Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
organization
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) is a Canadian non-governmental organization supported by Canadian journalists and advocates of freedom of expression. The purpose of the organization is to defend the rights of journalists and contribute to the development of press freedom throughout the world. CJFE recognizes that these rights are not confined to journalists and strongly supports and defends the broader objective of freedom of expression in Canada and around the world.
History
CJFE was established in 1981, and parented initially by the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) (now the Canadian Association of Journalists) as the CIJ Latin American Committee. In 1984 the group's name was changed to the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists. Then in 1998 it became Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. Many of the centre's members were shocked at the life-threatening conditions for journalists working in Latin America during the early 1980s. From 1979 to 1981, some 150 journalists had been killed or disappeared while in the custody of security forces in the region. Moved to action by this violence against their southern counterparts, the CIJ agreed to form a special committee to campaign against the kidnapping, torture and murder of media workers throughout Latin America. It was thus that the CIJ Latin American Committee came into being.
The public source identifies “Canadian Journalists for Free Expression” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Canadian, Journalists and Free.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16955316. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1984, 1998 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Canadian Journalists for Free Expression” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.