Canadian Journalists for Free Expression

The government of Syria should immediately and unconditionally release the arbitrarily detained human rights defender Mazen Darwish and his colleagues Hani Al-Zitani and Hussein Ghareer, 61 human rights organizations said on 17 March 2014.

Three Al Jazeera journalists have been detained in Egypt since 29 December 2013. Add your name to the petition asking for their release. Help reach the goal of 10 000 signatures before their next court appearance on 31 March.

For two weeks, the world’s attention was fixated upon the Sochi Winter Olympics, as many anticipated Russia’s response to an expected influx of protestors for LGBT and environmental rights, however during the Olympics relatively few activists spoke out.

After a series of increasingly violent events, IFEX members and supporters call on Chief Executive Leung Chun-Ying to take clear and deliberate steps to defend press freedom.

“Intellectual freedom is the freedom to think,” says Franklin Carter, editor and researcher with the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee. “People need it to learn and grow throughout their lives. Learning and growing are much easier if people are free to read, write and discuss information and ideas.”

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression celebrates the principled stand taken by independent MP Brent Rathgeber in killing his own private member’s bill, C-461; “Mr. Rathgeber gave up that opportunity on the principle that it would do more harm than good. It was a good day for democracy.”

195 civil society organisations from around the world have called on the UN to put government accountability and independent media at the centre of a new framework for global development.

The Snowden leaks have exposed a program subjecting travellers to surveillance at Canadian airports, heightening privacy concerns.