News

October 20, 2025 – Russia - A Russian journalist detained in Azerbaijan earlier this year has been released and has returned to Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced. The individual, Igor Kartavykh, executive director of the Russian state-affiliate agency Sputnik Azerbaijan, was arrested in June in Baku as part of a broader operation targeting the outlet amid escalating diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Baku. Kartavykh’s release reportedly follows high-level diplomatic discussions between Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev held in Dushanbe. One source cited by Reuters suggested the deal included the release of a detained Azerbaijani...

October 20, 2025 - General - At its 81st General Assembly, convened in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) flagged a deeply troubling trend: journalism across Latin America and the Caribbean is under intensifying threat. After four days of panels and presentations, the assembly’s final communique warned of an increasingly hostile environment for the media, rooted in official discourse that stigmatizes journalists, alongside shrinking legal protections and rising impunity. Delegates representing media outlets from more than two dozen countries detailed multiple forms of pressure on the press: verbal attacks from political...

October 21, 2025 - Palestine -  As the conflict in the Gaza Strip enters a new chapter, journalists based in the West Bank are increasingly vocal about the threats to their work and safety. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism reports that media professionals operating in the occupied territories are facing intensifying restrictions — from denial of access, to targeted harassment and legal and physical risks. These journalists describe a shrinking space for reporting: while covering an area in evolution, they are confronted with the enforcement of military-style controls on movement, heavy surveillance,...

October 20, 2025 - UK -  In a recent statement, the BBC’s Director-General Tim Davie declared that staff working within the newsroom are prohibited from wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts. He clarified that while the organization firmly opposes racism, staff must maintain impartiality and avoid visible political affiliations. During an appearance at a literature festival in Cheltenham, Davie said news reporters should not combine their professional role with campaigning: “You cannot have any assumption about where people are politically. You leave it at the door, and your religion is journalism in the BBC.” He drew...

October 20, 2025 - Canada -  The Canadian union Unifor has announced its support for the upcoming International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on November 2, 2025, underscoring the essential role journalists play in democratic societies. Unifor emphasizes that despite journalistic efforts to expose wrongdoing, hold power to account and inform citizens, many media workers continue to face threats, legal intimidation, harassment and deadly attacks—often without any accountability for the perpetrators. The union calls for several concrete changes to protect journalists, including: Crafting laws that specifically punish doxxing, online harassment, surveillance, and physical attacks on media workers. Ensuring law enforcement...

October 20, 2025 - Australia/Malaysia - The Shah Alam High Court in Malaysia has ruled that Australian journalist and commentator Murray Hunter is liable for defamation in a civil suit brought by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). The judgment, delivered on 15 October 2025, arose from a series of publications between April and November 2024 in which Hunter allegedly made false and harmful claims about the regulator’s conduct. Hunter, who resides in Thailand, said he learned of the ruling via an online court system and was never served notice of the legal action...

October 20, 2025 - Belarus - A Belarusian journalist, Pavel Dabravolski, has been formally charged with high treason. This crime carries a potential prison sentence of up to 15 years under Article 356 (Part 1) of the Belarusian Criminal Code. Dabravolski, aged 35, was arrested on 22 January 2025 shortly after returning to Minsk from abroad. Before his detention, he worked at the independent news agency BelaPAN, which Belarusian authorities declared an “extremist formation” in 2021. Press freedom groups, including the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), have recognized Dabravolski as a political prisoner, citing a wider...

October 20, 2025 - Philippines - Philippine authorities are under pressure to swiftly investigate the shooting of radio journalist Noël Bellen Samar, 54, a broadcaster with Kadunong ITV and DWIZ in the Bicol region. The incident occurred on the Maharlika Highway in Barangay Morera, Guinobatan, Albay province, and Samar sustained four gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, reportedly fired from a .45-caliber pistol. He was rushed to the Bicol Regional Hospital and Medical Center for emergency surgery. Following the attack on 20 October 2025, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) condemned the...

October 20, 2025 - Bangladesh -  A journalist working for the Bangladeshi daily Amar Desh was physically attacked on 19 October 2025 while reporting inside the headquarters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the Gulshan-2 area of Dhaka. The reporter, identified as Jahidul Islam, was covering internal nomination activity among BNP aspirants from the Sylhet division when a confrontation broke out. According to Islam’s account, at around 4:30 pm, he began filming the commotion inside the BNP office when several individuals suddenly dragged him into another room, struck him repeatedly, shattered his mobile phone,...

October 19, 2025 - Palestine -  Despite the devastation of war, dreadful shortages of food and ongoing violence, journalists in the Gaza Strip continue to report under some of the most harrowing conditions. Outlets such as Committee to Protect Journalists and local media groups describe these reporters as working without adequate rest, nutrition or safety—surviving on almost nothing, carrying on with their mission to tell Gaza’s story. The impact of starvation and trauma has deeply affected the press corps. Newsrooms have been destroyed, equipment lost, and movement severely restricted by the blockade and shifting front-lines....

October 19, 2025 - Malta -  Kyle Patrick Camilleri, a journalist with The Malta Independent (TMI), has been honored with the Sports Journalism Award at the 2025 Malta Journalism Awards. The announcement was made public on 19 October 2025. The award recognized Camilleri’s article titled “Are Maltese youth sports models flawed?”, which was published on 1 June 2025. This piece critically examined youth-sports structures in Malta, analyzing whether current models are serving young athletes well and exposing systemic issues in how they are developed and supported. In the coverage of the awards, TMI also noted that colleagues...

October 19, 2025 - USA - At the 2025 Maine Press Association (MPA) Awards, Rose Lundy, a reporter for The Maine Monitor, was honored as Journalist of the Year, recognizing her exceptional reporting and impact on state and regional journalism. Lundy’s award reflects her sustained investigative work on Maine’s aging care infrastructure and public accountability issues. Over the past year, her reporting has focused on how the state’s nursing home system and elder care policies affect some of its most vulnerable residents. Her in-depth stories exposed gaps in oversight and regulatory enforcement, leading to increased...

October 19, 2025 - Palestine/Philippines -  Filipino journalist Patricia Evangelista delivered a powerful plea at the Frankfurt Book Fair on 19 October 2025, where she spotlighted the escalating loss of press lives in the Gaza conflict and the global silence that too often follows. She used the literary stage to declare: "If my words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.” Evangelista emphasized that 240 journalists have died in Gaza since hostilities intensified, reflecting a staggering rate of fatalities among media professionals. She condemned not only the physical...

October 18, 2025 - India - The Rajasthan Police picked up two Bhopal-based journalists from Madhya Pradesh on 17 October 2025, alleging their news portal published false and defamatory reports about Diya Kumari, the Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan. The journalists, Anand Pandey (Editor-in-Chief) and Harish Divekar (Managing Editor) of the Hindi news outlet “The Sootr”, were accused of circulating unverified stories, demanding ₹5 crore to remove them, and planning a so-called “Destroy Diya” campaign. According to the complaint lodged at Jaipur’s Karni Vihar police station by a staffer of the Deputy CM, the portal...

October 18, 2025 - Bangladesh -  A concerning incident targeting press freedom unfolded on the night of Friday, 18 October 2025, when multimedia reporter Al Amin, working for the Bangladeshi daily Kaler Kantho, was assaulted while covering a police raid in real time. According to witness accounts, the raid took place at the Javan Residential Hotel in Tongi, Gazipur, following reports of illegal activities at the location. During the live broadcast of the operation, unidentified individuals allegedly rushed the reporter, knocked his phone from his hands, and forcibly cut the livestream. Immediately afterward, Al Amin was...

October 18, 2025 - Palestine -  In the village of Kobar, north of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank, Israeli troops opened fire and deployed stun grenades and tear gas against Palestinian farmers and journalists attempting to harvest olives on October 18, 2025. The farmers were trying to reach their groves in the Qanater and Daak areas after a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court had temporarily allowed access, despite the military previously barring passage to the land. According to firsthand reports, soldiers prevented them from entering and fired when they attempted to proceed,...

October 17, 2025 - Mali - The press freedom organization ARTICLE 19 has welcomed the release of Malian journalist and activist El Bachir Thiam on 25 September 2025, calling it a “positive signal for civic space.”Thiam, a former member of the Yélema party, was reportedly kidnapped on 8 May 2025 in Kati, near Bamako, by unknown armed individuals and held in undisclosed detention for over four months. During this period, he was cut off from family contact and his whereabouts remained unknown, raising alarm for enforced disappearance under Malian and international law. ARTICLE 19 underscored that Mali’s Constitution...

October 17, 2025 - Afghanistan -  The IFJ and the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Union (AIJU) have strongly denounced the killing of Afghan media worker Abdul Zahir Safi, who was killed on 16 October 2025 in Kabul after an alleged air strike in a civilian area. This marks the second media worker killed in Afghanistan over two days, following the killing of journalist Abdul Ghafoor Abed, who died while covering cross-border fighting from Pakistan. Safi, who worked within the state-media network under the Ministry of Information and Culture's Technical and Taranum Directorates, was in his fifties. According to AIJU sources, he was struck...

October 17, 2025 - Russia/Ukraine - A dramatic incident in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has resulted in the death of a Russian state-media correspondent. According to reports from the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, military correspondent Ivan Zuev was fatally struck by a Ukrainian drone strike in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. His colleague, Yuri Voitkevich, sustained serious injuries while working alongside him. The attack reportedly occurred on 16 October 2025, when Zuev and Voitkevich were on assignment near the front lines. RIA Novosti described Zuev as “killed on assignment” as a direct result of the strike. Zuev...

October 17, 2025 - Palestine -  RSF has issued an urgent appeal to Israeli authorities demanding the prompt and unconditional release of 16 Palestinian journalists who remain in detention after being arrested by Israeli forces during the past two years in Gaza and the West Bank. The organization states that only three journalists were freed on 13 October 2025 as part of a prisoner-exchange deal with Hamas — the rest remain behind bars. According to RSF, the three freed individuals — Alaa al‑Sarraj, Emad Zakaria Badr al‑Ifranj, and Shady Abu Sedo — were among nearly...

October 17, 2025 - Italy -  On the night of 16 October 2025, Italian investigative journalist Sigfrido Ranucci—host of the television program “Report” on RAI—was the victim of a bomb attack outside his home in the Roman suburb of Campo Ascolano. Around 22:17 CEST, a rudimentary explosive device weighing approximately one kilogram detonated near the front gate of his house. The blast—believed to have been planted between two flower pots—destroyed Ranucci’s car and the vehicle of his daughter; thankfully, no one was injured. Ranucci, who has been under police protection since 2021 following repeated threats...

October 16, 2025 - Palestine -  Shadi Abu Sido, a Palestinian photojournalist from Gaza, was released from Israeli custody under a recent ceasefire agreement and immediately confronted a shocking lie: Israeli prison guards had told him that his wife and two children were dead. Upon his release on October 13, 2025, Abu Sido reunited with his family in their home in Khan Younis—alive, contrary to what he had been told in captivity. Abu Sido’s ordeal began in March 2024, when he was detained at Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza during the conflict. Throughout his detention, he...

October 16, 2025 - Palestine -  The CPJ has formally filed an amicus brief alongside the Foreign Press Association in Israel’s Supreme Court, challenging the Israeli government’s ongoing prohibition of independent international media access into the Gaza Strip. According to CPJ, Israeli authorities have denied independent press access to Gaza since October 7, 2023, spanning a continuous 741-day ban despite the recent ceasefire. The organization argues that this blanket exclusion contradicts Israel’s obligations under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which safeguards freedom of expression and the press. CPJ...

October 16, 2025 - Ecuador -  In the wake of nationwide protests in Ecuador triggered by fuel-subsidy reforms, press freedom groups have documented a worrying escalation in violence against media professionals. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports that at least 55 journalists have suffered attacks since 22 September, as of mid-October 2025. The protests, led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), are centered around Decree 126, which removes diesel subsidies and has sparked demonstrations across multiple provinces. Among the most serious incidents occurred on 14 October in the city of Otavalo (Imbabura province),...

October 16, 2025 - Afghanistan -  An Afghan journalist, Abdul Ghafoor Abed (also spelled Abed/Abid), was killed, and another reporter, Tawab Arman, sustained injuries while covering cross-border hostilities between Taliban forces and Pakistan on October 14, 2025. The incident unfolded in Khost province, notably in the Zazai Maidan district, close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. The two belonged to Paktia National Television (PNT) and were reporting on Taliban military operations in the border zone when they came under attack, reportedly from Pakistani forces and possibly via a drone strike. According to the Afghan Independent Journalists...