2005-2014

Supporters behind incumbent Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo and rival Alassane Ouattara are targeting rival partisan media oulets and their journalists in an increasingly bloody struggle for power, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. On Monday, Marcel Legré, a printing press employee of La Refondation, publisher of the pro-Gbagbo daily Notre Voie...

The stabbing of Banjir Ambarita, a freelance reporter who frequently contributes to Indonesia's English-language daily the Jakarta Globe, appears to be related to his reporting linking police to a prisoner sex abuse scandal, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. According to Globe staff and news reports, Banjir was stabbed in the chest and stomach by...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the regional body of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have launched a call for a wide-ranging debate about ethical journalism, human rights protection and a new vision of media regulation to strengthen democracy in Europe. The call was made by the EFJ General Secretary, Aidan White, in a lecture on Ethical Journalism and Human Rights...

The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) has condemned threats by the country's authorities to prosecute Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, publisher of Awareness Times, a privately-owned Freetown-based newspaper, with the antiquated criminal libel law. According to SLAJ, the use of the seditious criminal libel law is illegal and a threat to media freedom and free expression. The Media Foundation...

A presenter at Masaka-based Top Radio, Ssozi Lyazi Ssekimpi, is reported to have been suspended over a talk show which discussed electoral malpractice witnessed during recent presidential and parliamentary elections, according to Human Rights Network for Journalists (HRNJ-Uganda). Ssekimpi, who joined Top Radio four years ago, has been working as an editor and presenter of the weekly talk show...

Russian investigators have pledged to re-open investigations into the cases of five murdered journalists. Valery Ivanov, Natalia Skryl, Aleksei Sidorov, Yuri Shchekochikhin and Vagif Kochetkov were all killed—or are suspected to have been killed—in connection with their journalistic activities. They are all Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International cases from the last nine years...

Turkish journalist Ahmet Topcu has been sentenced to eleven months in prison in connection with his criticism of a mayor. In June 2010, Halil Bakirci, mayor of Rize (eastern Black Sea coast) and a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), had proposed that "Kurds should have co-wives" in order to solve the Kurdish question. The mayor was broadly criticised for his suggestion and...

Freedom Forum has expressed concern over the growing incidence of press freedom violations across the country. Freedom Forum's attention has recently been drawn towards an incident that occurred in Bajura, a district in the far-western region of the country, on March 1. Chief of the District Sports Committee, Nrip Singh Baduwal, leveled a death threat against journalist Prakash Singh, accusing him...

Ukrainian authorities are threatening to upend progress in the 10-year-old investigation into the September 2000 abduction and murder of independent journalist Georgy Gongadze, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The Kyiv Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled to reject a second appeal by Myroslava Gongadze, the journalist's widow, against the...

There has been a wave of government censorship in the past few days at Radio-Télévision Nationale de Guinée Équatoriale (RTVGE), a state-owned broadcaster that is kept under very close surveillance by information minister Jeronimo Osa Osa. On Thursday, the state radio’s French-language broadcasts were “temporarily suspended on the orders of a higher authority,” the head of the station, José Esono...