2005-2014

The trial of two people accused of the murder of Stanislav Markelov, a human rights lawyer specialised in Chechnya, and Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova finally began this week in Moscow, nearly two years after they were gunned in the centre of Moscow on January 19, 2009 at the end of news conference by Markelov. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) welcomed the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has supported the decision to take strike action by members of the Syndicat national des journalistes tunisiens (SNJT), an IFJ affiliate, in protest over the attempts to censor media coverage of month-long riots over corruption and unemployment which have claimed 21 lives so far. "Journalists in Tunisia are right to show solidarity with citizens...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over public threats made against journalist and National Assembly member Sherry Rehman. The government has stepped up protection for Rehman after she supported a bill in the National Assembly that would amend Pakistan's blasphemy law. The changes include the repeal of the law's mandatory death penalty. "Sherry Rehman's life straddles...

Tunisian authorities must end their weeks-long crackdown on bloggers and reporters covering street protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded. Scores of journalists have been detained in the past four weeks, three of whom remain in custody. Local and international reporters have faced continued harassment, including detention, restrictions on movement, and denial of entry into the...

Police in Kampala arrested the director and editor of the monthly newsmagazine Summit Business Review on Tuesday in connection with a caricature of President Yoweri Museveni that appeared on the cover of the October issue. Director Samuel Sejjaaka and Editor Mustapha Mugisha were released on bond but face continued interrogations, Sejjaaka told New York-based press freedom group Committee to...

A new executive decree issued on January 6 in Vietnam that will give authorities greater powers to penalise journalists, editors, and bloggers who report on issues deemed as sensitive to national security, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The new media regulations were issued amid a mounting clampdown on dissent shortly before Wednesday's opening...

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government should repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Committee to Protect Journalists said after a late 2010 amendment to the legislation hiked mandatory registration and accreditation fees for the press working in the country by as much as 400 percent. Since 2002, AIPPA, a draconian piece of media-licensing legislation, has forced...

Geo TV reporter Wali Khan Babar was shot and killed in Karachi Thursday evening, shortly after covering gang violence in the city, according to several Pakistani journalists. At least two assailants intercepted Babar's car at 9:20 p.m., shooting him multiple times in the head and neck, Geo TV Managing Director Azhar Abbas told New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). One assailant...

The history of terrestrial TV channels in the Arab World goes back to the early 1960s. Until the booming era of free to air satellite TV, terrestrial TV was the main source of entertainment and information for people in the Arab World. Local terrestrial TV stations are still alive in the region, but regulations and market dynamics have ensured that -except in a few countries- the number of...

A member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration has that Sarkozy wanted to gather representatives of Internet operators from each of the G8 countries prior to the upcoming international summit. That summit, which is currently slated for May 26-27, is to be held in Deauville, in northern France, according to Deutsche Welle. "The idea is that representatives from each G8 nation should...