Press Freedom & Safety

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. In 2017, Jamaica was ranked eighth in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, sandwiched between the likes of Switzerland and Belgium, and well ahead of the United States, which was ranked 43rd. But Jamaica’s media landscape was not always so free, and the island has made major strides in recent years. In an email interview, Margaux Ewen, advocacy and communications director at Reporters Without Borders North America, explains what is behind the progress for press freedom in Jamaica [...]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. The murders of two journalists in India in September were just the latest sign of the growing threat to press freedom in the country. In addition to outright attacks on their lives, Indian journalists face mounting pressure to not report on sensitive topics like extremism or on stories that are critical of the government and major businesses. In an email interview, Steven Butler, the Asia Program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, discusses the troubling history of violence [...]

Last month, Snap—the parent company for the popular social media app Snapchat—announced it would remove Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network, from its platform inside Saudi Arabia in “an effort to comply with local laws,” as a Snap spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. Snap’s decision came on the heels of a June ultimatum by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to their rival Qatar, which owns Al-Jazeera, to close down the network completely—one of 13 conditions for ending their ongoing economic blockade of the tiny Gulf country. The move to “silence freedom of expression,” as an Al-Jazeera spokesperson put it, [...]