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 Condemns Arrest of Press Club Staff in Belarus
The Overseas Press Club of America denounces the detention of five staff members of Press Club Belarus on charges of tax evasion.
Julia Slutskaya, founder and president of the club, and four other staff members were arrested on Dec. 22 and the club’s offices were searched and closed. The homes of those arrested were also searched.
Press Club Belarus and the OPC are members of the International Association of Press Clubs (IAPC). Jaroslaw Wlodarczyk, secretary of the IAPC, said the government of Alexander Lukashenko yesterday extended the group’s detention by 10 days to Jan. 7.
“Lawyers are taking all possible steps to ensure their immediate release. However, taking into account the politically motivated previous trials in Belarus, the chances of their release are slim, especially in the absence of pressure,” Wlodarczyk said.
More than a dozen other Belarusian press club staff were evacuated to Lithuania and Ukraine and are scheduled to go to Poland in January and operate from Warsaw, he added.