2005-2014

The Indonesian governmen has decided to deport Raimondo Bultrini, a reporter with Italy’s weekly L’Espresso, and Kumkum Dasgupta, an assistant editor with India’s Hindustan Times, for lacking accreditation, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The two reporters were arrested and interrogated for several hours by police on Tuesday and later handed over to...

A Lusaka court Monday acquitted the Post editor Chansa Kabwela of a charge of “distributing obscene material” for sending the vice-president photos of a woman giving birth in a hospital car park during a strike by hospital staff, Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Judge Charles Kafunda dismissed the case on the grounds that there was no evidence that the photos would corrupt...

Jean Bosco Gasasira, the editor of the fortnightly Umuvugizi, has been convicted on charges of defamation and invasion of privacy but has been acquitted on the more serious charge of insult and abuse, on which he had been facing a possible sentence of more than two years in prison. In its verdict and sentencing issued on November 13, the Kigali court also refrained from ordering Umuvugizi’s...

Two Pakistani journalists, Rab Nawaz Joya and Javed Kanwal Chandor, have been held since November 10 in a police station in Okara district, in the northeastern province of Punjab, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Although charged with theft and fraud, they were arrested for helping Pakistani and international news media get background information about Ajmal Kasab, a participant in...

Six private newspapers in Gabon have been suspended by the government-controlled media-monitoring body, the National Communications Council. The council announced the suspensions, which range from one to three months, on Tuesday evening on state-run TV, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The papers have been suspended for “violating the ethics of journalism”...

A Norwegian freelance journalist and an Afghan colleague were released Thursday after nearly a week in captivity in eastern Afghanistan, according to international news reports. Paal Refsdal had called the Norwegian Embassy in Kabul on November 6 to say he and his translator had been abducted, according to international news reports. Refsdal was making a documentary for Norwegian production...

Prison sentences were awarded Wednesday to two Azerbaijani video bloggers detained in July on fabricated charges of “hooliganism” and “inflicting minor bodily harm,” the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Judge Araz Huseynov with the Sabail District Court in Baku handed Emin Milli, 30, who runs an online video blog known as ANTV, a two and a half year jail term...

A Baghdad court has ruled that the London-based Guardian newspaper defamed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in an April 2009 article depicting increasing authoritarianism in his government. On Tuesday, the court fined the Guardian 100 million Iraqi dinars (US$86,000) in connection with the article, which quoted unnamed members of the intelligence service as saying that al-Maliki was...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) Tuesday voiced outrage at a prosecution call to permanently shut down the independent bi-monthly Umuvugizi and to sentence its editor, Jean Bosco Gasasira, to a 26-month jail sentence for libel. The Paris-based press freedom organisation urged the judge who is due to rule in the case on November 13 not to follow the recommendation made on October 26 by the judge...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Pakistani authorities to allow the news media better access to the Tribal Areas in the northwest of the country, where the army has been waging an offensive against the Taliban in Waziristan for the past three weeks. “We are aware of the risks for journalists, but the current lack of access to Waziristan for the Pakistani and foreign media is...