2005-2014

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has issued a pardon to Sri Lankan journalist JS Tissainayagam. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is waiting for official clarification, however, concerning several important details. The country’s recently appointed external affairs minister, GL Peiris, announced the pardon at a press conference in Colombo. “President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to pardon...

The government is mulling over the formation of a Broadcasting Authority of India, which would address broadcast related issues, agencies have reported. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni said that, "While content regulation is a subject on which the government has been holding discussions with broadcasters, we are looking at setting up an authority for addressing issues related...

The Israeli military obstructed an Al-Jazeera crew trying to cover a rally in the village of Bil’in west of Ramallah on Friday, according to news reports and interviews. Israel Defence Forces arrested Al-Jazeera cameraman Majdi Bannoura and assistant Nader Abu Zer when they arrived in Bil’in to cover a weekly protest against the separation barrier being erected there by Israel, the Committee to...

Salvadorean authorities say they have arrested the gang leader who ordered documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda’s murder, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Poveda, who had dual French and Spanish nationality, was gunned down in an outlying district of San Salvador on September 2, 2009. Accused of various crimes and regarded by the police as one of the main leaders of the “Mara 18”...

Two journalists who went missing Tuesday after an ambush in Oaxaca state in southern Mexico were rescued late Thursday by local police, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Érika Ramírez and David Cilia, reporters with the national newsweekly Contralínea, were found Thursday night in a forest near the Hierba Santa River, the news agency EFE reported. The journalists were taken...

Four journalists who covered the recent dismissal of the electoral commission chairman received anonymous death threats via text message on Wednesday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and news reports. The messages, sent from the same number, said the reporters would meet the fate of three slain Nigerian journalists. “We will deal with you soon. Remember Dele Giwa, Bayo Ohu...

The Ethiopian government detained last week two government TV journalists on allegations of misusing state property, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Editor Haileyesus Worku and reporter Abdulsemed Mohammed of Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) have not been formally charged since their arrests, according to local journalists. Friday, a magistrate extended their...

Two journalists accompanying a caravan of human rights activists in a tense and often violent indigenous area of Oaxaca state in southern Mexico were reported missing Tuesday after the convoy came under gunfire and two people were killed, press reports said. Érika Ramírez and David Cilia are the two missing reporters from the national newsweekly Contralínea, Zósimo Camacho, a senior editor with...

A sweeping new bill in Russia can return censorship rights to Russia’s KGB successor, the Federal Security Service, if passed, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Amendments to the country’s administrative code and the law on FSB activities would give the security agency the right to summon journalists for questioning and demand that editors remove articles that “aid extremists”...

State-owned Internet service provider Kazakhtelecom has blocked access to the independent news portal Respublika and the website of its sister publication Respublika-Delovoye Obozreniye, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Access to both news portals, which often criticise Kazakh authorities for corruption and human rights violations, has been blocked today for all clients of...