Censorship

(Bishkek) – Kyrgyzstan authorities have stepped up the harassment of journalists and independent media with a slew of criminal investigations into their work in recent months, Human Rights Watch said today. On March 29, 2022, following a motion by the Prosecutor General’s Office, a Bishkek district court found that a

(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately release all remaining imprisoned students of the Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, Human Rights Watch said today.

“It’s so hard to report from Afghanistan anymore,” a journalist in the eastern province of Nangarhar told me.

On Friday, the Australian parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security released their long-awaited report examining foreign interference at Australian universities.

A magistrate in India’s Jammu and Kashmir region approved the detention of the respected Kashmiri journalist and editor Fahad Shah under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) on the grounds that he had been “misguiding common masses by circulating fake news against the government and its policies.

(Bishkek) – Kyrgyz authorities should immediately repeal restrictions that prohibit any gatherings in front of the Russian Embassy in Bishkek, Human Rights Watch said today.

(Berlin) – Russian authorities have cracked down on journalists, human rights defenders, and activists in an effort to silence any criticism of the war in Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today.

In many Eastern European and Central Asian countries, media discourse suffers from the freedom of expression not being respected.

(Berlin) – The conviction of the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on new trumped-up charges on March 22, 2022, reflects the Russian government’s intensified crackdown on dissent and free expression since the start of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said today. “The latest verdict against

(Kinshasa) – The Democratic Republic of Congo’s military has suppressed peaceful critics in the more than 10 months since the government imposed martial law in the conflict-ridden eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, Human Rights Watch said today. The military and police have curtailed freedom of expression, put down

Tunisian President Kais Saied has set about dismantling institutional checks on his authority since his July power grab, and state television is an obvious target.

Popular privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, commonly considered an alternative to Google, has announced that it will be “down-ranking” sites associated with “disinformation,” along with adding “information boxes” to “highlight quality information.” The announcement received widespread backlash from DuckDuckGo supporters, who view the changes as adopting the censorship policies of the

(Berlin) – Russian authorities have arbitrarily arrested thousands of peaceful protesters at anti-war rallies across Russia, in line with their increasingly brutal crackdown on those who disagree with Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine. The police used excessive force against protesters while detaining them and, in several instances, inflicted abuse amounting