Press Freedom
CPJ Updates
- Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up fear for the press, democracy
- 2024 is deadliest year for journalists in CPJ history; almost 70% killed by Israel
- In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists
- Haiti, Israel most likely to let journalists’ murders go unpunished, CPJ 2024 impunity index shows
- No justice for journalists targeted by Israel despite strong evidence of war crime
- On Edge: What the US election could mean for journalists and global press freedom
- Forced to flee: Exiled journalists face unsafe passage and transnational repression
- Israel-Gaza war brings 2023 journalist killings to devastating high
- 2023 prison census: Jailed journalist numbers near record high; Israel imprisonments spike
Reporter Without Borders
OPC Calls for Bangladesh to Free Photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol
The Overseas Press Club of America calls on law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh to free jailed photojournalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol and dismiss the case against him, in addition to investigating the circumstances behind his disappearance.
Kajol, 50, was arrested May 3 after disappearing for 53 days. News media reported that Kajol was arrested while attempting to cross the border from India.
Kajol, the editor of Pakkhakal magazine, and 31 other journalists were charged with criminal defamation under the country’s Digital Security Act on March 9, according to the Dhaka Tribune.
According to journalist colleagues, Kajol shared a story from the daily Manab Zamin on his Facebook page and added the names of other government officials, which triggered the DSA filing.
Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, which led a 2018 coalition of 56 organizations, have repeatedly spoken out against the enforced disappearances in Bangladesh believed to be led by government security forces.