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12 January 2011

Ombudsman says Brazilian paper hurt itself by taking down parody blog

The ombudsman for the Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo said the paper’s case against the Falha de S. Paulo (São Paulo Failure) parody blog was more harmful than the blog itself, according to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. The details: [ Link] “Falha” was taken offline in October, after a court order obtained by Folha. The newspaper argued that the suit was not to meant to...

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12 January 2011

Body of missing Pakistani journalist found in Balochistan

The Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ) has called for a full investigation into the killing of Ilyas Nizzar, who was found dead in Pidarak, in the volatile Balochistan province, in Pakistan's southwest, on January 5. Nizzar, a general assignment reporter with the Baloch-language magazine Darwanth, had been missing and assumed abducted since December 28. According to the Pakistan Federal Union...

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12 January 2011

Yemen: News website editor arrested arbitrarily in eastern city

Yemeni journalist Fouad Rashid has been arbitrarily arrested in Al-Mukalla, a city 500 km east of Sanaa that is the capital of Hadramaut provinceaccording to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The editor of the Arabic-language news website Al-Mukalla Press, Rashid was arrested on the street on the morning of January 10 and was taken to the headquarters of the city’s...

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12 January 2011
Censorship unabated in Tunisia

Censorship unabated in Tunisia

Tunisian journalist Nissar Ben Hassen of Radio Kalima was arrested Tuesday after posting video footage of events in Chebba, 65 km north of the city of Sfax, online. He was editing another video on the violence in Mahdia at the time of his arrest, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Members of a special presidential unit arrested him shortly after midday at...

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12 January 2011
Newspaper editor Hrant Dink’s accused killer could be free within 12 months

Newspaper editor Hrant Dink’s accused killer could be free within 12 months

Ogün Samast, the youth who is accused of fatally shooting Hrant Dink, the Armenian-Turkish editor of the weekly Agos, outside his office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007, could be released within 12 months as a result of the extremely slow pace at which his murder trial is proceeding, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Arrested on January 20, 2007 at a...

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12 January 2011
Smear campaign launched against Kosovo journalist by veterans

Smear campaign launched against Kosovo journalist by veterans

An aggressive smear campaign has been launched by the Kosovo Liberation Army’s Veterans Association against respected journalist Halil Matoshi in the last few days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The attacks seem to have been prompted by an article by Matoshi in the daily Koha Ditore on January 6 about the challenges facing Kosovo in 2011, in which he...

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11 January 2011
Panama: Retrograde move to make insulting president punishable by imprisonment

Panama: Retrograde move to make insulting president punishable by imprisonment

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the National Assembly of Panama to reject a draft law under which anyone insulting the president or an elected official could be sentenced to between two and four years in prison, as it would represent major step backwards for freedom of expression in Panama. The National Assembly is due to resume examining it Tuesday...

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11 January 2011

Call for release of Afghan editor Assadolah Vahidi

Assadolah Vahidi, editor of daily Sarnewesht, was arrested Sunday on the orders of Afghanistan’s chief prosecutor based on a complaint from President Hamid Karzai’s national security advisor, without any consultation with the Commission for Media Complaints, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). This arrest was illegal, in terms of the way it was carried out...

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11 January 2011

US-Nigerian journalist arrested at Lagos airport, passports confiscated for two days

US-Nigerian professor and journalist Okey Ndibe was on January 8 questioned for several hours by the internal intelligence agency, the State Security Service (SSS), after arriving at Muritala Muhammed international airport in Lagos, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both his American and Nigerian passports were confiscated without any explanation and...

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8 January 2011
Women’s roles downplayed by Indonesian media: Survey

Women’s roles downplayed by Indonesian media: Survey

For the most part, women in Indonesia only ever seem to make the headlines for their role as a famous person’s relative, a victim or a criminal, a reporters’ guild says. In a study carried out between July and September last year, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) looked for mention of female news sources in seven Indonesian-language dailies. “These are the three types of women who...

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