This is the first installment of our press freedom round-up in 2025, recapping the latest attacks on journalists, their right to publish, and our right to know. Hereโs the news for the week of January 4, 2025.
British judge orders Crown Prosecution Service to come clean on Assange case
After nine years of FOIA legal battle, a judge has ordered Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to shed light on the destruction of key documents regarding Julian Assange’s case. Journalist Stefania Maurizi and her representative barrister Estelle Dehon have been trying to obtain the full documentation on the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks case since 2015, and after discovering that part of that documentation was destroyed in 2017, they have been trying to investigate why it was destroyed and if it could be retrieved. Now, as reported by Maurizi for Il Fatto Quotidiano the judge concluded that the CPS likely still holds some information explaining what took place and ordered them to disclose it or be held in contempt.
The few emails that were not destroyed, writes Jonathan Cook, imply that UK authorities have been pushing Swedish prosecutors to pursue the case against Assange, thus waging what appears to have been a campaign of political persecution against Assange, rather than one based on proper legal considerations.
Gaza journalists demand end to Israel’s impunity and international media to defend Palestinian colleagues
Palestinian journalists held a press conference outside of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to call attention to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, its slaughter of those reporting from the ground and persistent ignorance of international media about decimation of Gaza and the Palestinian journalists.
“We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations (…) Even the press vests we’re wearing right now mark us as a target. They do not protect us at all, because we are Palestinians.”
Abubaker Abed
Article 19 calls on Israel to stop targeting journalists
Article 19 has condemned the ongoing targeting of journalists and media workers in Palestine and called on Israel to end all attacks against journalists and the media and respect its obligations under international law to uphold media freedom.
The organization has also reiterated the call for the International Criminal Court to prioritise its investigation into the deliberate targeting and killing of journalists in Gaza.
Israel kills writer and journalists Mohammad Hijazi and cameraman Saed Abu Nabhan
A Palestinian writer, poet and journalist Mohammad Hijazi has been killed in an Israeli air attack on Jabalia refugee camp, taking the total number of media workers killed by Israel in Gaza to 220, reports Al Jazeera.
Saed Abu Nabhan, cameraman working for Anadolu Agency, has been killed in a targeted attack while on assignment. As reported by Middle East Monitor, Abu Nabhan was filming a wounded person being carried out of a house on a stretcher when he was “targeted by what appears to be a shot fired from a long-range rifle”.
British journalist Richard Medhurst faces years in prison for refusing to hand over his passwords to the UK police
British journalist Richard Medhurst is the first reporter to be arrested and under investigation in relation to the Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Medhurst was arrested in August 2024 at Heathrow Airport, when the police detained him for almost 24 hours; he was questioned for two hours and his two phones, headphones, cables, microphones and sim cards were seized. As reported by Stefania Maurizi for Il Fatto Quotidiano, he refused and still refuses to hand over the passwords for his phones in order to protect his sources, a right recognised for every reporter and confirmed by many rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.