is visiting the United States to meet with lawmakers and State Department officials. The U.S. is “fully responsible for what happened to our people,” says Bacoult. “We want the Biden administration to apologize and to make reparation for what they did wrong to our people.” Located halfway between Africa and Indonesia and about 1,000 miles south of India, the military base on Diego Garcia played a key role in the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is a crime against humanity,” says author of Base Nation David Vine, who adds that there are more than 20 cases of the U.S. displacing local populations for military bases. “The Chagossians are not alone.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The three individuals, which included his parents-in-law, were taken to Castle Peak and Yuen Long police stations for questioning "to help with the authorities' investigation," the Standard newspaper quoted sources as saying.

The move comes after police questioned several relatives of others among the group of eight wanted activists, asking similar questions, throughout July and August.

The South China Morning Post also cited a source familiar with the case as saying that officers raided the Yuen Long home of Hui's in-laws and their son on Tuesday morning. Hui's father-in-law was seen leaving Castle Peak police station following the earlier release of his wife and son that day.

No arrests were made, according to the reports.

"The three were questioned by officers from the force’s National Security Department about whether they had contacted the former legislator and offered him any help, such as financial support," the Post said.

National security police will continue to investigate the Hong Kong-based contacts of the eight wanted activists and disrupt any help or funding for them, the Post quoted its source as saying.

Police issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for exiled former pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law, Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, U.S.-based activist and political lobbyist Anna Kwok and legal scholar Kevin Yam, offering bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) for information that might lead to an arrest. 

U.K-based activists Finn Lau and Mung Siu-tat and U.S.-based businessman Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list.

Punished for posters

As Hui's relatives were being questioned, a Hong Kong court handed down a six-month jail term to Zeng Yuxuan, a doctoral student from mainland China found in possession of posters depicting the banned "Pillar of Shame" sculpture commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Zeng had pleaded guilty to conspiring with U.S.-based democracy activist Zhou Fengsuo to "commit acts with seditious intent" ahead of the June 4 massacre anniversary. Zhou has said he bears full responsibility for creating the banners bearing the image that were found in Zeng's possession.

Meanwhile, authorities in Macau have issued a one-year ban to a street performer known for performing the banned 2019 protest anthem "Glory to Hong Kong."

Busker Oliver Ma, 24, was taken away by police from the ruins of St Paul's, a popular tourist destination in the former Portuguese-run city, on Sept. 3, and held for several hours.

"I was arrested without warning and detained by the Public Security Police Force for over 13 hours before I was kicked out," Ma wrote on his Facebook page. "I felt as if I was treated like less of a tourist, let alone a human, and more like some terrorist."

"I answered each and every single one of their questions, and it was not until it reached these questions when I finally knew why they were so hostile to me: 'Have you sung #GlorytoHongKong in Hong Kong? Were you planning to sing it all the way here? What does the song mean?'" Ma wrote in an account of his ordeal on his Facebook page.

"It was not until 3:00 the next day when I was told I was banned in Macau for a year and escorted through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge," Ma said, adding: "For all of my past experiences being arbitrarily arrested and detained for busking, this one has got to be the most dehumanizing one yet."

Ma's family were also detained for nearly two hours and forced to sign forms, while his phone was scanned by police, who refused to let him call his lawyer or give him food during an overnight stay in custody, he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee, Ng Ting Hong and Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.

The three individuals, which included his parents-in-law, were taken to Castle Peak and Yuen Long police stations for questioning "to help with the authorities' investigation," the Standard newspaper quoted sources as saying.

The move comes after police questioned several relatives of others among the group of eight wanted activists, asking similar questions, throughout July and August.

The South China Morning Post also cited a source familiar with the case as saying that officers raided the Yuen Long home of Hui's in-laws and their son on Tuesday morning. Hui's father-in-law was seen leaving Castle Peak police station following the earlier release of his wife and son that day.

No arrests were made, according to the reports.

"The three were questioned by officers from the force’s National Security Department about whether they had contacted the former legislator and offered him any help, such as financial support," the Post said.

National security police will continue to investigate the Hong Kong-based contacts of the eight wanted activists and disrupt any help or funding for them, the Post quoted its source as saying.

Police issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for exiled former pro-democracy lawmakers Nathan Law, Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, U.S.-based activist and political lobbyist Anna Kwok and legal scholar Kevin Yam, offering bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) for information that might lead to an arrest. 

U.K-based activists Finn Lau and Mung Siu-tat and U.S.-based businessman Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list.

Punished for posters

As Hui's relatives were being questioned, a Hong Kong court handed down a six-month jail term to Zeng Yuxuan, a doctoral student from mainland China found in possession of posters depicting the banned "Pillar of Shame" sculpture commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

Zeng had pleaded guilty to conspiring with U.S.-based democracy activist Zhou Fengsuo to "commit acts with seditious intent" ahead of the June 4 massacre anniversary. Zhou has said he bears full responsibility for creating the banners bearing the image that were found in Zeng's possession.

Meanwhile, authorities in Macau have issued a one-year ban to a street performer known for performing the banned 2019 protest anthem "Glory to Hong Kong."

Busker Oliver Ma, 24, was taken away by police from the ruins of St Paul's, a popular tourist destination in the former Portuguese-run city, on Sept. 3, and held for several hours.

"I was arrested without warning and detained by the Public Security Police Force for over 13 hours before I was kicked out," Ma wrote on his Facebook page. "I felt as if I was treated like less of a tourist, let alone a human, and more like some terrorist."

"I answered each and every single one of their questions, and it was not until it reached these questions when I finally knew why they were so hostile to me: 'Have you sung #GlorytoHongKong in Hong Kong? Were you planning to sing it all the way here? What does the song mean?'" Ma wrote in an account of his ordeal on his Facebook page.

"It was not until 3:00 the next day when I was told I was banned in Macau for a year and escorted through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge," Ma said, adding: "For all of my past experiences being arbitrarily arrested and detained for busking, this one has got to be the most dehumanizing one yet."

Ma's family were also detained for nearly two hours and forced to sign forms, while his phone was scanned by police, who refused to let him call his lawyer or give him food during an overnight stay in custody, he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee, Ng Ting Hong and Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.

On Tuesday, August 29, the Basmanny Court in Moscow sentenced Leviev, founder of the Russian independent investigative project Conflict Intelligence Team, and Nacke, a Lithuania-based video blogger, to 11 years each in a penal colony for distributing “fake” information about the Russian military. Leviev was also issued a five-year ban on managing a website, and Nacke was given a four-year ban, Nacke told CPJ via messaging app.

A state prosecutor had previously requested 13-year sentences for the journalists. Leviev and Nacke were not present at the hearing and do not intend to return to Russia to serve their sentences.

“The 11-year sentences handed to exiled journalists Michael Nacke and Ruslan Leviev are proof that Russian authorities’ harassment of those who dare to report independently on the war in Ukraine does not stop at the country’s borders,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Authorities must not contest the journalists’ appeals, immediately drop all charges against them, and let the press report freely on the war.”

The journalists were charged over a March 5, 2022, video Nacke posted on his YouTube channel, as well as the journalists’ discussion of Russian military actions in a March 9 and March 16, 2022, video published on Popular Politics, a YouTube channel run by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team.

In the March 5 video, Nacke and Leviev discussed the ninth day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including the March 4 Russian shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine and the adoption of the law criminalizing “fake” information about the Russian army.

In March 2022, Russian lawmakers changed the country’s laws to impose fines and prison terms of up to 10 years for discrediting or spreading “fake” information about the country’s military.

The court convicted the journalists on three counts—distributing “fake” information as a group, “out of political hatred,” and by creating artificial evidence.

In its Tuesday decision, the court imposed penalties for each offense, according to a lawyer with Setevye Svobody, a Russian freedom of expression legal assistance organization, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“This verdict set a very dangerous precedent of adding up punishments for separate offenses,” the lawyer told CPJ. Leviev and Nacke’s sentences are the longest issued under the new legislation so far, according to Nacke and the lawyer, who added that the journalists plan to appeal.

Nacke, who called the verdict “unjust,” “repressive,” and meant to “intimidate all those who publish information about Russian crimes in this war,” told CPJ that the court denied him the opportunity to speak via video, call witnesses, and rejected evidence his defense submitted.

“[The March 5 video includes] footage of the Russian military firing on a nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” Nacke told CPJ. “That is not some speculation of ours, but the facts recorded on video.”

Russian authorities previously labeled Leviev and Nacke as “foreign agents.” Separately, on August 10, the Russian general prosecutor’s office declared the activities of Conflict Intelligence Team as “undesirable.” Organizations that receive the undesirable classification are banned from operating in Russia, and anyone who participates in them or works to organize their activities faces up to six years in prison and administrative fines.

Separately, on June 28, 2023, the Basmanny Court convicted Ilya Krasilshchik, a former publisher of the independent news website Meduza and founder of the independent media project HelpDesk.Media, of disseminating false information about the Russian army and sentenced him to eight years in jail in absentia. The court also banned Krasilshchik from managing websites for four years.

Krasilshchik was charged for an April 3, 2022, post on his personal Instagram account about the Russian military’s alleged involvement in a massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha and an April 14 interview with independent Russian journalist Ilya Shepelin.

“I think it’s an honor to be convicted for saying that Russia is responsible for [the] Bucha massacre,” Krasilshchik told CPJ via messaging app.  Krasilshchik left Russia in 2022 and does not plan to return to Russia to serve his sentence.

Also, on August 14, Russian authorities arrested in absentia Sergey Podsytnik, an editor with the independent online outlet Protocol.Samara, for distributing “fake” information about the Russian military. Podsytnik, who left Russia in early 2022, will be held for two months if he returns or is deported to Russia.

The charges against Podsytnik, which carry a maximum of five years in prison, allegedly stem from a January 19, 2023, Protocol.Samara investigation into Russian soldiers killed in a Ukrainian strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Makiivka in late December 2022.

Authorities in Samara have searched the apartment of Podsytnik’s parents and summoned them for questioning. On August 28, Protocol.Samara reported that the investigator in the journalist’ case tried to summon his minor brother for questioning.

CPJ’s emails to the Basmanny Court and the Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee did not immediately receive replies. CPJ’s email to the Russian Investigative Committee’s Samara branch received an error message.

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

A panel of three High Court judges delayed Lai's trial until Dec. 18, the second delay since the original trial date was set for December 2022.

Lai, who founded the now-shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, faces two counts of "conspiracy to collude with foreign forces" and one count of "collusion with foreign forces" under a draconian security law imposed by Beijing in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, along with a charge relating to "seditious" publications. 

He was first arrested in August 2020 and is currently serving time for fraud in connection with the lease on his Next Digital media empire's headquarters.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong National Security Police questioned a woman with reported links to Law, one of the eight activists in exile with arrest warrants and bounties on their heads, the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch reported.

The move comes after police detained and questioned the parents of fellow overseas activist Anna Kwok, who heads the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a U.S.-based lobby group.

Kwok and Law are among eight prominent overseas Hong Kongers wanted by the authorities for "collusion with foreign forces" under the national security law, with a HK$1 million bounty on each of their heads, as the city authorities claim the right to "long-arm" enforcement of the law anywhere in the world.

Hong Kong leader John Lee has vowed to pursue the eight activists for the rest of their lives.

"This was the latest escalation in the application of the Hong Kong National Security Law against opposition figures, in particular since the announcement of arrest warrants and bounties against the eight activists in exile," Hong Kong Watch said in a brief statement.

Looking like the mainland

Former pro-democracy district councilor Sam Yip, who is currently studying in Tokyo, said Hong Kong's judicial system is looking increasingly like that of mainland China.

"It's very similar to the Chinese courts, where the prosecution and courts can extend an arrested person's time in detention at will," Yip said. "The courts and the entire judicial system in Hong Kong are nearly identical with those in mainland China, particularly where national security law cases are concerned."

"Those cases no longer follow the common law system, but instead follow the Chinese legal system."

He said the common law system once ensured a fair trial in Hong Kong, but no longer.

A former adviser to the Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing last week criticized the Hong Kong government over its plan to allow extradition to mainland China, which sparked the mass protests of 2019 and the ensuing crackdown on public dissent.

Former Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference standing committee member Charles Ho said he had tried to dissuade the city's current and former leaders from pressing ahead with the plans, which sparked months of mass popular protest that broadened from an anti-extradition campaign to include demands for fully democratic elections.

Ho told a radio show last week that then Chief Executive Carrie Lam's handling of the protest was "a man-made disaster."

"I explained to her that if she went ahead and implemented the amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, it would lead to U.S. sanctions on Hong Kong," Ho said, adding that he had issued the same warning to then security chief and current chief executive John Lee.

"I was in the Jockey Club coffee shop with John Lee, and I told him I had advised Lam not to do this, because it would affect Hong Kong's [trading status] with the United States," he said.

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law in November 2019 after months of pro-democracy protests, targeting officials responsible for the erosion of the city's promised freedoms and prompting mass celebrations by protesters.

When Beijing imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020, Washington responded by declaring an end to the city's status as a separate trading entity from mainland China.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin, Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.

On Tuesday, an investigation by the independent news website The Insider stated that both journalists had experienced unexplained health problems since October 2022 and were concerned that they may have been poisoned. Both experienced severe weakness and swelling, as well as other symptoms.

Kostyuchenko was a long-time reporter with the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and started working for the independent outlet Meduza in September 2022. Babloyan was previously a journalist with the now-shuttered broadcaster Ekho Moskvy, and currently works with Zhivoy Gvozd, an outlet launched by former Ekho Moskvy staff.

Both journalists were tested for toxins at Berlin’s Charité hospital. Blood tests taken from Kostyuchenko in late 2022 were inconclusive, according to The Insider. Babloyan’s blood samples were lost, and she never received results of any tests performed on them, The Insider reported. When CPJ called the press service of Charité hospital, the person who answered said they did not speak English and hung up.

German authorities have questioned both journalists in relation to their symptoms. Experts interviewed by The Insider said that Kostyuchenko’s symptoms “cannot be explained by anything other” than poisoning, and that Babloyan’s symptoms were “more likely” caused by poisoning than by any disease.

Kostyuchenko and Babloyan have each reported critically on Russian politics and the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The BBC, German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster RFE/RL reported on the journalists’ allegations and also noted that Russian authorities are accused of poisoning several Russian dissidents and critics, including those living abroad.

“Reports that Russian journalists Elena Kostyuchenko and Irina Babloyan may have been poisoned in Germany and Georgia are extremely alarming, and must be investigated at once,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “German and Georgian authorities should treat these allegations with the utmost seriousness and do all they can to safeguard the lives of journalists living in exile.”

In an account published by Meduza on Tuesday, and in an interview with Russian blogger Yury Dud published Wednesday, Kostyuchenko said she started feeling unwell on October 18, 2022, after a trip to Munich, where she had applied for a Ukrainian visa to cover the war for Meduza.

Her symptoms first appeared on the return train from Munich to Berlin, where she had moved after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and included severe headaches, weakness, shortness of breath, and nausea. Later, she experienced swelling in her face, fingers, and toes, and her palms and the soles of her feet turned red.

Medical tests run 10 days after her first symptoms showed abnormal amounts of liver enzymes and blood in her urine, The Insider reported.

Separately, Babloyan started to feel sick on October 25, 2022, in Tbilisi, Georgia, where she had moved a few weeks earlier. Her symptoms included severe weakness, dizziness, swelling, and redness on her palms and the soles of her feet, similar to Kostychenko’s.

Babloyan, who has since moved to Germany, told CPJ on Wednesday that she was feeling “still not very good, but much better” than when her symptoms first began.

Kostyuchenko reported her symptoms to German authorities, and police officers questioned her for about eight hours in early 2023, she told Dud. Police closed the investigation into Kostyuchenko’s case on May 2, citing a lack of evidence, but authorities said in July that they had reopened the case, Meduza reported. 

Babloyan said that German police also questioned her for five hours in July. When officers asked whether there was a chance that someone could have poisoned her in Georgia, “I said yes,” she told CPJ, saying that her journalism would be the only possible explanation for such an attack.

Babloyan recently resubmitted blood samples for further analysis, according to The Insider and an interview the journalist gave with Russian blogger Aleksandr Plushev.

In March 2022, ahead of a reporting trip to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Kostyuchenko was warned by an unnamed colleague that Chechen units of the Russian Federal Guard had been instructed to kill her, according to The Insider and her account in Meduza.

One of Kostyuchenko’s sources in Ukrainian military intelligence told her on the same day that unidentified attackers were “in preparation” to kill a Novaya Gazeta journalist.

Since Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993, at least six of its journalists and contributors have been murdered in connection to their work.

Kostyuchenko recently suspended her work as a staff journalist due to her lingering weakness, she wrote in Meduza.

CPJ called and emailed the Berlin police, and emailed the Georgian Ministry of Interior for comment, but did not receive any replies.

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

On Thursday, August 10, officials from the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence agency, stormed the office of the independent Killid radio station in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province, and detained its manager Faqirzai and reporter Saleh, according to the non-profit Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)and a journalist with knowledge of the situation who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation by the Taliban.

Separately, also on Thursday, Taliban intelligence operatives entered offices of the independent Uranus TV network in Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan and detained Hasib Hassas, a journalist at the independent radio Salam Watandar, according to the AFJC and another journalist who spoke with CPJ anonymously due to fear of Taliban reprisal.

CPJ’s journalist sources said that Faqirzai, Saleh, and Hassas were detained on accusations that they reported for exiled media. 

“The detention of journalists Faqir Mohammad Faqirzai, Jan Agha Saleh, and Hasib Hassas just before the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul shows the Taliban is determined to continue their brutal crackdown on the media,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the three journalists and stop muzzling reporting, whether it is conducted for local media or the exiled press.”

The journalist sources said that the three were transferred to an undisclosed location; CPJ was unable to determine their whereabouts. 

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the country’s media have been in crisis, with journalists facing arrests, raids on offices, and beatings. The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence has emerged as a key threat to journalists in the country. Some journalists who fled the country have established media outlets to continue reporting on Afghanistan in exile. 

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

On Thursday, August 10, officials from the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence agency, stormed the office of the independent Killid radio station in Jalalabad city, in eastern Nangarhar province, and detained its manager Faqirzai and reporter Saleh, according to the non-profit Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC)and a journalist with knowledge of the situation who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation by the Taliban.

Separately, also on Thursday, Taliban intelligence operatives entered offices of the independent Uranus TV network in Kunduz city in northern Afghanistan and detained Hasib Hassas, a journalist at the independent radio Salam Watandar, according to the AFJC and another journalist who spoke with CPJ anonymously due to fear of Taliban reprisal.

CPJ’s journalist sources said that Faqirzai, Saleh, and Hassas were detained on accusations that they reported for exiled media. 

“The detention of journalists Faqir Mohammad Faqirzai, Jan Agha Saleh, and Hasib Hassas just before the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul shows the Taliban is determined to continue their brutal crackdown on the media,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Taliban authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the three journalists and stop muzzling reporting, whether it is conducted for local media or the exiled press.”

The journalist sources said that the three were transferred to an undisclosed location; CPJ was unable to determine their whereabouts. 

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to a CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the country’s media have been in crisis, with journalists facing arrests, raids on offices, and beatings. The Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence has emerged as a key threat to journalists in the country. Some journalists who fled the country have established media outlets to continue reporting on Afghanistan in exile. 

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

On Tuesday, July 25, two unidentified men with Cuban accents threatened Jiménez as he was walking home with his two-year-old son in Barcelona, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

Jiménez, who also posted about the encounter on Twitter, said that the men shouted at him, “Abraham, we know you are close to your home.” The journalist was not able to see their faces but said he could hear them laughing as they walked away from him and his son. 

“I was so afraid because I was with my son that I didn’t know what to do,” he told CPJ. He wrote on Twitter that the scene reminded him of his life in Cuba. 

Jiménez is a freelance Afro-Cuban journalist, co-founder of the online narrative journalism magazine El Estornudo, and a columnist for The Washington Post. 

He left Cuba in September 2021 following persistent harassment from authorities in retaliation for his critical coverage, and received CPJ’s 2022 International Press Freedom Award for being a prominent outspoken voice within Cuba’s media community. 

“We are concerned by the threatening comments made to Cuban journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator. “Spanish authorities must conduct a thorough investigation into the threats against Jiménez and his family and make sure they remain safe. It is incumbent upon Spain and other European Union countries to ensure the safety of journalists who are facing threats within their borders.”   

The journalist told CPJ that he did not report the threat to the police because he did not know who his aggressors were. CPJ emailed the Barcelona police for comment but did not immediately receive any reply.

Jiménez told CPJ that this was not the first time he has been threatened by individuals with Cuban accents. In March 2022, during a panel in Amsterdam, one Cuban man asked to speak from the audience and tried to discredit him, claiming that everything he said was a lie. 

“When the panel was over, he sought me out and offended me until the event organizers got him off my back,” he said. In June 2023 during Madrid’s Book Fair, a man with a Cuban accent also followed and photographed him.

In October 2020, Cuban authorities detained and interrogated Jiménez over his work. Shortly thereafter, he published a column in The Washington Post titled “If this is my last column here, it’s because I’ve been imprisoned in Cuba,” where he described his interrogation.

More recently, Jiménez has written about racism he has experienced while living in Europe, and also about efforts the Cuban government made to strengthen its national baseball team.

Jiménez was the winner of the 2023 Michael Jacobs Traveling Writing Grant, and was also chosen as one of five young journalists to receive the One Young World award this year. 

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

On Tuesday, July 25, the Russian general prosecutor’s office outlawed SIA TV Rain and TVR Studios BV, the outlet’s branches in Latvia and the Netherlands respectively, by declaring them “undesirable” organizations, according to media reports, Dozhd TV reports, and a statement by the prosecutor’s office.

Organizations that receive the undesirable classification are banned from operating in Russia, and anyone who participates in them or works to organize their activities faces up to six years in prison and administrative fines. The designation also makes it a crime to distribute the outlet’s content or donate to it from inside or outside Russia.

“By banning Dozhd TV as ‘undesirable,’ Russian authorities are showing that their battle against news outlets offering independent information is by no means over,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately overhaul the legislation on ‘undesirable organizations’ instead of using it to stifle free reporting.”

In August 2021, Russia’s justice ministry labeled Dozhd TV a “foreign agent,” compelling the outlet to submit regular detailed reports on its activities and expenses and to flag that status on its content. The ministry has since regularly added Dozhd TV journalists to its foreign agent list.

Dozhd TV suspended operations in Russia in March 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, subsequent criminalization of “false information” about the Russian military, and the blocking of its website by state media regulator Roskomnadzor.

The outlet relocated to Latvia, but Latvia’s media regulator canceled its broadcasting permit in December 2022, prompting Dozhd TV to move its editorial center to the Netherlands.

The Russian prosecutor’s office accused SIA TV Rain and TVR Studios BV of distributing materials from “undesirable,” “extremist,” and “terrorist organizations,” as well as “foreign agents” such as the independent news website Meduza.

The office also said the companies “discredit” Russian government bodies and law enforcement agencies, “disseminate false information” about the war in Ukraine, and support foreign agents.

Dozhd TV editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko said that the outlet had suspended crowdfunding in Russia, canceled subscriptions from Russian citizens, and asked them not to share its content within the country for their own safety. 

“We’ve been labeled ‘undesirable in Russia,’ but we’re not: 13 million viewers in Russia last month confirm it,” he said in a statement.

In an interview with Meduza, Dzyadko called the prosecutor’s office decision “completely illegal” but “expected” and said that Dozhd TV will continue its work and look for other ways to secure funding. Dzyadko told CPJ via messaging app that an “important” part of Dozhd TV’s revenue came from donations from Russia.

Since 2021, Russian authorities have labeled dozens of organizations “undesirable,” including Meduza, Novaya Gazeta Europe, as well as investigative outlets iStories, The Insider, Bellingcat, and Proekt.

CPJ’s call to the Russian general prosecutor’s office was not answered.

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

Police raided the home of trade unionist Mung Siu-tat's brother, taking him, his wife and their son for questioning on suspicion of "assisting fugitives to continue to engage in acts that endanger national security," a police spokesperson told Radio Free Asia.

Police also took away the parents, brother and sister-in-law of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Dennis Kwok and questioned them on suspicion of the same offense, the South China Morning Post and Standard newspapers reported.

No arrests were made, and all of the activists' family members were released after questioning, the reports said.

Eight bounties

The raids came after similar action against the family members of exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law, who is also on a wanted list of eight prominent overseas activists.

On July 3, national security police issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for U.K.-based Mung, Kwok, Law and five other exiled campaigners, saying they are wanted in connection with "serious crimes" under Hong Kong's national security law.

U.K.-based Finn Lau, Australia-based Ted Hui and Kevin Yam and U.S.-based Anna Kwok and Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list, with bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) offered for information that might lead to an arrest.

A police spokesperson confirmed to Radio Free Asia that Mung's three relatives were questioned for "assisting fugitives," but declined to say why Kwok's relatives were questioned.

"This operation is still ongoing, and further law enforcement action, including arrests, cannot be ruled out," the spokesman said.

Instilling fear

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the raids, which have targeted 10 family members of the eight wanted activists to date, seemed calculated to create an atmosphere of fear.

"If there is evidence, then make an arrest," Sang said. "But what do they mean by taking people away for hours of interrogation without any evidence, then letting them go?"

"Is this a bid to ... create panic by banging on doors first thing in the morning?"

Elmer Yuen's son Derek and daughter-in-law Eunice Yung – a pro-China lawmaker – haven't been interrogated yet.

Yong made a high-profile announcement last August that she was cutting off ties with Yuen, calling him to return to Hong Kong and turn himself in.

Derek Yuen said in a recent media interview that they had spoken briefly with Elmer Yuen during a recent trip overseas, but had avoided any financial transactions with him.

Sang said it was telling that the couple – whose pro-China credentials are fairly solid – haven't been questioned yet.

The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said the raids are the "latest escalation" in the crackdown on opposition figures.

"This is a drastic escalation since the arrest warrants and bounties against the eight activists and the threats against Nathan’s family, which were already outrageous and completely unacceptable," the group's chief executive Benedict Rogers said.

"The Hong Kong government is openly and increasingly threatening activists abroad, in an attempt to silence them and spread fear among the community," Rogers said in a statement on the group's website. 

"This situation is increasingly similar to that in mainland China, and we are seeing Hong Kong plummet to this level in terms of human rights, particularly civil and political rights," he said, calling on governments to protect the rights and freedoms of activists in exile.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gigi Lee for RFA Cantonese.

"Today, the Hong Kong national security police went to the apartments of Nathan Law’s parents and brother and took them away for questioning," advocacy group Hong Kong Watch said in a statement on its website. "They were later released without arrest."

The move came after national security police last week issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent Hong Kong activists living in exile, accusing them of "collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security."

Law, who now lives in the United Kingdom, announced in 2020 that he had cut ties with his family back in Hong Kong in a bid to protect them.

But police raided his parents' home early Tuesday morning, taking away his parents and brother and questioning them about whether they had provided him with any financial support, or whether they were his "agents" in Hong Kong, according to multiple media reports.

"At around 6.00 a.m. today (July 11), the national security department [of the Hong Kong police force] searched two units in Yat Tung Estate, Tung Chung, where Nathan Law's parents and elder brother live, and took [the three of them] away to take their statements," the pro-Beijing Sing Tao Daily reported.

Police wanted to know if they had been providing financial assistance to Law or had acted on his behalf in Hong Kong, it said.

"After the three had made their statements, they were allowed to leave the police station," the report said, versions of which also appeared on iCable News and in the South China Morning Post.

Bounties on their heads

The July 3 warrants also listed former pro-democracy lawmakers Ted Hui, now in Australia, U.K.-based Dennis Kwok, U.S.-based activist and political lobbyist Anna Kwok and Australia-based legal scholar Kevin Yam among the wanted. 

U.K.-based activists Finn Lau and Mung Siu-tat and U.S.-based businessman Elmer Yuen are also on the wanted list.

Authorities have offered bounties of HK$1 million (US$127,700) for information that might lead to an arrest or a successful prosecution.

Those named face a slew of charges including "collusion with foreign powers" and "inciting subversion and secession" under a law imposed on Hong Kong by the Communist Party in the wake of the 2019 protest movement that effectively bans public dissent and peaceful political opposition.

The warrants were quickly followed by five more arrests of former associates of Law and the now-disbanded pro-democracy party Demosisto that he co-founded in the wake of the 2014 Umbrella Movement, who were accused of using the "Punish MEE" pro-democracy crowd-funding app to bankroll overseas activists.

The escalating crackdown has sparked international criticism of the authorities' ongoing attempts at "long-arm" law enforcement overseas.

Hong Kong's three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities as “incitement of hatred,” and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world.

More targeted

Meanwhile, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam has lodged complaints to the Hong Kong Bar Association and The Law Society of Hong Kong against two others on the "wanted" list: former lawmaker Dennis Kwok and solicitor Kevin Yam, for “professional misconduct," Hong Kong Watch said, adding that both could have their licenses to practice law in Hong Kong suspended.

“This is a drastic escalation since last week’s arrest warrants and bounties against the eight activists, which were already outrageous and completely unacceptable," the group's Chief Executive Benedict Rogers said.

The group called on British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to summon the Chinese ambassador and ask him to explain why the authorities are targeting the families of Hong Kongers under the protection of the United Kingdom. Law has been granted political refugee status.

"The Hong Kong government is openly threatening activists abroad, in an attempt to silence them and spread fear among the community," the statement said.

It said the threats against Law's family showed that the situation in Hong Kong is increasingly similar to that of mainland China, and that any difference between the two systems of governance has been totally dismantled.

‘Rats crossing the street’

Chief Executive John Lee on Tuesday repeated his vow to "hunt down" Law and the other activists for the rest of their lives.

"I have said many times that we will hunt them down for the rest of their lives, and that we will use every means in our power to do so, including going after anyone providing them with financial or other kinds of assistance," Lee told reporters on Tuesday.

"We will also go after the forces behind the scenes, who may even be controlling them," he said, without elaborating on who those forces might be.

He likened the exiled activists to "rats crossing the street," to be shunned unless anyone has information leading to their arrest or prosecution, in which case a reward could be offered.

Former Security Secretary Regina Ip earlier told reporters that she believed that while "normal" family contact with overseas activists wasn't an issue, anyone sending funds to overseas activists who then used the money to lobby overseas parliaments to sanction Hong Kong "or other violations of the national security law," could face prosecution.

More than 260 people have been arrested under the national security law, including dozens of former opposition lawmakers and political activists and senior journalists including pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen.

An estimated 10,000 have been prosecuted for "rioting" or public order offenses in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing views as an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment a "color revolution" in Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Simon Lee for RFA Cantonese.

Police arrested Calvin Chu, 24, a former standing committee member of Demosisto, which was founded by U.K.-based former student protest leader and lawmaker Nathan Law, who had a HK$1 million bounty placed on his head earlier this week, the station said.

Police had earlier arrested four men on the same charges, they said in a statement on Wednesday.

Commentators said the five arrests are directly connected to the issuing of warrants for Law and seven other prominent overseas activists earlier this week.

According to a report in the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, the four stand accused of funding Law's activities via a pro-democracy app call Punish MEE, which was originally designed to give money to businesses that openly supported the 2019 pro-democracy protests, known as the "yellow economic circle." 

While police didn't name him in their statement about the four arrests, multiple media reports said one of the four arrested on Wednesday was former Demosisto Chairman Ivan Lam.

According to the Ming Pao, the four arrestees including Lam stand accused of helping to fund Law's activities in the United Kingdom via the Punish MEE app. Chu is described in the report as "an employee" of the app.

Trying to 'scare people'

Chu's arrest brings to five the number of people arrested this week on suspicion of “conspiracy to collude with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security” and of “conspiracy to commit an act or acts with seditious intention.”

The arrests are part of an attempt to create a chilling effect among overseas activists lobbying for sanctions and other measures in response to the current crackdown in Hong Kong, said current affairs commentator Sang Pu.

"If they keep arresting people in Hong Kong, that's going to scare people overseas," Sang said. "That's their aim."

"They may even bring in a crowdfunding law making it illegal to donate to anyone raising funds [for overseas activism]," he said. "It's about frightening people and cutting off the flow of funding."

National security police on Monday issued arrest warrants for eight Hong Kong activists in exile, offering a HK$1 million bounty per person for information leading to their arrest and prosecution, sparking international criticism of the authorities' attempts at "long-arm" law enforcement overseas.

Cracking down

Hong Kong's three-year-old national security law bans public criticism of the authorities and peaceful political opposition, and applies to speech or acts committed by people of any nationality, anywhere in the world.

"The arrested persons were suspected of receiving funds from operating companies, social media platforms and mobile applications to support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security," the police said in a July 5 statement that didn't name anyone.

"They were also suspected of repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intention on social media platforms, including content which provoked hatred towards the Central Authorities and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and advocated Hong Kong independence," it said.

Police searched the arrestees' homes and confiscated documents and communications devices, it said, adding that further arrests could be made.

The statement warned members of the public that they could go to jail for helping people deemed to have colluded with "external elements to endanger national security."

So far, more than 260 people have now been arrested under the national security law, including dozens of former opposition lawmakers and political activists and senior journalists including pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen.

An estimated 10,000 have been prosecuted for "rioting" or public order offenses in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, which Beijing views as an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment a "color revolution" in Hong Kong.

British response

Meanwhile, calls are growing for the British government to come up with a more robust response to China's attempts to enforce its laws on foreign soil.

U.K.-based activist Finn Lau, who was among the eight listed as wanted by national security police on Monday, called for immediate meetings with Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Home Secretary Suella Braverman to discuss potential threats to the safety of Hong Kongers in the U.K. from agents and supporters of the Chinese state.

"The U.K. government should ensure that if anyone attempts to kidnap anyone due to the bounties or the #NationalSecurityLaw, they should be tried and prosecuted on British soil," Lau told a news conference in London on Wednesday.

He also called for a ban on British judges serving in Hong Kong's judiciary.

Veteran trade unionist Mung Siu-tat, also known as Christopher Mung, said there are now concerns that the wanted list has ushered in an intensification of the crackdown, with many more arrests to follow.

"Where is the crime in supporting one's own ideas through running a business?" Mung said. "Anyone doing this will now be suppressed, or arrested."

"Those warrants weren't just about putting pressure on overseas activists -- they will also lead to more intense daily suppression and arrests in Hong Kong itself," he said.

Lau said there is little he can do to protect himself beyond hoping that he will be protected by being on British soil.

"I will try not to worry too much, and won't restrict myself -- I'll do more," he said. "I'll keep going despite the personal danger."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jojo Man and Amelia Loi for RFA Cantonese.

Mohammad knows firsthand the challenges of exile. In 2019, he made a new life in Spain after fleeing the Syrian civil war with CPJ’s help, and has continued to cover his country from abroad while learning Spanish. “Being forced to leave your country is one of the most difficult moments in life,” he told CPJ in a 2021 interview. But journalists “have a major role to play” in helping the world understand the countries they left.

Mohammad’s story is hardly unique. In 2020, CPJ issued assistance to journalists in exile 63 times, in the form of immigration support letters and grants for necessities like rent and food. Throughout 2022, CPJ provided help 206 times, an increase of 227% over the three-year period.

The spike in support underscores the growing number of journalists fleeing their home countries, and the growing need for assistance. This year to date, CPJ has provided help 71 times to exiled journalists. Journalists from Afghanistan, Iran, and Nicaragua make up the largest shares. (This data solely reflects direct assistance to journalists from CPJ’s Emergencies team, and not other ways the organization supports those in exile through advocacy and other means.)

The total number of journalists in exile is unknown. Some have crossed a border to a neighboring country, and others have traveled thousands of miles. Over the past three years, CPJ has helped journalists who have relocated from Cuba to Spain, from Ethiopia to Kenya, from Myanmar to Thailand, and from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Brazil, France, and Canada. Each journey reflect’s an individual’s life upended; considered together, they show how press freedom’s global decline contributes to the increasing number of people forced to flee their home countries. As the number of exiled journalists grows, viable pathways to safety remain difficult for many to access.

Journalists have unique reasons for leaving their countries. Members of the press hold people in power to account. They have public profiles. When subjects don’t want to be covered, they can make life difficult and dangerous for journalists and their families; politics and corruption are particularly risky beats. Some journalists flee to escape imprisonment or the threat of physical attacks; others worry that they will be killed if they stay.  

To mark World Refugee Day on June 20, here are three takeaways from CPJ’s work with exiled journalists.

1. Journalists are being driven out of countries where press freedom is under attack

While historically people have been driven into exile by wars, many of the journalists CPJ has supported in recent years were forced out not due to armed conflict but because of specific attacks on the press. Prior to the Taliban takeover, CPJ received few exile support requests from Afghan journalists. But since 2021, Afghan journalists fleeing the Taliban’s repressive regime, under which journalists have been beaten and jailed, have represented the largest share of exiled journalists receiving support each year.

CPJ has also helped journalists from Nicaragua, where the government of President Daniel Ortega has engaged in systematic attacks on freedom of expression, forcing out journalists and media workers as part of a mass deportation of political prisoners to the United States in February. Iranian journalists make up another large share of CPJ exile support; the country was listed as the world’s worst jailer of journalists in CPJ’s 2022 prison census, amid a crackdown on anti-state protests.

CPJ has also supported journalists from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Venezuela, all places that have seen serious erosions in press freedom.

CPJ has also provided aid to journalists fleeing conflict zones like Iraq and Syria. More than 100 journalists escaped the Syrian civil war with CPJ’s help between 2011 and 2015.

2. Journalists who go into exile need more reliable pathways to safety

Journalists forced to make the stark choice between continuing to report in dangerous environments or leaving home must often decide quickly. In Afghanistan, journalists were sometimes told they had hours to gather precious belongings, pack their bags, and leave their country behind. When a journalist does make the leap, few mechanisms exist to support them.

Members of the press often wait months or even years for visas; in some cases, they are forced to remain in the very country where their lives are imperiled. Other times, journalists move abroad but get stuck in bureaucratic limbo, unable to leave, see their families, or work. Sometimes, journalists who have faced charges or have a criminal history in their home country due to their work face difficulties at international borders, or when applying for asylum or visas.

Emergency visas would allow journalists to quickly and safely relocate, and CPJ has long advocated for their wider availability. In May, the Estonian government heeded the call, announcing a program that will provide 35 emergency visas to journalists each year. A number of other countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Germany have also taken concrete steps to providing safe refuge for journalists. More countries should follow suit.

Until they do, options for help are limited. The vast majority of journalists who go into exile are often left to navigate and engage with complex immigration bureaucracies on their own, a daunting and arduous process. CPJ has written hundreds of letters of support for journalists to include in immigration applications; these letters typically explain why it’s too dangerous for a journalist to return to their home country. CPJ provided dozens of these letters for Afghan journalists alone over the past two years, underscoring the severe need for assistance in navigating immigration bureaucracies.

3. Exile is a press freedom issue

When a journalist is forced into exile, journalism suffers. Many journalists cease reporting when they relocate, and readers, viewers, and listeners are robbed of the information they need to make informed decisions about their lives.

Challenges persist even for those who find a way to keep reporting from exile. Setting up newsrooms and re-establishing oneself as a journalist in another country can be a costly, confusing process. The very threats and attacks that caused journalists to flee may also follow them into their new country, and the overlapping stressors put a strain on journalists’ mental health. Iranian journalists in particular remain vulnerable in exile. In some cases, like that of exiled Bangladeshi journalist Kanak Sarwar, authorities target a journalist’s family members after the individual has left the country.  

Supporting journalists in exile — whether through direct financial assistance, advocating for safe refuge, or shining a light on their stories to help the public to understand why they needed to flee — remains a crucial focus of CPJ’s work. Exile should be a last resort. But it’s still a chance for freedom, which journalists need to survive and tell the stories that shape our world.

“Maybe you expect I’d complain about exile, but I’m satisfied here because this is my choice,” Iranian blogger and editor Arash Sigarchi, who fled to the United States in 2008, told CPJ that year. “I had two options: one, to stay in Iran and be in prison under torture, and two, to be in exile.”

Data and map by CPJ Emergencies Administrator Anastasia Tkach

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

• I am aware of the digital risks that I face

• I have turned on two-factor authentication for my accounts

• I have the backup codes for each account

• I know how to create a secure password 

• I am using different secure passwords for each account 

• I have a way to store and use my passwords safely 

• I am aware of the steps I need to take to protect myself against phishing

• I have carried out a search of my online data and have taken steps to remove any personal information that I do not want in the public domain

• I know the best and most secure way for me to communicate with others back in my country of origin

• I have spoken with my sources and others about the importance of deleting conversations and other sources of information from their phones in case they are arrested

• I know what personal data is available online regarding my web domain

• I have backed up the content of my website or I have created a mirror of the site

• My site is protected from DDoS attacks

If you need assistance, journalists should contact CPJ via emergencies@cpj.org.

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

The longtime leader also said that supporters living in exile were welcome to return to Cambodia as long as they renounce Sam Rainsy, one of Hun Sen’s most prominent critics and rivals. 

“The movement of the opposition party members who left the party is like a broken dam,” the prime minister said at a meeting with factory workers in Kampong Chhnang province. 

“We are welcoming all parties’ inclinations to live with the CPP,” Hun Sen said on Friday, referring to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. “But I won’t accept just one person: the traitor,” referring to Sam Rainsy. 

“Anyone who disassociates with him, I will pardon them but those who are associated with him will be prosecuted,” he said.

Hun Sen and the CPP have neutralized the political opposition ahead of the July 23 parliamentary election by threatening or co-opting activists. 

Additionally, members of the main opposition Candlelight Party have been arrested in several provinces in recent months, including two senior party officials in Tboung Khmum province who were charged this week with incitement. 

Some detained activists have received pardons, were released from prison and given government positions after they publicly switched their allegiance to the CPP. Some have made claims that they were cheated by Sam Rainsy.

Thailand and Vietnam

Once the head of the now-disbanded opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, Sam Rainsy fled to France in 2015 to avoid a series of charges that his supporters say were politically motivated.

His recent visit to Kuala Lumpur – where he spent time with Cambodian political activists living in Malaysia – angered Hun Sen, who threatened to attack him with a rocket launcher if he led workers from Thailand into Cambodia. 

In May, Sam Rainsy told Radio Free Asia that if a new pro-democracy Thai government is formed, he would look into traveling to Cambodia through Thailand. 

Hun Sen has asked Thailand to arrest Sam Rainsy if he travels there. This week, he said he has received information that Sam Rainsy has also considered traveling on a French passport to Vietnam, where he could walk across the border to Cambodia.

Last week, the prime minister threatened to arrest anyone who took part in a planned demonstration in Phnom Penh to protest against the National Election Committee’s decision – citing inadequate paperwork – to keep the Candlelight Party off the ballot for next month’s elections

“Please try me if you dare, you can come out now,” Hun Sen said. “I will handcuff you immediately and I won’t keep you in Phnom Penh.”

‘It is hard to accept’

Candlelight Party spokesman Kim Sour Phirith said party officials are working to collect information on this week’s arrests in Tboung Khmum and will provide defense lawyers.

“It is hard to accept [the arrests],” he told RFA. “The Candlelight Party can’t participate in the election and now many important activists have been arrested without proper reasons.”

Hun Sen is obviously worried that Sam Rainsy will return to Cambodia, where he continues to have support, said Duong Chantrea, an opposition party activist who fled Cambodia and is living in Bangkok. 

He said he won’t accept Hun Sen’s offer and will continue to associate with Sam Rainsy.

“People are struggling for freedom and a better economy like other countries,” he told RFA. “They won’t follow Hun Sen. They are waiting to get a good chance to change the dictatorial regime.”

Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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

Jahesh is one of many exiled Afghan journalists still in limbo more than 18 months after the Taliban seized power, forcing hundreds of thousands of Afghans to flee. Those who left included hundreds of journalists seeking refuge as the Taliban cracked down on the country’s previously vibrant independent media landscape.

While some journalists found shelter in Europe or the U.S., those unable to move beyond neighboring Pakistan are in increasingly dire straits. Unable to find jobs without work authorization, their visas are running out as they struggle with the snail-paced process of resettlement to a third country. Pakistan, which last year announced it would expedite 30-day transit visas for Afghans going to other countries, is now taking harsher steps against those in the country without valid documents. In March, the government announced new restrictions limiting their movements. At least 1,100 Afghans have been deported in recent months, according to a Guardian report citing Pakistani human rights lawyer Moniza Kakar.

Pakistan is not a signatory to the U.N. refugee convention stating that refugees should not be forced to return to a country where they face threats to their life or freedom, and Afghan journalists told CPJ they fear the Taliban’s hardline stance on the media would put them at particular risk if they were sent back.

Some journalists told CPJ they have to pay exorbitant fees to renew a visa and applications can take months to be processed. Those without valid visas live in hiding for fear of detention or extortion. Even those with the proper documentation said they have been harassed by local authorities. The uncertainty, they say, has put a strain on their mental health.  

“People are worried about being identified and arrested if they go out to try to renew their visas. The risk of deportation is putting everyone under pressure,” said Jahesh, who suspended his plan to sell his kidney following a donation after tweeting his desperate offer in February.

The situation is “dire,” said Ahmad Quraishi, executive director of the advocacy group Afghanistan Journalists Center, which estimates there are at least 150 Afghan journalists in Pakistan. He called on embassies to prioritize resettlement applications of at-risk journalists. 

CPJ spoke with five other exiled Afghan journalists in Pakistan who are facing visa issues. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Ahmad Ferooz Esar, a former journalist with Arezo TV and Mitra TV, fled to Pakistan in December 2021 with his wife, also a journalist. He was briefly detained in early February and is in hiding after speaking out about his detention.

On the night of February 3, the police entered our house and arrested me and a number of other Afghans living there. I asked the police why I was being arrested, they didn’t say anything. They asked me about my job and what I did in Afghanistan, I was very afraid. They did not even check our passport or visa status.

We were taken to the police station. They asked for money. Before my mobile phone was taken away, I shared my arrest with some media colleagues in Islamabad. With their help, I got out later and I gave media interviews in which I talked about police corruption. I stated the facts, but the police came looking for me later. We had to leave the house.

We are living in fear. Every moment we fear they may find out our current address and come here to arrest me. Please help me and my wife escape from this horror and destruction. There is no way for us to go back to Afghanistan.

Khatera Ahmadi, a former news presenter with Afghan broadcaster TOLONews, fled to Pakistan in July 2022. A photo of her covering her face on-air following an order by the Taliban was one of the most widely shared images illustrating the restrictions on female journalists in the country.  

I had to flee Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power and after the threats that were made against me. I got the visa and came to Pakistan with my husband, who is also a journalist. It’s been eight months now, we’re in a bad situation. We can’t travel freely in Pakistan. We have to go to the Torkham border [a border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan that some Afghans are required visit every two months] to renew our visas, but the Taliban might arrest me there.

I cannot go anywhere, my family cannot transfer me money, I cannot make the [rental] contract for the house. We can’t do anything here.

Medina Kohistani, a former journalist with TOLONews, fled to Pakistan a year ago. She said there has been heightened anxiety among exiled Afghan journalists in Pakistan.

The police always patrol the streets and markets and check the visas and passports of Afghans. In some cases, they enter buildings and check the visas and residence permits of Afghan refugees.

In one case, several people, including journalists, had been arrested over visa issues, and were later released after paying a bribe. My friend, who is a journalist, did not have money to pay the fines after his visa expired, he is living in constant fear.

Ahmad, who asked to be identified only by his first name, has been living in Islamabad for about 10 months. He was forced to flee Afghanistan after he was detained by the Taliban over his reporting.

I have seen that most Afghan journalists have had to buy their [Pakistan] visas for US$1,200 to be able to flee Afghanistan and now, their visas have expired. Even though they tried to apply for an extension, they didn’t get an answer. The only way to get a visa is by paying a bribe, which is impossible, given the financial situations of many Afghan journalists.

I personally witnessed one of the journalists whose visa has expired…pay a bribe to the police. I cannot provide more details as I may face more risks to discuss that.

An Afghan journalist in Pakistan, who is also a father of three children aged 5 to 14. He fled to Pakistan over a year ago and asked not to be named for the security of his family.

Pakistan does not provide education for our children, public and private schools do not enroll our children. This is a really big issue. What will be the future of these children while there is no hope for a third country resettlement?

When we fled Afghanistan, we had a small amount of cash savings that we kept with us. We had just enough to get by with those savings in the beginning, now we have to sell our belongings like my wife’s jewelries for cash and for food.

There are no other options, we can’t go back to Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior did not respond to a request seeking comment for this article, including the allegations of bribery.

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

A group of 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church (also known as the Mayflower Church) had feared Thailand might deport them to China, but American officials and a lawmaker reportedly intervened and persuaded Thai authorities to send them to the U.S.

“They flew out last night on multiple flights,” a police official who works closely with Gen. Surachate Hakparn, the deputy national police chief, told reporters in Bangkok on Friday. 

Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service confirmed with China Aid staff on Friday that only 59 of the 63 church members are on their way to the U.S. They will arrive at Dallas International Airport at 7:00 p.m. local time. One family of four stayed behind in Thailand.

Earlier in the week, Surachate said that Thai authorities had met with American Embassy officials and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR to arrange for the Chinese Christians to be sent to the U.S. for resettlement, and their departure from Thailand was expected to happen on Friday.

“We understand this group left to the U.S. However, we are unable to provide details on the procedures involving these cases due reasons of confidentiality and protection,” Morgane Roussel-Hemery, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, in an email Friday.

The American embassy in Bangkok declined to confirm the information and referred questions to the U.S. State Department.

While talking to reporters on Wednesday, Surachate said that authorities arrested the members of the church group last week after the National Police Bureau launched a crackdown on undocumented Chinese visitors who may commit crimes while staying in major Thai cities such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket.

The 63 were detained in Pattaya and tried at a court there for overstaying their visas by at least six months, officials said. They were fined and then bused to Bangkok, where they were placed in immigration detention before their release. The mothers and children in the group were held at a center for mothers and children in Don Mueang district, while the rest were held at the Suan Plu immigration detention center, according to Surachate.

During a visit to Washington in late February, Surachate said he met with U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, who asked the senior Thai police official to help take care of the Chinese Christians. Smith, a New Jersey Republican who chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, did not immediately respond to an email query from BenarNews.

Surachate met with officials from the American embassy and UNHCR on Wednesday and an agreement was reached to send the Christian exiles to the U.S., he said.

“We came to the conclusion to send them to the U.S. as soon as possible,” Surachate told reporters later that day but asked that the information not be made public until after the group had departed for the U.S.

The Chinese exiles fled China in 2019 amid what they said was escalating persecution. The group first traveled to South Korea’s Jeju Island, and then to Thailand in 2022, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA), a news organization affiliated with BenarNews.

“Based on the investigation, these people for two years were seeking asylum and a certificate from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Korea, but to no avail,” Surachate said.

“Therefore, they traveled to Thailand because they heard it is easier to obtain UNHCR papers here…They received the certificate just after four months of arrival. We did not know they already had papers when they were arrested,” he added.

Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but the non-refoulement principle under international human rights law states that people cannot be sent back to a country where they are likely to be persecuted, tortured, mistreated or have their human rights violated.

According to U.S.-based Freedom House, Christianity has expanded rapidly in China since 1980, but is strictly controlled by the state.

“The Chinese authorities seek to monitor and control Christians by encouraging them – sometimes forcefully – to join state-sanctioned churches that are affiliated with ‘patriotic’ associations and led by politically vetted clergy,” said a 2017 Freedom House report.

“Religious leaders and congregants who refuse to register for theological or practical reasons risk having their place of worship shuttered and face detention, beatings, dismissal from employment, or imprisonment.

Freedom Seekers International, an American faith-based group that assists people fleeing from religious persecution aboard, was working this week to arrange for the members of the Mayflower Church to be allowed to travel to Texas.

“FSI – Freedom Seekers International has been working with them for two years. And … we are taking the lead on their resettlement in the United States,” Deana Brown, the founder and CEO of the group based in Tyler, Texas, told BenarNews in an email on Wednesday.

Several organizations were working with the State Department to facilitate the release of the Mayflower Church people from Thai custody, she said.

“Since Monday we have been able to take supplies daily to the detention center for the 63 Mayflowers: baby formula, water, Pedialyte, diarrhea medicine, bug bite, medicine, underwear for everyone, a change of clothes for the children, shirts for the adults, snacks, bread, toilet paper, etc.,” Brown said. 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By  Nontarat Phaicharoen and Mem Satitpanyapan for BenarNews.

Police filed the first information report opening the investigation following a complaint by Masud Rana, a businessman who alleged Bhuttow had defamed Hasan Mahmud, Bangladesh’s information and broadcasting minister and joint general secretary of the ruling Awami League party, in a London Bangla Channel video published on January 4, according to a copy of the report reviewed by CPJ.

In that video, Bhuttow alleged that Mahmud had purchased a residential property in the United Arab Emirates using laundered money.

The complaint accuses Bhuttow and London Bangla Channel of violating five sections of the Digital Security Act: transmission or publication of offensive, false, or threatening information; unauthorized collection or use of identity information; publication or transmission of defamatory information; publication or transmission of information that deteriorates law and order; and abetment, according to the first information report.

Each of the first four offenses can carry a prison sentence of three to 10 years, and a fine of 300,000 to 1,000,000 taka (US$2,849 to $9,496), according to the law, which says that abetment can carry the same punishment as committing an offense itself.

Bhuttow said he did not know if any court hearings had been held in the case.

CPJ called and messaged Rana, Mahmud, and Manjur Quader Majumder, officer-in-charge of the Chawkbazar police station, but did not receive any replies. Mahmud’s personal assistant told New Age that the minister did not ask Rana to file the DSA case.

Earlier, in September 2022, Bangladesh authorities arrested Abdul Muktadir Manu, Bhuttow’s brother and a member of a local administrative unit with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

Bhuttow told CPJ that he believed authorities arrested his brother in retaliation for his journalism. Prior to the arrest, Bhuttow had published two interviews with retired Lieutenant Colonel Hasinur Rahman, who received international attention for his allegations that Bangladesh’s military intelligence secretly detained him in 2011 and 2018.

Since his brother’s arrest, Bhuttow has received threatening calls and text messages from anonymous numbers, warning him to stop his reporting or face further investigations in Bangladesh, according to Bhuttow and copies of the messages reviewed by CPJ.

A first information report on Manu’s case accused him of working with Bhuttow to spread rumors and attempting to remove Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power. Authorities also accuse Bhuttow of encouraging his brother to attack police officers in 2021, during clashes between BNP factions in the town of Moulvibazar.

Bhuttow told CPJ that Manu was not involved in that incident, and he believed authorities sought to prolong Manu’s arbitrary detention and intimidate Bhuttow over his work. Manu was released on interim bail on September 21, 2022, and has to frequently appear in local courts for proceedings in the two cases, Bhuttow said.

Mohammad Zakaria, superintendent of the Moulvibazar district police, acknowledged receipt of CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app, but did not provide further information by the time of publication.

Since August 2022, police officers and officials with National Security Intelligence, Bangladesh’s civil intelligence agency, have repeatedly visited the homes Bhuttow’s family members, including his brother Abdul Hamid, a businessman in the capital city of Dhaka, and questioned them about their relationship with the journalist and his work, Bhuttow told CPJ.

CPJ called and messaged Roy Niyati, a Dhaka metropolitan police spokesperson, and National Security Intelligence Director-General Major General T.M. Jobair, but did not receive any replies.

CPJ has documented other instances of retaliation against the family members of foreign-based Bangladeshi journalists, including the March 2023 assault of the brother of U.K.-based journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan, as well as the September 2022 arrest of U.K.-based journalist Shamsul Alam Liton’s brother and the October 2021 arrest of U.S.-based journalist Kanak Sarwar’s sister. Those journalists’ siblings have been released on bail, the journalists told CPJ via messaging app.

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

The Associated Press news agency reported that the Chinese were fined and released on Friday. The Chinese exiles belong to the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church, also known as the Mayflower Church.

One police official said the group of 63 Christians including 35 children, who had been arrested Thursday afternoon, would likely not be deported back to China.

 “No, there won’t be that thing. It’s not going to happen,” Col. Tawee Kutthalaeng, chief of the Nong Prue police station, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

“We did not charge all of them because there were children as well. They were charged with overstaying their visas, staying too long and not renewing their visas.”

Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but the non-refoulement principle under international human rights law states that people cannot be sent back to a country where they are likely to be persecuted, tortured, mistreated or have their human rights violated.

The group of 63 Chinese had fled their homeland in 2019, making their way first to South Korea’s Jeju Island, before landing in Thailand last year, according to RFA's Mandarin Service.

Nury Turkel, chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), expressed concern about the Chinese exiles in Thailand.

“Members of the Mayflower Church are at imminent risk of being deported to China, where they will face severe consequences, including imprisonment and torture,” he said in a tweet on Thursday.

According to an American NGO, Freedom House, Christianity has expanded rapidly in China since 1980, but is strictly controlled by the state.

“The Chinese authorities seek to monitor and control Christians by encouraging them – sometimes forcefully – to join state-sanctioned churches that are affiliated with ‘patriotic’ associations and led by politically vetted clergy,” says a 2017 Freedom House report.

“Religious leaders and congregants who refuse to register for theological or practical reasons risk having their place of worship shuttered and face detention, beatings, dismissal from employment, or imprisonment.”

Certain religions and religious groups, including Christian “house churches” that operate independently from state-sanctioned ones, are persecuted harshly, according to Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report.

In October, the pastor associated with the Mayflower Church, Pan Yongguang, who is also in Thailand, told RFA that he was afraid of being caught in an immigration prison and eventually deported to China.

“I can't fall into their hands. If they find me and put me in an immigration prison, they will take me back to China,” he had said.

“I will not voluntarily return to mainland China, and I will not choose to commit suicide.”

‘China’s threats have never stopped’

Meanwhile, Deana Brown, an American who was also arrested briefly with the group according to the Associated Press, said Friday that renewing visas for the Chinese nationals was not easy.

She told AP that when the Chinese exiles had sought to renew their Thai visas, they had been told they had to first report to their country’s embassy.

“We knew [then] that nobody could get their visas,” Brown told AP.

“There was no way, because as soon as they walk into the Chinese Embassy they’re gone, we would not see them again. They’ve been hiding out since then.”

Brown is the founder of a Texas-based organization called Freedom Seekers International, which says on its website that it “exists to rescue ‘last resort’ and the most severely persecuted Christians in hostile and restrictive countries.”

The organization says it “is taking the lead role in establishing a new life for them in Tyler, Texas.”

Fu Xiqiu, chairman of the China Aid Association, a Christian NGO headquartered in the United States, told RFA on Thursday that one of the church members had been coerced into informing the Thai authorities where they were staying. That is what prompted the immigration raid and arrest, Fu alleged.

“Based on the way other missing persons were treated in the past, this must be the CCP’s mafia behind the scenes,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

“We call on the international community to lend a helping hand urgently to stop the atrocities. We can imagine that if these adults and children return to China, they will definitely be imprisoned and persecuted.”

Fu further alleged that threats from Chinese authorities have continued despite the church members being in exile.

“China’s threats have never stopped, including family members being kidnapped, threatened, and interrogated,” Fu claimed.

“Even in Jeju Island, they were threatened by text messages and phone calls from the CCP Consulate in Jeju Island, saying that they were traitorous, treasonous, and endangering national security.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Nontarat Phaicharoen for BenarNews.

On the evening of March 17, in the capital city of Dhaka, four unidentified men beat Mahinur Khan with iron rods and kicked him while accusing his brother of writing “about the PM [prime minister]” and “against the government,” according to Al-Jazeera and Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who spoke to CPJ by phone. The men took a video of the attack before leaving the scene, Zulkarnain Saer Khan said.

Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who lives in exile in the United Kingdom where he works as a researcher with Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera’s investigative unit, recently published investigative reports on alleged corruption by government officials with the ruling Awami League party, and the country’s expanding surveillance apparatus.

“The attack on the brother of Bangladeshi journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan is the latest case of the family of journalists in exile being targeted back home,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Bangladesh has built a reputation in this heinous form of transnational vengeance. Authorities must ensure the perpetrators of this attack are held accountable and that the Khan family can live safely.”

Mahinur Khan was hospitalized and sustained a torn ligament in his leg, broken kneecaps, and significant swelling and bruising throughout his body, according to his brother and that Al-Jazeera report.

Locals informed the Khan family that the attackers were supporters of Humayoun Rashid Jony, a Dhaka official and member of the Awami League, Zulkarnain Saer Khan said.

Mahinur Khan’s wife filed a complaint at the Dhaka Mirpur Model Police Station on March 17. The investigating officer in the case, Sub-Inspector Shahin Alam, visited the family’s home to inquire about the attack and said that police were unable to identify any suspects, Zulkarnain Saer Khan told CPJ, adding that no suspects have been apprehended as of March 24.

CPJ contacted Alam via messaging app for comment but did not receive any response. CPJ also emailed Jony and contacted him via messaging app, but he did not reply.

Zulkarnain Saer Khan has contributed to Al-Jazeera, the investigative news website Netra News, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, according to CPJ’s review of his work.

Bangladesh law enforcement have submitted multiple requests to Twitter to remove tweets from Khan’s account, where he frequently posts political news and commentary, including one in November 2022 that alleged Bangladesh government officials had submitted malicious reports to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, resulting in multiple temporary restrictions on the journalist’s Facebook page.

CPJ called and messaged Dhaka police spokesperson Roy Niyati and emailed Prime Minister Hasina’s office and the Awami League for comment, but did not receive any replies.

CPJ has previously documented retaliation against the family members of foreign-based Bangladeshi journalists, including the September 2022 arrests of the brothers of U.K.-based Shamsul Alam Liton and Abdur Rab Bhuttow and the October 2021 arrest of the sister of U.S.-based Kanak Sarwar. Those journalists’ siblings have been released on bail, the journalists told CPJ via messaging app.

[Editors’ note: This article has been changed in its third paragraph to correctly characterize Khan’s employment.]

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

The Justice Department said that Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, diverted funds from thousands of followers who had been promised high returns on investments, and used those funds to pay for his own lavish lifestyle.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York accused Guo of “lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000 square foot mansion, a $3.5 million Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37 million luxury yacht,” a department statement said.

Guo, 52, is charged with 11 criminal counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud and concealment of money laundering. His financier, Hong Kong-U.K. dual citizen King Min Je, is accused of helping in the fraud and has also been charged.

The Justice Department said it seized and is seeking the forfeiture of $634 million of Guo's alleged fraud proceeds from 21 bank accounts.

Guo is a prominent critic of the Chinese communist government. He has ties to Steve Bannon, an adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump. He left China in 2014, and also faces criminal charges in that country but denies wrongdoing. He has lived in the United States since around 2015.

Guo was arrested on Wednesday morning in New York, while the financier Je remains at large, the Justice Department said. 

Reuters reported that Guo pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan federal court Wednesday and was ordered detained without bail. Lawyers for Guo did not immediately respond to requests for comment, the news agency reported. His next court appearance is April 4.

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

The announcement followed a report about a shakeup and power struggle within the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP, over the selection of a new leader to succeed Hun Sun, who has ruled the country since 1985.

Sam Rainsy, acting president of the disbanded opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, posted a statement Friday on Facebook backing Tea Seiha, governor of Siem Reap province and the son of Defense Minister Tea Banh, as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2023-28 term.

The Cambodia National Rescue Party was the previous main opposition party before Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved it in 2017. Sam Rainsy, a party co-founder, has been living in self-exile in France since 2015, when he fled a series of charges his supporters say are politically motivated.

“The Cambodian people who want freedom and justice must unite around Tea Seiha, Tea Banh and Tea Vinh in order to bring about a democratic change in the country’s leadership through peaceful and nonviolent means, meaning free and fair elections,” he wrote.

Admiral Tea Vinh is the brother of Tea Banh and commander of the Royal Cambodian Navy. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tea Vinh in late 2021 for corruption concerning China’s involvement in the redevelopment of Ream Naval Base in Sihanoukville province, which could give Chinese forces a stronghold in the contested South China Sea. 

In Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, Cambodia scored only 24 out of 100, and was ranked at 150 out of 180 countries. 

“Such a change will promote a new leadership which is not made up of murderers, desperately corrupt people and traitors to the nation such as Hun Sen and his family,” Sam Rainsy wrote, referring to the authoritarian prime minister who has ruled Cambodia for 38 years.

July elections

The move comes as Cambodia prepares to elect members of the National Assembly, now fully controlled by the CPP under Hun Sen, who also serves as the party’s president. Opposition figures, including Sam Rainsy, want the prime minister and his party out of power.

In the run-up to the election, Hun Sen has repeatedly attacked members of the Candlelight Party — the current main challenger to the ruling party — in public forums, while CPP authorities have sued Candlelight members on what many observers see as politically motivated charges.  

Tea Banh, who has served as defense minister since the late 1980s, dismissed San Rainsy’s support for his son in a Facebook statement of his own, and stated his backing of Hun Sen’s oldest son, Hun Manet, as the future prime minister.

Hun Manet, 45, is commander of Cambodia’s army, deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, and leader of the CPP’s central youth wing. Hun Sen has groomed him to be his successor.

Sam Rainsy’s statement “aims at breaking national unity,” Tea Banh wrote. “My family and I still have a stand to support Hun Manet to be the next prime ministerial candidate.

He added that the military will work against any foreign interference in an attempt to topple the legal government.  

Following the statement, many senior military officials also denounced Sam Rainsy’s backing of Tea Seiha, who is widely expected to succeed his father as defense minister when Tea Bahn retires.

After Hun Sen said in December 2022 that Hun Manet would succeed him, some leaders in his government, including Tea Bahn and Interior Minister Sar Kheng, did not immediately endorse the move, though they eventually expressed support for the plan.

Internal rifts?

Political analyst Kim Sok said the matter is indicative of internal rifts in the CPP over prime ministerial candidates, suggesting that a faction led by Sar Kheng and Tea Banh still may not be pleased with Hun Sen’s intention to transfer power to his son.

He also said Hun Sen’s concern about a possible revolution sweeping through Cambodia might not come from members of the public and young people displeased with chronic corruption within the government and growing authoritarianism, but from within the CPP itself.

“Hun Sen has said that he will be the CPP president when his son is the prime minister; this means there is an internal rift,” said Kim Sok. “This is a sign of a color revolution within the party.”

Hun Sen recently warned Cambodians not to attempt to stage any color revolutions — popular anti-regime protest movements and accompanying changes of government — using human rights as a pretext, but rather to protect his so-called hard-earned peace.

Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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

The University of the South Pacific’s vice-chancellor and president, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, was given a rousing welcome at Nadi International Airport today returning to Fiji from exile.

He returned two years after he and wife Sandra Price were detained and deported by the former FijiFirst government for allegedly breaching provisions of the Immigration Act.

“We have arrived in Nadi. What a fabulous reception. USP staff, students and so many well wishers to meet us fills out hearts with joy. Beautiful singing and prayer. Thank you Fiji,” he wrote on Twitter, as the couple were received by USP deputy vice-chancellors and vice-presidents, Professor Jito Vanualailai and Dr Giulio Paunga.

• READ MORE: Professor thrilled over USP return – Fiji to pay $90m university debt
• Other USP saga reports

USP Council Secretariat representative Totivi Bokini-Ratu, Lautoka campus director Pramila Devi, and representatives from the USP Students Association, USP Staff Association and Association of the USP Staff were also at the airport to greet Professor Ahluwalia.

“I’m so humbled to see everyone. It is an absolute joy to be back and an opportunity for us to continue serving USP,” he said in a statement.

We have arrived in Nadi. What a fabulous reception. USP Staff, Students and so many well wishers to meet us fills our hearts with joy. Beautiful singing and prayers. Thank you Fiji.

— Professor Pal Ahluwalia, USP VC (@pal_vcp) February 9, 2023

“The support from staff, students and regional governments has just been incredible.

“It was so beautiful to see how much our staff fought. The fight wasn’t just for me; it was for a bigger cause and I’m just a catalyst for the bigger change they wanted to see.”

Next step for students
Professor Ahluwalia said the next step was to work with his senior management team to ensure they got the best out of their students and the region.

He is expected to visit the USP Pacific TAFE Centre in Namaka and Lautoka campus today with other events and meetings scheduled for the coming week, including a launch of the Alumni Relationship Management Service, and the welcoming of international students.

Professor Ahluwalia and his wife’s controversial exile from Fiji followed months of increased tensions between USP and the previous government over allegations of financial mismanagement and corruption.

With the new People’s Alliance-led coalition government in power after ousting the FijiFirst administration in the 2022 general election, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has vowed to right the wrongs of the past administration.

Last December, he declared that Professor Ahluwalia and Dr Padma Lal, widow of another exiled academic, the late Professor Brij Lal, were free to enter the country.

“I am ready to meet Dr Lal and Professor Ahluwalia personally. I will apologise on behalf of the people of Fiji for the way they were treated,” Rabuka had said.

Working from Samoa
He said prohibition orders against Professor Ahluwalia, Dr Lal and the late Professor Lal, were “unreasonable and inhumane”, and “should never have been made”.

Professor Ahluwalia has been working out of USP’s Samoa campus since 2021, and said he looked forward to working with the coalition government to strengthen the relationship between USP and Fiji.

“As a regional institution, USP will continue to serve its island countries — particularly Fiji — and work hard to shape Pacific futures,” Professor Ahluwalia said.

Meanwhile, USP and the Fijian government are expected to conduct a joint traditional welcome ceremony for Professor Ahluwalia, followed by a thanksgiving service at the Japan-Pacific ICT Multipurpose Theatre, Laucala campus next Tuesday.

Geraldine Panapasa is editor-in-chief of the University of the South Pacific’s journalism newspaper and website Wansolwara News. Republished in collaboration with the USP journalism programme.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Wansolwara.

In the video, Long Sokunthearak, who lives in Ohio, said that Hun Sen’s son Hun Manet was only able to rise to a position of power because of his father’s influence, and that the elder Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, has been targeting opposition party politicians to make it easier for his son to one day take his place.

“I wanted to tell the public that my fake uniform has no value, just like the uniform given to Hun Manet by Hun Sen,” Long Sokunthearak told RFA’s Khmer Service.

Hun Manet is Cambodia’s Deputy Commander in Chief of the army, with a rank of infantry commander. 

Supporters of Hun Sen called for action against Long Sokunthearak over the video.

“The individual’s actions, through incitement by illegally impersonating as a military officer, affected the national security and dignity of the Royal Army,” Cambodian Defense Ministry Spokesman Chum Socheat said in a statement.  “It is a serious breach of law that can't be forgiven."

Chum Socheat also said that the video insulted the prime minister and the dignity of Hun Manet.

 Hun Manet’s brother Hun Many took to Facebook to condemn the video, saying, “This is an insult that can't be accepted.” 

“This is baseless and derogatory speech and it has affected me as a family member,” Hun Many said. “I appeal to the authorities to take actions that impersonate a military officer."

Long Sokunthearak said that he had no intention to pass himself off as a Cambodian military officer, and that the government was only targeting him because it wants to link him to the Candlelight Party, which is the current main opposition party, to justify action against that party ahead of this year’s general elections, scheduled for July.

Long Sokunthearak is affiliated with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, which was once the country’s main opposition party until Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved it in 2017 after the party performed well in communal elections that year.

He distanced himself from the Candlelight party, saying he only had ties to the CNRP.

“I am a supporter of the victim,” he said.

Political commentator Em Sovannara said that Long Sokunthearak’s stunt was an example of “bad culture” that he does not support.

He said that  politicians should be mature and ethical so people can trust them and urged them to compete on the issues rather than attacking each other.

 Translated  by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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

On December 30, exiled Turkish journalist Can Dündar revealed that he had been added to the so-called terrorist “gray list,” a database published by the Turkish Interior Ministry that identifies alleged terrorists and offers rewards for their capture, according to news reports.

Dündar’s name and photograph appear on the gray list’s webpage, which offers a reward of 500,000 lira (US$26,697) to anyone who can aid in his arrest. Dündar received CPJ’s 2016 International Press Freedom Award in recognition of his work amid government repression.

CPJ has identified at least 14 other members of the press included on the Interior Ministry’s gray list.

“Turkish authorities should refrain from treating exiled journalists like terrorists, and should not include them on wanted lists, which are blatant attempts to intimidate journalists from doing their jobs,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Authorities should immediately remove the names of all journalists on such lists, and stop treating members of the press like criminals.”

The gray list webpage also includes 14 other Turkish journalists living in exile: Bülent Keneş, Abdullah Bozkurt, Ahmet Dönmez, Cevheri Güven, Tarık Toros, Adem Yavuz Arslan, Said Sefa, Arzu Yıldız, Levent Kenez, Hasan Cücük, Sevgi Akarçeşme, Erhan Başyurt, Bülent Korucu, and Hamit Bilici.

The webpage says those journalists are wanted for their alleged ties to the exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the Turkish government accuses of maintaining a terrorist organization and “parallel state structure,” and of masterminding a July 15, 2016, failed military coup.

Dündar, who reported on alleged weapon smuggling from Turkey to Syria in 2014, was convicted of aiding Gülen’s organization in 2020. If returned to Turkey, he faces nearly 30 years in prison.

CPJ emailed the Interior Ministry of Turkey for comment but did not immediately receive any reply.

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

"I feel very sad whenever I see news of how Hong Kong has changed under Chinese-style laws, because the most valuable things about Hong Kong were its freedoms and the rule of law," a participant in the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests who identified only by his nickname Fu Tong, told Radio Free Asia. "All of that has now been lost."

"I may be looking at Hong Kong from afar, but I see [my hometown] being eroded and changed every day, and I can't help wondering if Hong Kong is still Hong Kong."

"It's the saddest feeling," he said.

Fu Tong's emotions are shared by many who have sought political refuge overseas, some via "safe haven" visa policies offered by the United Kingdom and Australia; others by seeking asylum in the United States, sometimes braving great dangers to get there.

However, many Hong Kongers living in exile seek inspiration from the fact that there are others like them.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui, who currently lives in Australia, said it pains him particularly when his children ask him if the family really is unable to return to Hong Kong.

"They talk about it every holiday, asking me about going back to Hong Kong, which is like a sting for me, as it gives me a sense of helplessness," Hui said. "I wonder the same thing, even though we have settled down now."

Hui takes his inspiration from the bravery of the 2019 protesters, who came out in millions to protest the erosion of their city's freedoms and call for fully democratic elections.

Thousands were arrested, with many held on remand, jailed or unable to leave the city due to bail conditions, while dozens of democratic politicians and activists currently face "subversion" trials under a national security law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party in the wake of the protest movement, for taking part in an unofficial primary in the summer of 2020.

"As a member of the Legislative Council, it was a huge honor for me to take to the streets with the people of Hong Kong in 2019," Hui said. "I will never regret that, and I would do the same thing 10 times over."

"So many of my former colleagues and fellow protesters are now in prison: I've been luckier than many, because I can be with my family, and channel my grief and anger into strength," he said.

"When I went to the parliament in Canberra to lobby today, I gave every MP who met with us a photo of the people of Hong Kong fighting on the streets, and told them that these scenes will be the driving force for me to keep working for Hong Kong for the rest of my life," he said.

"I hope to be their driving force, in turn," Hui said. "We mustn't forget the Hong Kong that existed before 2019, because that was the true Hong Kong."

Beijing insists that repeated waves of mass popular protest movements in Hong Kong calling for fully democratic elections and other freedoms in recent years were instigated by "hostile foreign forces" seeking to undermine Communist Party rule by fomenting dissent in Hong Kong.

It first imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, ushering in an ongoing crackdown on peaceful dissent, press freedom and political opposition that has seen more than 1,000 arrests under the law, with thousands more under colonial-era public order and sedition laws.

The authorities have also barred anyone from holding public office who isn’t demonstrably pro-China, and extended political controls over education and the arts.

Exiled Hong Kong philosopher Canhui Zhang said at a recent event in Canada that Hong Kongers aren't alone in their struggle against totalitarian rule.

"I don't believe that the people of China accept totalitarianism either," Zhang said in a talk on the protest movement and its aftermath. "Even as those in power do their best to claim that Hong Kong is doing great now ... the people know [what is really going on]."

"Is Hong Kong really better off now? Do we believe that? It's just that there's nothing we can do ... because it's under the control of a totalitarian regime," he said.

He said he hopes the people of Hong Kong will never lose their sense of identity, and can work together to build momentum for change from overseas.

"They are starting TV stations, cultural organizations, holding seminars and film festivals," Zhang said. "It's a collective effort to unite this group of people and to further explain the situation in Hong Kong to Western governments."

"We all hope that things will change in Hong Kong one day," he said.

Some are trying to build up a lobbying presence while still battling feelings of displacement and racked with homesickness and worry for loved ones back home.

"Some of my friends who know how much I miss Hong Kong shoot videos on the streets and send them to me, so I can see what Mong Kok looks like now, or what has changed in Western District, where our family used to live," Hui said.

"I take comfort in these videos ... I love watching them and keep asking them to send more," he said.

For Fu Tong, it's his concern for Hong Kong's fast-growing population of political prisoners that weighs most heavily on his mind.

"More than being able to go back to Hong Kong myself, I want to see the release of Hong Kongers who have been politically persecuted," he said. "This is the most important thing."

"Beyond that, I'm just an ordinary guy, not like those political figures who can visit Congress," he said. "I just want to walk around and tell other ordinary people stuff about Hong Kong."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Emily Chan and Liu Fei for RFA Mandarin.

"I feel very sad whenever I see news of how Hong Kong has changed under Chinese-style laws, because the most valuable things about Hong Kong were its freedoms and the rule of law," a participant in the city’s 2019 pro-democracy protests who identified only by his nickname Fu Tong, told Radio Free Asia. "All of that has now been lost."

"I may be looking at Hong Kong from afar, but I see [my hometown] being eroded and changed every day, and I can't help wondering if Hong Kong is still Hong Kong."

"It's the saddest feeling," he said.

Fu Tong's emotions are shared by many who have sought political refuge overseas, some via "safe haven" visa policies offered by the United Kingdom and Australia; others by seeking asylum in the United States, sometimes braving great dangers to get there.

However, many Hong Kongers living in exile seek inspiration from the fact that there are others like them.

Former Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui, who currently lives in Australia, said it pains him particularly when his children ask him if the family really is unable to return to Hong Kong.

"They talk about it every holiday, asking me about going back to Hong Kong, which is like a sting for me, as it gives me a sense of helplessness," Hui said. "I wonder the same thing, even though we have settled down now."

Hui takes his inspiration from the bravery of the 2019 protesters, who came out in millions to protest the erosion of their city's freedoms and call for fully democratic elections.

Thousands were arrested, with many held on remand, jailed or unable to leave the city due to bail conditions, while dozens of democratic politicians and activists currently face "subversion" trials under a national security law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party in the wake of the protest movement, for taking part in an unofficial primary in the summer of 2020.

"As a member of the Legislative Council, it was a huge honor for me to take to the streets with the people of Hong Kong in 2019," Hui said. "I will never regret that, and I would do the same thing 10 times over."

"So many of my former colleagues and fellow protesters are now in prison: I've been luckier than many, because I can be with my family, and channel my grief and anger into strength," he said.

"When I went to the parliament in Canberra to lobby today, I gave every MP who met with us a photo of the people of Hong Kong fighting on the streets, and told them that these scenes will be the driving force for me to keep working for Hong Kong for the rest of my life," he said.

"I hope to be their driving force, in turn," Hui said. "We mustn't forget the Hong Kong that existed before 2019, because that was the true Hong Kong."

Beijing insists that repeated waves of mass popular protest movements in Hong Kong calling for fully democratic elections and other freedoms in recent years were instigated by "hostile foreign forces" seeking to undermine Communist Party rule by fomenting dissent in Hong Kong.

It first imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, ushering in an ongoing crackdown on peaceful dissent, press freedom and political opposition that has seen more than 1,000 arrests under the law, with thousands more under colonial-era public order and sedition laws.

The authorities have also barred anyone from holding public office who isn’t demonstrably pro-China, and extended political controls over education and the arts.

Exiled Hong Kong philosopher Canhui Zhang said at a recent event in Canada that Hong Kongers aren't alone in their struggle against totalitarian rule.

"I don't believe that the people of China accept totalitarianism either," Zhang said in a talk on the protest movement and its aftermath. "Even as those in power do their best to claim that Hong Kong is doing great now ... the people know [what is really going on]."

"Is Hong Kong really better off now? Do we believe that? It's just that there's nothing we can do ... because it's under the control of a totalitarian regime," he said.

He said he hopes the people of Hong Kong will never lose their sense of identity, and can work together to build momentum for change from overseas.

"They are starting TV stations, cultural organizations, holding seminars and film festivals," Zhang said. "It's a collective effort to unite this group of people and to further explain the situation in Hong Kong to Western governments."

"We all hope that things will change in Hong Kong one day," he said.

Some are trying to build up a lobbying presence while still battling feelings of displacement and racked with homesickness and worry for loved ones back home.

"Some of my friends who know how much I miss Hong Kong shoot videos on the streets and send them to me, so I can see what Mong Kok looks like now, or what has changed in Western District, where our family used to live," Hui said.

"I take comfort in these videos ... I love watching them and keep asking them to send more," he said.

For Fu Tong, it's his concern for Hong Kong's fast-growing population of political prisoners that weighs most heavily on his mind.

"More than being able to go back to Hong Kong myself, I want to see the release of Hong Kongers who have been politically persecuted," he said. "This is the most important thing."

"Beyond that, I'm just an ordinary guy, not like those political figures who can visit Congress," he said. "I just want to walk around and tell other ordinary people stuff about Hong Kong."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Emily Chan and Liu Fei for RFA Mandarin.

The greenlight has been given to University of the South Pacific vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, and Dr Padma Lal, to return to Fiji by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.

Professor Ahluwalia was deported in 2021 and Dr Lal — widow of the late leading Fiji academic Professor Brij Lal — was refused entry to Fiji along with her husband.

Exiled Professor Ahluwalia currently resides in Samoa and Dr Lal in Australia.

• READ MORE: How Fiji could help resolve the Pal Ahluwalia and USP crisis
• Professor Brij Lal: A champion of democracy and Fiji’s finest scholar

Rabuka has made it clear today that both of them are free to enter the country.

“I am ready to meet Dr Lal and Professor Ahluwalia personally,” he said.

“I will apologise on behalf of the people of Fiji for the way they were treated.”

Dr Lal had been prevented from coming to Fiji with her husband’s ashes for them to be taken to his birthplace at Tabia, near Labasa.

First anniversary
Today marks the first anniversary of Professor Lal’s death.

Rabuka said prohibition orders against Professor Brij Lal and Dr Lal, as well as Professor Ahluwalia, were “unreasonable and inhumane” and should never have been made.

He had promised his government would bring to an end the injustices suffered by Professor Ahluwalia, and Professor Lal.

“I received a clarification today from the Department of Immigration that neither Dr Padma Lal nor Professor Ahluwalia were the subject of written prohibition orders,” he said.

Josefa Babitu is a Fiji Sun reporter. Republished from the Fiji Sun.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On Tuesday, December 6, the Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP), the country’s media regulator, canceled the outlet’s broadcasting authorization “due to a threat to national security and public order” and accused the broadcaster of violating the country’s media law, according to multiple media reports, a statement by the regulator, and its official decision.

The regulator ordered the channel to stop broadcasting on Thursday, December 8, and ordered its programming on YouTube to be blocked in Latvia as well, those reports said.

Dozhd TV was based in Russia until March 3, when it was forced to suspend its work and flee the country amid a crackdown on coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The channel resumed operations from exile in July after obtaining a broadcasting permit from Latvian authorities, news reports said.

“As a country that has been through the process of building vibrant independent media, Latvia knows well that this process is hardly smooth and easy. Latvian authorities should ensure that any regulatory violations by media outlets are handled proportionately, and that outlets’ licenses are only revoked as a last resort,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Authorities should reverse their decision to strip Dozhd TV of its broadcast authorization, and should continue hosting the media outlet and its journalists, who could otherwise become even an easier target for Russian authorities.”

Because Dozhd TV’s Latvian license granted the channel broadcast rights to other European countries, the cancellation will also result in the broadcaster being taken off-air in Estonia and Lithuania, according to media reports and the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission. CPJ was unable to immediately confirm the other countries where the broadcaster may be barred from broadcasting.

Before canceling the broadcaster’s license, the NEPLP cited Dozhd TV for multiple alleged violations. In November, the NEPLP fined Dozhd TV 4,000 euros (US$4,200) for failing to provide a Latvian-language soundtrack to its programming, according to the regulator’s December 6 decision, published on its website.

Dozhd TV chief editor Tikhon Dzyadko told CPJ via email and messaging app that the channel had appealed that decision as unfounded, given that Dozhd’s application for a Latvian license stated that the channel would not be able to provide a Latvian soundtrack before 2023.

“We had no desire to break the laws, but with the relaunch, we were not able to implement everything at once,” he told CPJ. He said the NEPLP had accepted the outlet’s application which stipulated that the channel would feature Latvian subtitles for its 2022 programming and its archives, but added that Dozhd TV had fallen behind on producing those.

On December 2, the NEPLP fined Dozhd TV 10,000 euros (US$10,500) for having shown a map that labeled Crimea as part of Russia and for referring to the Russian military as “our army,” according to media reports and the regulator’s decision.

Also on December 2, the Latvian State Security Service launched an investigation into Dozhd TV after journalist Aleksei Korostelev made comments during a broadcast the previous day that implied that the broadcaster had assisted the Russian military in Ukraine.

Korostelev, who was fired on December 2, later explained that he had poorly phrased his comments and did not support the invasion. The investigation concluded that those comments were “directed against the interests of Latvia’s national security,” according to a statement by the State Security Service.

The final December 6 decision to cancel Dozhd TV’s licence was made based on Article 21.3.8 of the Latvian Electronic Media Act, which empowers the regulator to cancel the broadcast permit of any outlet that “threatens national security or significantly threatens public order or security,” judging that Korostelev’s comments were calls “to support a country, recognized as a state supporting terrorism,” according to regulator’s decision.

The two fines were also considered when reaching that decision, NEPLP Vice Chair Aurēlija Ieva Druviete told CPJ via email.

Dzyadko also wrote on Telegram that the channel “had never, is not, and will never” help the Russian army with equipment. During a live broadcast on Tuesday, he compared the ban in Latvia with the channel being taken off air in Russia in 2014.

In that broadcast, Dzyadko said that no Dozhd TV representative was invited to the NEPLP meeting that decided the outlet’s suspension, and the outlet was unable to argue on its behalf. The regulator wrote in its decision that the “urgency” of the situation allowed it to decide without hearing from the channel’s management.

NEPLP President Ivars Āboliņš wrote on Twitter that Dozhd TV’s management “did not understand the nature and gravity of each individual violation” of Latvia’s regulations.

In a statement reviewed by CPJ, Āboliņš added that Latvia had accepted “a large number” of Russian media outlets and journalists into the country, who had not violated the country’s laws. He said that Dozhd TV had “systematically, significantly and unequivocally violated the regulatory acts and has been punished accordingly.”

Dzyadko told CPJ via email that he believed the suspension was “absurd and unjustified,” and said the broadcaster’s staff “strongly oppose the accusations.”

In a statement, Dozhd TV said it will stop broadcasting on cable in Latvia, but would continue its work on YouTube. The station’s general director Natalia Sindeyeva told independent news website Meduza, and Dzyadko confirmed to CPJ, that about 20% of the station’s revenue comes from its cable broadcasting.

Dozhd TV has one month to appeal the decision, and Dzyadko told CPJ that the channel was “considering options.”

CPJ emailed the Latvian State Security Service for comment, but did not receive any reply.

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

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Ilya Yablokov.

We continue our coverage from the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with prominent Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Russian environmental organization Ecodefense and winner of the 2021 Right Livelihood Award for defending the environment and mobilizing grassroots opposition to the coal and nuclear industries in Russia. Slivyak says the Russian war in Ukraine, especially the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, should serve as a warning to immediately transition to renewable energy sources, not nuclear energy, and to stop relying on fossil fuels. “As long as the United States and European Union continue to pay Vladimir Putin for uranium or fossil fuel, that means that this money will be used for the war in Ukraine. That means more people will die in Ukraine,” he adds.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“Under no circumstances can Sweden fulfill Turkey’s demand to deport exiled Turkish journalist Bülent Keneş and continue calling itself a democratic nation governed by the rule of law. Swedish officials should not use exiled journalists as bargaining chips in their dealings with Turkey,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Sweden must not give in to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s blackmail and set a precedent that would endanger exiled Turkish journalists worldwide.”

Erdoğan met with Kristersson in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, on Tuesday and told him that the deportation of Keneş, whom he called a terrorist, is “very important” to Turkey, reports said. In an interview with U.S. news site Al-Monitor, Keneş, former chief editor of the shuttered English-language Turkish daily newspaper Today’s Zaman, denied Erdoğan’s claims.  

Erdoğan asked the Swedish prime minister to meet Turkey’s security concerns in order for the country to approve Sweden’s membership bid to join NATO, Al-Monitor said. In October, pro-government Turkish media exposed the personal information of Keneş and other exiled Turkish journalists. Keneş was arrested by Turkish authorities in 2015. 

CPJ emailed the Turkish president’s office for comment but did not immediately receive any response.

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

The leading pro-government Turkish daily newspaper Sabah revealed the locations of at least three exiled Turkish journalists living abroad in separate stories in September and October that portrayed them as criminals on the run, according to a CPJ review. All three journalists are wanted by Turkish authorities on terrorism-related charges, such as ties to the Fethullah Gülen religious movement, a former ally of Turkey’s leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) that the government now accuses of plotting the 2016 coup attempt.

“The publishing of the physical locations of Turkish journalists in exile by pro-government media is an unethical and irresponsible act that could lead to serious harm,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Making journalists targets via the use of pro-government media is an unacceptable move that puts lives at great risk, especially given the history of physical attacks on several Turkish journalists living in exile.”

Sabah published a critical story about exiled Turkish journalist Cevheri Güven in late September, which did not feature the street address of his apartment in Germany but mentioned the city and area where the building is located. In the story, Güven was accused of making propaganda videos to criticize the government and it featured photos of the building alongside photos of Güven, taken near his home. Freelance online journalist Güven frequently shares content on Turkey’s political agenda via social media to his 546,000 followers on YouTube and more than 387,000 followers on Twitter. Turkish authorities asked their German counterparts this month to return Güven to Turkey for prosecution.

In another critical story published in early October, Sabah revealed the street address of exiled Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt, who is living in Sweden. The article accused Bozkurt of being the “planner” of the 2016 assassination in Ankara of AndreyKarlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, and claimed the journalist is fleeing from Russian intelligence. The story featured details about where Bozkurt lives and shops alongside photos of him taken in the street. Bozkurt said he has never been a suspect in the assassination case, which ended in September 2021. Bozkurt, executive director of Sweden-based news website Nordic Monitor, was physically attacked in Sweden in September 2020.

Last week, Sabah published another critical story that featured the street address of exiled Turkish journalist Bülent Keneş, former chief editor of the shuttered English-language Turkish daily newspaper Today’s Zaman, which featured photos of him in the street and details about where “he frequently shops.” The Sabah story accused Keneş of being a coup plotter and added that he lives a “life of luxury” in Sweden. Keneş denied any involvement in the 2016 coup attempt and living lavishly in Sweden.

These stories also were featured in other prominent pro-government media outlets, such as A Haber and the English-language version of the daily Sabah, according to CPJ’s review.

On July 7, 2021, Erk Acarer, an exiled Turkish journalist who is a columnist for the Turkish leftist daily BirGün, was attacked outside his home in Berlin by three assailants.

CPJ sent an email to Sabah for comment but didn’t receive any reply.

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

“I lost my family, my job, my identity, and my country,” Afghan journalist Anisa Shaheed told CPJ in a phone interview. A former Kabul-based reporter for TOLONews, Afghanistan’s largest local broadcaster, Shaheed is one of hundreds of journalists who fled Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021, fearing she would face retaliation for her work. 

Despite everything she left behind, Shaheed remains confident that her credibility among millions of Afghans remains intact—and should be put to use. From exile in the United States, she continues to produce critical reporting on Afghanistan for the Independent Farsi news site, focusing on her home province of Panjshir, a historical stronghold of Afghan resistance to the Taliban. 

Foreign governments also provided crucial political support, leaning on successive Afghan governments to allow for a relatively high degree of free expression. The result was “one of the most vibrant media industries in the region,” writes journalist Samiullah Mahdi in a 2021 paper for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. 

That once-thriving Afghan media now faces widespread censorship and intimidation under the Taliban. Journalists who remain in Afghanistan have faced imprisonment, alleged torture, beatings, and threats. (Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.) Women journalists have largely disappeared from the media, particularly outside of urban areas, and in May 2022, the Taliban ordered female broadcast reporters to cover their faces on air, reflecting their aim to remove women from public life.

‘We do not feel disconnected’ 

While local reporters in Afghanistan struggle under immense pressure, many exile journalists are working to continue the journalism they were once able to pursue at home. “What is left out of 20 years of investment and sacrifice in the [Afghan] media is the power of freedom of speech,” says Harun Najafizada, director of the U.K.-based Afghanistan International, the first international news broadcaster focused entirely on Afghanistan. “That is enshrined in the exiled media.”

Launched on August 15, 2021, the day that Kabul fell to the Taliban, Afghanistan International broadcasts and streams Dari-language radio and television programs to Afghanistan and around the world. Najafizada and his partners were able to get it up and running so quickly, he says, because they’d been seeking funding for years prior to the Taliban takeover, and increasingly pushed financiers as each province fell to the group in early August 2021.

In 2001, the Taliban-led government banned the internet to curb the spread of information and images that were “obscene, immoral and against Islam,” thereby cutting off Afghans from the outside world. 

Now the Taliban itself uses the internet to amplify its messages on social media. Yet Namrata Maheshwari, Asia Pacific Policy Counsel at the digital rights organization Access Now, says her organization has received reports that the Taliban continues to implement internet shutdowns in certain regions to stifle protest and resistance. “Connectivity will also be impacted by the destruction of telecommunications towers [before the Taliban takeover], and the Taliban’s financial and technical ability to keep the internet running,” Maheshwari told CPJ via email.

 A struggle for information

The internet is necessary not only to send information into Afghanistan, but also to get information out. Journalists in exile depend heavily on sources inside Afghanistan for fresh information about what’s happening on the ground. Covering Panjshir, where the Taliban has a history of cutting phone and internet access, is particularly difficult when faced with such communications barriers, Shaheed says. 

Sources for exile journalists include former colleagues who remained behind after the Taliban takeover, some of whom now find it unsafe to openly continue their work. Still, they are loyal to the profession and want to assist the flow of reliable information, says Bushra Seddique, an editorial fellow at The Atlantic magazine and former reporter for local newspapers in Afghanistan. From 2016 to 2019, Seddique studied journalism at Kabul University, where she began to establish her own network of contacts. She says journalism was a popular specialization: in 2021, 309 students graduated from the school’s journalism program.

As a precautionary measure, Seddique asks her journalist colleagues to delete evidence of their communications. “If [the] Taliban checks your phone and sees you are connected with a journalist in the U.S., it can be dangerous,” she says.

Other avenues of information often are closed off to exile journalists—or anyone else. In 2018, the previous Afghan government established the Access to Information Commission, which created a mechanism for anyone to request public information. Zahra Mousavi, head of the Access to Information Commission from its inception until the Taliban takeover, told CPJ that while it’s encouraging that the commission has not yet been dissolved, its offices remain closed to the public and the media, and its website is inaccessible. Like Mousavi, other former members of the commission have fled Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, she told CPJ via messaging app.

The country’s Access to Information Law, approved under the previous government, “is no longer valued or implemented by the Taliban,” Mousavi said. While the commission might eventually continue its operations as an independent directorate or under the Ministry of Information and Culture, it will not have sufficient funds to operate, she added.

More generally, the Taliban has escalated efforts to curb and censor any information that challenges its narrative of peace, stability, and security across the country. Shafi Karimi, an Afghan freelance journalist now in exile in France, told CPJ that Taliban spokesmen, for instance, had declined to provide information about the number of children who lost their lives during the past harsh winter. Ali Sher Shahir, an Afghan journalist currently living in exile in Germany, says that when an explosion struck a high school in a mostly Shia Hazara neighborhood of western Kabul in April, the Taliban refused to provide any information about the blast or the victims. Taliban spokesmen “call us puppet journalists,” says Shahir. “They accuse us of working for the interests of specific countries and of creating propaganda against them.”

Exile journalists who spoke to CPJ agreed that the rise of citizen journalism has helped them counter the Taliban’s restriction on the free flow of information, particularly on social media platforms. “We have received many messages from people in Afghanistan. They want to report with us,” Zahra Joya, chief editor and founder of the women-focused news website Rukhshana Media, told CPJ via video call from a hotel in central London, where she is lodged with 400 other Afghans. Joya, along with other journalists who spoke to CPJ, believes that challenging extensive misinformation and disinformation—from both inside and outside of Afghanistan—is a large part of her mission now.

Still at risk

While hundreds of Afghan journalists are living in exile, reporting remains a privilege: Only a small fraction have been able to continue their work from abroad. Afghanistan International is privately funded, while Rukshana relies on private donations it received through crowdfunding following Kabul’s fall (some journalists there are volunteers). 

Karimi, along with three other journalists in France, has spent the last several months trying to raise funds to establish the Afghan Journalists in Exile Network (AJEN), which seeks to cover human rights, women’s rights, and press-freedom issues—topics that are heavily censored within Afghanistan. In addition to supporting journalists who remain in Afghanistan, AJEN would seek to provide opportunities for those who fled their homeland. Exile Afghan journalists in Pakistan, for example, are in urgent need of financial, psychological, and professional support, according to a May 2022 report by Freedom Network, a press freedom group in Pakistan. 

One such journalist—who currently goes by the pseudonym Ahmed—told CPJ that he fled to Pakistan in the fall of 2021 after facing numerous threats and a physical attack from one Taliban member. The attacker recognized him due to his previous reporting, Ahmed says, and beat and chased him while he was taking his sick baby to a clinic shortly after the takeover. Previously, Ahmed had covered the Afghan war for a local broadcaster, as well as for several U.S. government-funded media projects and foreign publications. As Ahmed awaits approval for a  special immigrant visa to the United States, a process that will likely take years, he feels it’s unsafe to work as a freelancer in Pakistan. He gets a small, unstable income from assisting foreign reporters conduct short interviews and other research for their reports. 

Since August 2021, CPJ has placed Ahmed’s name on numerous evacuation lists of high-risk Afghan journalists shared with foreign countries and regional bodies, but without result. Meanwhile, his family lives with other Afghan refugees in a small rented house, which loses electricity roughly five hours a day. Private education is too expensive for his children, who cannot attend local government schools. They stay at home instead.

Ahmed’s difficulties echo those of other Afghan journalists struggling to start lives in new countries. The Freedom Network’s “Lives in Limbo” report on Afghan journalists in Pakistan found that 63% of respondents, the majority of them experienced journalists, felt they did not have adequate skills to continue working in the profession outside their home country. Most said they had problems with finances, housing, and healthcare. Many have sought assistance from CPJ, saying they cannot get jobs because they don’t have work authorization. Those in neighboring Pakistan have told CPJ they still feel at risk from the Taliban because of their work in the media. 

Those journalists who have resettled in the West and continue reporting also face their own set of challenges. They fear Taliban retaliation against not only their sources, but also their family members who remain in Afghanistan. While journalists who spoke to CPJ said that they had not yet observed a case of retaliation against a family member, the perceived threat still looms. 

Shaheed, for example, says she wakes up nightly to check WhatsApp, fearing that family members left behind will be harmed in retaliation for her reporting on alleged Taliban atrocities in Panjshir. She also mourns her previous life as a broadcast journalist in Afghanistan, where her reporting impacted a population with a high level of illiteracy. “People would knock on the doors of Moby Group [the company that owns TOLONews] asking to speak only with me,” she said. Now she’s 7,000 miles away, and the only way they can reach her is through cyberspace.

Sonali Dhawan is an Asia researcher at CPJ. Previously, she served as a program officer with the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights and worked with Save the Children, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International USA.

Waliullah Rahmani is an Asia researcher at the CPJ. From 2016 to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, he was founder and director of Khabarnama Media, one of the first digital media organizations in Afghanistan.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Sonali Dhawan and Waliullah Rahmani.

Hong Kong's national security police said last week they are investigating former pro-democracy lawmaker-elect Baggio Leung, overseas businessman Elmer Yuen and journalist Victor Ho for "subversion of state power" under a draconian national security law after they announced plans to set up the overseas parliament.

"They warned me in advance [not to go ahead with the plan], but I ignored them," Yuen told RFA in a recent interview, saying he had been contacted by state security police in Beijing, not the national security unit of Hong Kong's police force.

"They gave me a number of warnings, [including] saying I still have family members in Hong Kong," he said, adding that there "no point" in worrying about it.

Yuen's comments came as his daughter-in-law Eunice Yeung, a New People's Party member of the current Legislative Council (LegCo) whose members were all pre-approved by Beijing ahead of the last election, took out an advertisement in Hong Kong's Oriental Daily News, publicly severing ties with her father-in-law.

"I Eunice Yung, a Chinese person with the blood of our mighty motherland running in my veins ... hereby declare that I am cutting off Elmer Yuen as my father-in-law, following his investigation under the national security law for suspected incitement to subvert state power," the ad, signed by Yung and dated Aug. 5, said.

Yuen said he still plans to go ahead with the Hong Kong Parliament, which will offer a fully democratic vote to all Hongkongers, regardless of location.

"This definitely is a touchy subject for [the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] right now because nobody who lives in Hong Kong or mainland China is legitimately represented in government," he said, drawing parallels with Yung's actions and the political divisions sown within families during the public denunciations, 'struggle sessions' and kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

"Stuff like this never used to happen in Hong Kong, but now that the CCP has enacted the national security law, they have forced [Yung] to draw a clear line between her and me," he said.

"This used to happen in mainland China during the Cultural Revolution, when they would get family members of somebody they planned to denounce to cut them off," he said. "Personally, I don't think it's a big deal, but you have to understand that this is the CCP, something that we Hongkongers have never experienced before, so we think it's a big thing."

"First of all, [Yung] wants to keep her seat in LegCo ... she wants to protect her family; she has a husband and two kids," he said.

Former Beijing adviser Lew Mon-hung said Yung's move likely didn't go far enough.

"I think she should draw an ideological and political line, not just talk in terms of ... family ethics and relationships, which isn't very specific, and is cultural [rather than political]," Lew told RFA. "She is just trying to politically correct, but lacks political wisdom."

Lew said Yung should give media interviews illustrating the political reasons for her split with Yeung, or write an article backing up her position in terms of the national security law and Hong Kong's Basic Law.

Chinese political commentator Lin Feng said the comparisons being drawn with the Cultural Revolution are apt.

"During the Cultural Revolution ... those being cut off were generally intellectuals or officials who had just lost their social status, and reduced from being intellectuals or officials to the status of ordinary people," Lin told RFA. "But for Hong Kong people, what is really unbearable is the freezing and confiscation of their assets under the national security law."

"It's hard for them to cope with the slightest change in social status, which makes the middle class very vulnerable."

Forty-seven former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists are currently behind bars awaiting trial on the same "incitement to subversion" charge for their involvement in a 2020 democratic primary election aimed at maximizing the number of opposition seats in LegCo.

Soon after the primary, the government postponed the LegCo elections and rewrote the rules to force candidates to undergo vetting by a committee overseen by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and national security police, effectively barring any pro-democracy candidates from running.

"The Security Bureau appeals to the public to dissociate themselves from individuals contravening the Hong Kong National Security Law, and the illegal activities those individuals organized, so as to avoid bearing any unnecessary legal risks," a spokesman said in a statement.

Yuan, Ho and Leung are part of a group that announced the parliament-in-exile plan in Canada on July 27, along with plans to hold the first election under universal suffrage in late 2023.

Leung, who is also known by the English names Baggio and Sixtus, was expelled along with five other newly elected Legislative Council (LegCo) members after China's National People's Congress ruled their oaths of allegiance invalid in 2016.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Cheryl Tung, Hoi Man Wu and Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.

Authorities have threatened to arrest Tibetans in the Ngaba and Dzoge regions who defy the order by posting messages on Aug. 8, the 80th birthday of the 11th Kyabje Kirti Rinpoche (honorific) Lobsang Tenzin Jigme Yeshe Gyamtso Rinpoche.

Rinpoche is the chief abbot in exile of the Kirti Monastery, one of the most important and influential monasteries in Tibet.

“The government has warned of such activity by Tibetans, and individuals will be arrested and severely punished if found defying it,” said a Tibetan source inside Tibet who declined to be identified so as to speak freely. 

Chinese authorities restricted monks from the Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoge county and the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba county, both in Sichuan province's Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, from celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday in 2021. The areas are heavily populated with ethnic Tibetans.

Monks were not allowed to leave their monasteries, and gatherings were not permitted during that time. 

“Last year Tibetans inside Tibet anticipated restrictions and scrutiny from the Chinese government on celebrating the 80th birthday of the Kriti Rinpoche, so they held back,” said a Tibetan who lives in exile.

“But this year, Tibetans living in exile and inside Tibet are looking forward to celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday and offering tenshug,” the source said, referring to a long-life prayer offering made to spiritual teachers. “But we are seeing restrictions and scrutiny in Ngaba and Dzoge.” 

The Kirti Monastery has been the site of the majority of self-immolations by monks who oppose China’s repressive policies in Tibet.

“In one post circulating among some online Tibetan chat groups, members have been warned not to talk about the Kirti Rinpoche or his birthday and to be careful,” the source in exile said. 

Restrictions are greater in the Ngaba region now also because of the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party later this year, said the Tibetan in exile.

Rinpoche was born in Thewo Takmoe Gang in the Amdo region of Tibet on the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. When he was a child, leading lamas recognized him as the reincarnation of 10th Kirti Rinpoche, and he was placed at Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in 1946.

Rinpoche went with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile to Dharamsala, India, in 1959, following the invasion of Tibet by China a decade earlier. He undertook advanced studies in Buddhist religion and philosophy in India, and took higher vows of Buddhist monkhood from the Dalai Lama in 1962. 

From the late 1980s onwards, Rinpoche held various positions in the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile. 

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok.

Authorities have threatened to arrest Tibetans in the Ngaba and Dzoge regions who defy the order by posting messages on Aug. 8, the 80th birthday of the 11th Kyabje Kirti Rinpoche (honorific) Lobsang Tenzin Jigme Yeshe Gyamtso Rinpoche.

Rinpoche is the chief abbot in exile of the Kirti Monastery, one of the most important and influential monasteries in Tibet.

“The government has warned of such activity by Tibetans, and individuals will be arrested and severely punished if found defying it,” said a Tibetan source inside Tibet who declined to be identified so as to speak freely. 

Chinese authorities restricted monks from the Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in Dzoge county and the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba county, both in Sichuan province's Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, from celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday in 2021. The areas are heavily populated with ethnic Tibetans.

Monks were not allowed to leave their monasteries, and gatherings were not permitted during that time. 

“Last year Tibetans inside Tibet anticipated restrictions and scrutiny from the Chinese government on celebrating the 80th birthday of the Kriti Rinpoche, so they held back,” said a Tibetan who lives in exile.

“But this year, Tibetans living in exile and inside Tibet are looking forward to celebrating Rinpoche’s birthday and offering tenshug,” the source said, referring to a long-life prayer offering made to spiritual teachers. “But we are seeing restrictions and scrutiny in Ngaba and Dzoge.” 

The Kirti Monastery has been the site of the majority of self-immolations by monks who oppose China’s repressive policies in Tibet.

“In one post circulating among some online Tibetan chat groups, members have been warned not to talk about the Kirti Rinpoche or his birthday and to be careful,” the source in exile said. 

Restrictions are greater in the Ngaba region now also because of the upcoming 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party later this year, said the Tibetan in exile.

Rinpoche was born in Thewo Takmoe Gang in the Amdo region of Tibet on the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. When he was a child, leading lamas recognized him as the reincarnation of 10th Kirti Rinpoche, and he was placed at Taktsang Lhamo Kirti Monastery in 1946.

Rinpoche went with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, into exile to Dharamsala, India, in 1959, following the invasion of Tibet by China a decade earlier. He undertook advanced studies in Buddhist religion and philosophy in India, and took higher vows of Buddhist monkhood from the Dalai Lama in 1962. 

From the late 1980s onwards, Rinpoche held various positions in the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile. 

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok.

On the morning of Monday, June 27, officers from the Tajik Interior Ministry’s Department for Combatting Organized Crime detained Sarkorova’s mother and brother at their home in the capital, Dushanbe, according to news reports and Sarkorova, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app and wrote about the incident on Facebook.

Officers brought the journalist’s relatives to the department’s headquarters, where they questioned them about Sarkorova’s sources for her reporting and also asked Sarkorova’s mother to tell the journalist that they knew about her two children, which Sarkorova told CPJ she believed was a veiled threat.

The officers released her relatives without charge after about four hours, according to Sarkorova and those reports. Several days earlier, authorities in the eastern Badakhshan region also questioned Sarkorova’s uncle, aunt, and cousin about her work, she said.

Sarkorova has recently covered security forces’ suppression of protests in the country’s ethnically and culturally distinct Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, and is among a small number of journalists covering alleged human rights abuses in that region, according to the journalist and reports. Last month, Tajik authorities threatened to shutter the independent outlet Asia Plus over its coverage of protests in Gorno-Badakhshan, as CPJ documented at the time.

“Tajik authorities’ harassment of exiled journalist Anora Sarkorova’s relatives and attempts to pressure them into revealing her sources are another worrying step in their campaign to stifle independent coverage of events in Gorno-Badakhshan,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Instead of threatening journalists and outlets who dare to cover the region, authorities should allow members of the press to freely investigate alleged rights violations.”

Since the outbreak of unrest in Gorno-Badakhshan in November 2021, Sarkorova has covered authorities’ alleged abuses through information sent to her by local sources in the region, where her family is originally from, she told CPJ.

Sarkorova worked as a correspondent for the BBC’s Russian service until 2018, when Tajik authorities withdrew her accreditation due to her critical reporting and enforced an unofficial ban on her working as a journalist, she told CPJ. She left the country in 2021 and since then has published reporting on her Facebook page and Telegram channel, each of which have about 2,500 followers.

Her work includes a list of local residents in Gorno-Badakhshan’s Rushan district allegedly killed by security forces, as well as reports on individual victims, which have been cited by foreign media outlets.

Sarkorova told CPJ that police and State Committee for National Security officers questioned her uncle, aunt, and cousin at their homes twice last week, asking them about who she was in contact with and where she gets her information.

She said the officers took the names, addresses, and photos of her uncle and aunt’s sons and threatened to arrest them or create “problems” for them if Sarkorova did not stop her reporting.

During her coverage of events in Badakhshan, Sarkorova has regularly been subjected to threats, trolling, and attempts to discredit her, she told CPJ. She said that social media accounts that she believed were tied to government authorities recently stated that a criminal case has been opened against her for her work.

CPJ emailed Interior Ministry of Tajikistan for comment, but did not receive any reply. Authorities in Gorno-Badakhshan have previously denied running one social media account rumored to be tied to the government.

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

A statement issued by the National Election Committee (NEC) on Monday said the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) received 5.3 million popular votes to win 9,338 out of the 11,622 commune council seats that were contested, while the Candlelight Party (CLP) came away with 1.6 million votes and 2,180 seats.

“I don’t like the results, but I like political change in Cambodia,” exiled opposition leader and CLP founder Sam Rainsy told RFA’s Khmer Service. “It’s a drastic change now, compared with before. Before we were only a one party state, from the central government to the grassroots. The one party state has been ended.”

The NEC, an agency that supervises elections in Cambodia, said the election process went smoothly and the results could be trusted, but Candlelight Party candidates and election observers said they were victims of harassment and intimidation before and during the voting and the NEC did nothing to stop it.

In some cases, local authorities and CPP observer organizations were alone given access to the ballot counting, the CLP said, accusing the ruling party of vote-rigging.

Despite what he sees as questionable results, Sam Rainsy said that the CPP will face real competition in next year’s general election, when voters will choose members of the National Assembly.

“In the 2023 election, there will have to be a negotiation, because there are [essentially] only two political parties. They can’t just dissolve CLP. The CPP can’t have free ride. The forces of democracy have progressed,” Sam Rainsy said.

Should the Candlelight Party survive to contest next year’s election it would be a stark contrast to the main opposition party five years ago, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

After the CNRP won 43% of the vote in the last commune council elections in 2017, the party’s leader Kem Sokha was arrested for treason and the Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP, paving the way for the CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats in 2018’s general election.

This began a five-year crackdown by Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia since 1985, on civil liberties and other freedoms that stripped CNRP members of their political rights and forced many of them to join Sam Rainsy in exile or risk imprisonment. Sam Rainsy has been in France since 2015

Though the CNRP’s dissolution was a major setback for the country’s opposition, the Candlelight Party’s performance on Sunday gives Sam Rainsy hope that a stronger opposition party can emerge in Cambodia and restore the democratic balance, he said.

“We took votes away from the CPP. We must now focus on free and fair elections in 2023. The political situation is now better than it was before this election,” he said.

“Only the CLP is capable of competing with the CPP. … There is only one [viable] opposition party and that is the CLP. [The CPP] can’t avoid the CLP,” he said, adding that in preparation for next year’s election, the CLP intends to challenge the government to reform the NEC so that it can operate more in line with its stated purpose.

“We must change the NEC members, because it is being controlled by the ruling party,” he said.

Sam Rainsy, however, lamented that his equally popular political ally Kem Sokha, with whom he cofounded the CNRP, did not support the CLP. Kem Sokha has said that Candlelight should not participate in what many believe is a compromised electio

“It seems he regarded the CPP and CLP as the same party.  I am sad. He will realize this is wrong,” he said. 

The journey toward Candlelight becoming Cambodia’s largest opposition party began when Sam Rainsy, on the heels of his expulsion from the National Assembly, founded it in 1995 as the Khmer Nation Party.

It later came to be known as the Sam Rainsy Party. In 2012, most of its members merged with Kem Sokha’s Human Rights Party to form the CNRP, effectively mothballing the two parent parties.

Because of new laws that forbade political parties from making reference to anyone convicted on political charges, the Sam Rainsy Party changed its name to Candlelight in 2017, avoiding the ban of the CNRP.

However, once it was clear that the party was gaining steam before the communal elections, authorities began harassing the party, Candlelight Party sources have told RFA.

Several CLP activists have been jailed on allegations of submitting false documents to run in the communal elections, and many others were bullied or harassed by CPP supporters.

But Sam Rainsy said he was proud that the party was able to rise from the ashes of the CNRP on short notice. Most of Candlelight’s growth happened in the past few months in preparation for the commune elections.

“I must express appreciation to the wonderful voters. We must continue our struggle. The CLP is a base. We have time to prepare for 2023. We have a strong foundation and it will get stronger,” Sam Rainsy said.

“We will restructure the NEC and restore democracy to the country.”

 Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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

Local officials in the province’s Drago (in Chinese, Luohuo) county have gone door to door to collect the required data, a Tibetan living in exile said, citing contacts in Drago. Sichuan shares a border Tibet, which was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. 

“Chinese authorities are now forcing Tibetans in Drago to disclose the COVID vaccination status of their relatives living abroad. The information should include proof of vaccination and details of additional doses,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Tibetan families must also reveal the cell phone numbers and social media accounts of their relatives living outside of China,” the source said. “They are being told that if they fail to hand this information over, they will be removed from household registries and denied any state assistance they may be receiving from the government,” he added.

The reason for the data collection is still unclear, the source said. “However, there have been a few Tibetans living overseas who have been submitting their COVID vaccination records in the hope of someday returning to Tibet.

“On the other hand, the Chinese authorities may want to collect data on Tibetans living abroad simply to gather information,” he said.

China closely tracks communications from Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China to relatives living abroad in an effort to block news of protests and other politically sensitive information from reaching international audiences, sources say.

In May, RFA reported that Sichuan authorities were forcing Tibetan monks in Drago, a county located in Sichuan's Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to sign affidavits claiming responsibility for the destruction of a sacred statue torn down by China. The move came after news of the demolition reached the international community, prompting widespread condemnation.

The 99-foot tall Buddha that stood in Drago was targeted for destruction in December by officials who said the statue had been built too high. Monks from a local monastery and other Tibetan residents were forced to witness the destruction, an action experts called part of an ongoing campaign by China to eradicate Tibet’s national culture and religion.

Eleven monks from a nearby monastery were later arrested by Chinese authorities on suspicion of sending news and photos of the statue’s destruction, first reported exclusively by RFA, to contacts outside the region.

Using commercial satellite imagery, RFA later verified the destruction at the same time of a three-story statue of Maitreya Buddha, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a Buddha appearing in a future age, at Gaden Namyal Ling monastery in Drago.

Communications clampdowns and other security measures meanwhile remain in place in the county, Tibetan sources report.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok.

On Thursday, May 26, law enforcement officers in the western Belarusian village of Krivichy detained Aliaksandr Lyubyanchuk, a former journalist with independent Poland-based online television station Belsat, and took him to a pre-trial detention center in Minsk, according to a Telegram post by Belarusian human rights group Viasna, and local advocacy and trade group Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ). (Both Viasna and BAJ are banned in Belarus but continue to operate unofficially.) Lyubyanchuck is detained as part of a criminal investigation, BAJ said, but Belarusian authorities have not yet disclosed any charges.

Lyubanchuk left Belsat last year and no longer works in journalism, BAJ deputy director Barys Haretski told CPJ via email. He believes that Lyubanchuk’s recent arrest was in retaliation for his previous reporting for Belsat.

Separately, Belarusian authorities charged exiled journalists Stsypan Putsila and Yan Rudzik, the co-founder and a former administrator of the popular Telegram channel NEXTA-Live respectively, with running a terrorist group, according to news reports. The charges are related to their work on the channel, which the Belarus Supreme Court declared a terrorist organization in April, reports said. CPJ was unable to determine the date of the charges, though they were reported on May 20.

If convicted, the two could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, according to the Belarusian criminal code.

“Belarusian authorities must release Aliaksandr Lyubyanchuk immediately and drop the ludicrous charges against Stsypan Putsila and Yan Rudzik,” said CPJ Executive Director Robert Mahoney in New York. “Journalism is not terrorism and efforts to erode the country’s independent media by going after individual journalists merely highlights the government’s inability to withstand any critical coverage.”

Belarus’s Investigative Committee said in a statement to state-owned news site BelTA that Putsila and Rudzik were charged because, since 2020, they had “used their information resources to destabilize the situation on the territory of Belarus and radicalize the so-called protests.” Describing them as terrorists, the committee alleged the two had “repeatedly called for inciting social enmity and discord, blocking roads and coordinating street riots, committing terrorist acts on railroads and sabotage at enterprises that could lead to man-made disasters.”

Rudzik told CPJ via messaging app that he had not been officially notified of the charge by Belarusian authorities.

Rudzik said he left NEXTA-Live to become chief editor of the Belarus of the Brain Telegram channel following the May 2021 arrest of former editor Raman Pratasevich, who was detained after Belarusian authorities diverted his Lithuania-bound commercial flight to the Belarussian capital of Minsk. (Pratasevich was also a co-founder of NEXTA, which owns NEXTA-Live; both outlets have extensively covered protests against Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, as CPJ documented.)

Rudzik recently left Belarus of the Brain and has since founded another Telegram channel, Post-Rudzik, he posted on the channel on May 23. In the post he called the terrorism charge against him the “cherry on the cake” in terms of authorities’ targeting him for his journalism and said he was now based in Poland.

CPJ wrote to Putsila via social media but did not receive a reply. He is also based in Poland, according to news reports, which said Polish authorities refused to extradite the journalist earlier this year over multiple additional charges he faced in Belarus.

Separately, on May 20, the Leninski District Court in the western city of Hrodna declared the website and social media pages of Mediazona-Belarus, the Belarus-focused news site of independent Russian outlet Mediazona as extremist, according to the news site.

“Despite the fact that all the members of our small editorial board are in exile, we continue to do quality journalism, we report on the situation in Belarus and we cover the war in Ukraine. We will continue even now, despite the fact that the authorities in our country want us to be afraid and give up our work,” Mediazona.Belarus said in a statement on May 25.

Two days earlier, on May 18, a court in the western city of Baranavichy declared all “information products” by the Telegram channel Economy of Belarus, which publishes economic news and analysis, as “extremist materials,” according to news reports.

Anyone convicted of producing, storing, or spreading extremist materials can be fined up to 960 rubles (US$290) or detained for up to 15 days, according to the administrative code of Belarus.

CPJ contacted both Mediazona.Belarus and Economy of Belarus via messaging app but did not receive replies. CPJ also did not receive responses to emails to the Belarusian Investigative Committee and Leninski and Baranavichy district courts.

CPJ called the Ministry of Interior’s press service for comment, but no one answered.  

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

On Wednesday, May 18, the Basmanny Court in Moscow ordered the arrest in absentia of Leviev, founder of the Russian independent investigative project Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), on the charge of violating Russia’s March law outlawing the distribution of “fake” information about the military, according to news reports. 

Six days later, on Tuesday, May 24, the same court issued the same arrest order for video blogger Nacke, who had featured Leviev’s journalism on his YouTube channel, on the same charge, according to news reports. 

“Arrest in absentia” is a legal term used when the defendant is not in court. Both journalists had previously left Russia, reports said.

Stanislav Seleznyov, a senior partner with Setevye Svobody, a Russian freedom of expression legal assistance organization whose lawyers are representing the journalists, told CPJ via messaging app that Leviev and Nacke were both formally charged on May 4 and that the Russian interior ministry put them onto the country’s international wanted list on May 12. 

“Russia’s new law outlawing ‘fake’ reporting about the Russian military is doing severe damage to what remains of the Russian independent press even outside the country,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities must immediately drop all charges against Ruslan Leviev and Michael Nacke and let journalists report freely on the war.”

According to news reports, the court issued orders saying that Leviev and Nacke would be detained for two months from the moment of their future arrests, pending investigations into the charges. If Leviev and Nacke are found guilty, they could face up to 10 years in prison each, according to the relevant section of the law. 

The charges against both journalists stem from a video posted by Nacke on his YouTube channel on March 5, in which Nacke and Leviev discussed the March 4 Russian shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, according to the Telegram channel of Setevye Svobody. (The organization has access to court documents because of its lawyers’ work on the journalists cases, Seleznyov told CPJ.) 

According to Setevye Svobody’s Telegram post, the investigator found that elements of the March 5 video contradicted Russia’s official narrative about the war. Nacke referred to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “war” and not a  “special operation,” the government-approved term for the conflict, and Leviev said Russian claims that Ukrainians attacked the power plant were “delusional.”

The investigator claimed that Leviev and Nacke “conspired to establish a negative public attitude towards the Russian army and to convince their audience of the use of the Russian military against civilians and for the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine,” Setevye Svobody’s Telegram channel reported. The channel specified that the case was handled by an investigator in charge of high-profile cases from the Russian Investigative Committee’s department for investigation of cybercrimes and high-tech related crimes.

In a video published on his YouTube channel on May 18, Nacke said that he learned about the criminal case from news reports and did not receive official notification of the charges; he also said that he left Russia two years ago and did not plan to go back. 

In an interview Leviev gave to Latvia-based independent news website Meduza, he said that he left Russia on March 3, and that Russian security services, the FSB, came to his apartment on March 4 and warned his girlfriend that they would arrest him if he returned. CPJ emailed the FSB but did not immediately receive any reply.

CPJ wrote to Nacke via messaging app and to Leviev via social media but did not receive any replies. CPJ also contacted Leviev’s investigative project, CIT, via messaging app but did not receive a reply. 

In a separate incident, on May 23, Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor charged both Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of the independent news outlet The New Times, and the company to which the site is registered, for disseminating “fakes” about the Russian military, according to news reports. 

Albats faces a fine of up to 400,000 rubles (US$6,820); her company faces a fine of up to 1,000,000 rubles (US$17,050) according to the administrative code.

The charges stem from two articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine published by The New Times on February 24, the first day of the war, those reports said. Both articles were removed from the website in late February after Roskomnadzor demanded their removal. On February 28, Roskomnadzor blocked The News Times website, news reports said. 

“Media legislation does not permit abuse of freedom of the media and imposes administrative liability for publishing materials containing false information of public importance, even if the media editorial board removes such materials,” Roskomnadzor told the Russian state-run news agency Interfax on May 23 about its decision to block the website of The New Times after the removals. 

“Those charges are part of doing honest journalism in today’s Russia. I know the risks involved. I intend to keep reporting the truth as long as I can”, Albats told CPJ via email. 

CPJ emailed the Russian Investigative Committee for the Moscow region and the Rozkomnadzor press office but did not immediately receive replies. CPJ was unable to contact the Russian interior ministry for comment, as its website did not load.

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

Alan E. Kohler Jr.,  Acting Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said the CCP's intelligence operations now reach far beyond the borders of the PRC.

“The PRC is targeting people in the United States and around the world," Kohler said, adding that the FBI would continue to fight "transnational repression."

Wang had communicated with He, Ji, Li and Lu using encrypted messaging apps and emails, as well as during face-to-face meetings in the PRC.

Wang recorded details of his conversations with activists in around 163 draft email entries in accounts that were also being accessed by the state security police, it said.

Wang is also accused of transferring telephone numbers and contact information belonging to Chinese dissidents to his handlers, as well as making materially false statements to federal law enforcement about such contacts, court documents said.

All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, it said.

'An attack by the enemy within'

U.S.-based activist Zeng Jianyuan said that Wang Shujun was very active in the U.S.-based pro-democracy movement.

"Wang Shujun was very active in those circles. I had no contact with him, but I know him," Zeng told RFA. "Many of us do. Nobody had fears or suspicions ... I wasn't wary of him."

"This was an attack by the enemy within," he said. "He was at the heart of this circle, and could get intelligence first hand, which is why the CCP turned him."

Among the conversations Wang may have reported to state security police was one with former Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho, who also led the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, as well as the names and contact details for several Hong Kong activists who have since been arrested for their involvement in the 2019 protest movement.

The 32-year-old Alliance now stands accused of acting as the agent of a foreign power, with leaders Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho, and Lee Cheuk-yan arrested on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power," and the group's assets frozen.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the indictment shows that the CCP has fully and successfully taken control of Hong Kong.

"There are at least three kinds of infiltration practiced by the CCP," Sang said. "One is red, in the case of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and the Federation of Trade Unions."

"Another is gray, and uses a variety of methods and hiding places, so people think it's harmless: that could take the form of a person, an ordinary businessman," he said. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei.

Eddine’s story, which was published in Lebanese newspaper Nidaa al-Watan, detailed the family’s fears of impunity in the teenager’s death and the political pressures that often play a role in covering up crimes in the area. The story went viral, she said, and online commentators began to accuse her of “treachery” against Hezbollah and the Shia political party Amal, even though she didn’t name them in the piece. 

Soon, the accusations escalated into assaults on her family, and in 2021 Eddine and her parents, sister, and two brothers decided to flee to France. Since then, Eddine has continued reporting in exile about Lebanon for investigative journalism website Daraj. 

In an interview with CPJ, Eddine went into detail about the family’s decision to leave and explained why Lebanese journalists face increasing threats. Lebanon is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on May 15 amid political and economic instability after the 2019 protests and the 2020 Beirut port explosion. 

The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

You started to receive serious threats after you reported on the teenager killed in your neighborhood. When did the threats turn into assaults? 

Mariam Seif Eddine: On November 2, 2020, both of my brothers were assaulted. One was punched in the face, his nose was broken, and the other was pushed on the ground, he was bitten in the eye. This attack was launched by members of our family affiliated with Hezbollah. They told us to leave our home “or you will be killed.” Other people linked with Hezbollah then continued the threats. 

Then on December 5, 2020, a group of men, some carrying weapons, attacked our home and assaulted my family members. All of this was fueled by an incitement campaign which included accusations that we were agents for Israel, and that we had committed treachery and slander. 

When we tried to report these attacks, the security forces didn’t take us seriously, violating our rights. Even then [after the December attack], they treated us as if we were the attackers, not the plaintiffs. The judge didn’t take our complaints seriously, as she told me “you can go home” even when I told her we were forced out, attacked. 

[Editor’s note: Reached by CPJ, Hezbollah media liaison Rana Sahili said that the violence against Eddine’s family was caused by a “family dispute,” and not Eddine’s journalism. She said Hezbollah played no role in the dispute. A senior officer in the Lebanese Internal Security Forces media office told CPJ that the security forces had conducted investigations into the attacks but did not provide further details.]

You said the physical attacks were prefaced by an online campaign against you. Are online campaigns like these, in particular against female journalists, common in Lebanon? 

These campaigns take the form of hate speech, spreading misinformation, [accusations of] treachery, and are in fact, a moral assassination. They aim to silence women journalists by fueling the misogynistic society already against them, and some fake accounts even try to slut shame you. If that doesn’t get to you, they distort your reporting by making posts mischaracterizing your work and opinions to make you seem like an extremist. 

Some journalists unfortunately participate in these kinds of campaigns. They try to terrorize other journalists by making them feel they’re under constant monitoring.

Every word used in such campaigns aim to destroy the mental health of women journalists. Threats against women journalists are often linked to the society’s way of approaching them in the first place. When a man says what I say, he’s not threatened the same way. Political parties are more threatened when women speak up because it’s often women who challenge society’s “sacred” topics. 

I tried to ignore most of these comments but some of them contained rape threats, vulgar misogynistic slurs, and death threats. Even after I left the country, these violent online campaigns against me continued in an aim to silence me or push me to self-censor my articles and posts. 

Every social media platform has its own regulations, and on Twitter, some violence and orchestrated campaigns through fake accounts is allowed. These regulations often favor powerful violent people over journalists and activists – when they try to report abusive behavior it leads to nothing. 

[Editor’s note: Reached by CPJ, a Twitter spokesperson said via email the company has made “recent strides” to protect people online but acknowledged there is “still work to be done.”] 

How would you characterize the state of press freedom in Lebanon? 

Press freedom in Lebanon is deteriorating. We’re now allowed to speak only within limits.

When there was rising political tension in the country [with multiple parties vying for power] the margin of freedom was bigger, as freedom spiked after Syrian troops left Lebanon in 2005 after a 29-year occupation. But when one party dominates the scene as President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement has done since his election 2016, we see how freedom of expression and freedom of the press have taken a fall [since one party can more easily dictate coverage]. Also the funding a news outlet gets plays a role in the margin of freedom [as some politicians fund or own news outlets].

But the alternative media in the country is pushing back against this. These relatively new outlets allow journalists to report on “taboos” and “red lines,” and publish a new narrative not accepted in other media outlets which are funded by powerful actors inside the country.

Are journalists legally protected in Lebanon? 

In Lebanon, there are laws that govern media and publishing, but there’s no law that aims at protecting the safety of journalists, which is a must. There must be a law that protects journalists against threats they face because of doing their jobs. 

Laws in the country are used against weaker people who aren’t backed by powerful actors and parties. The judiciary acts on defamation lawsuits but complaints about death threats to journalists “sleep in drawers” [filed away and never revisited by officials], which essentially means laws are used against us and never to allow us to defend ourselves.

After everything you have faced, why are you still practicing journalism in exile?

If we stop writing, they win. After fleeing the country, I feel more responsible for documenting what’s happening in people’s lives, especially to raise the voice of those who were forced into silence. 

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

On Saturday, March 19, in Stockholm, unidentified people hit Dönmez’s car from behind and, when he got out of his vehicle, proceeded to beat him up, according to news reports and tweets by the journalist.

Dönmez was driving his six-year-old daughter home from school at the time of the attack, according to those reports, which said he sustained head trauma and was hospitalized in stable condition.

Dönmez publishes reporting on Turkish politics and alleged corruption, as well as political commentary, on his personal website, Twitter, and YouTube pages; he has about 147,000 followers on Twitter and about 55,000 on YouTube.

“Swedish authorities must swiftly and thoroughly investigate the recent attack on exiled Turkish journalist Ahmet Dönmez, determine if it was related to his reporting, and bring all those involved to account,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Swedish authorities must provide security for Dönmez and ensure that he can live and work without fearing for his or his family’s safety.”

Dönmez worked as a reporter for the Turkish daily Zaman until 2015, when he fled to Sweden “because of political pressure” according to his website. Turkish authorities shuttered Zaman in 2016, and have accused its staff of having ties to the Fethullah Gülen religious movement, which authorities have labeled a terrorist organization, as CPJ has documented.