2005-2014

A French government spokesman indicated Tuesday that progress being made to secure the release of two French TV journalists abducted in Kabul nearly a year ago. Spokesman Francois Baroin told the broadcaster RTL: "The liberation process is ongoing, but this will still take some time." His remark came after a video surfaced in which the two journalists sent private messages to their relatives...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) has launched a mirror website for the US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks. Its address is http://wikileaks.rsf.org. “This is a gesture of support for WikiLeaks’ right to publish information without being obstructed,” RSF said in a statement. “We defend the free flow of information on the Internet and the...

A 35-year-old local journalist was shot dead by unidentified persons in the district in the wee hours Monday, police said. The incident occurred when Sushil Pathak, a journalist with Dainik Bhaskar, was returning home from work at around 0200 hours, they said. Pathak had parked his car in a nearby street and decided to walk down to his house when the assailants fired at him before fleeing, the...

Around 20 journalists were arrested and a similar number the victims of police violence during the demonstrations that followed Sunday’s announcement of President Alexander Lukashenko’s reelection victory. The protesters and journalists arrested were being tried Monday. Ilya Kuzniatsu, for example, was sentenced to 15 days in prison on a charge of “participating in an illegal demonstration.” Paris...

Sun Hongjie, a newspaper reporter based in Kuitun, in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang, is in deep coma since Monday as a result of the head injuries he received when he was attacked by four or five men on the night of December 18. Sun worked for the provincial daily Beijiang Chenbao (Beijang Morning Newspaper), Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has...

Posters have appeared near the parliament building in central Athens listing journalists accused of being “thugs” and “rogues” for their perceived support for the government in the current crisis. Leaflets with the names and photos of some of the journalists were also scattered in the same area, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “In an already tense and...

Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) voiced clear support for media freedom during his party’s congress on December 13 but in recent months more and more lawsuits have been brought against the Kurdish media, and not just the independent ones. Newspaper editors nowadays seem to be spending their time in the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has accused authorities in Belarus of "violent bullying and intimidation" of journalists covering a peaceful protest in central Minsk yesterday, saying the brutality exposed the country's fragile attachment to democracy following presidential elections. "The sheer violence and blatant regard of journalists' right to cover a public event were...

Press freedom groups have urged US President Barack Obama and Attorney-General Eric Holder to avoid prosecuting WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for publishing classified cables and other documents. Chairman Paul E Steiger and Executive Director Joel Simon of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) , and Jean-François Julliard Secretary-General of Paris-based press...

Media organisations in Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday went on an indefinite strike in protest against the state government's failure to arrest those who had assaulted two women journalists last week, the Press Trust of India has reported. The women, working with The Sentinel Arunachal, were assaulted by some unidentified persons on December 12 when they were gathering news of an accident, according...