2005-2014

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) was honored Monday with the fourth biennial Thomas J Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. The $75,000 prize is given "to an individual or group who has made a significant effort to advance the cause of international justice and global human rights." CPJ was selected for the prize by a committee representing the University...

Journalist Aylin Duruoglu has spent nearly six months in Istanbul’s Bakirköy prison on unfounded charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation. The Istanbul prosecutor’s office requested a 15-year jail sentence for Duruoglu when she appeared in court on October 1, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Duruoglu was accused of belonging to an armed group called the Revolutionary...

There has been a series of attempts to intimidate Jules Koum Koum, eeditor of Le Jeune Observateur, a Cameroonian weekly based in the southwestern city of Douala, according to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF). “In recent weeks, this respected journalist has published several detailed and well-researched reports on corruption implicating a number of prominent people,” RSF said. “In so doing, he has...

Three Voice of America (VOA) reporters in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia were suspended Thursday, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Puntland’s Deputy Minister of Information Abdishakur Mire Adan issued a letter suspending all three VOA correspondents and any other VOA journalist from reporting in the region. The suspended VOA...

Urdu daily in Pakistan Asaap has alleged that Frontier Corps forces were posted outside its offices on August 1, 2009, questioning staff about connections with local insurgents, according to local news reports. The Frontier Corps is a local paramilitary unit stationed to quell a violent independence movement staged by Baloch nationalist groups in the province. In a front-page story on August 19...

Sudan has decided to lift prior censorship on the written press. Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), however, called for this announcement to be followed by real change and accompanied by further steps allowing greater press freedom in Sudan. President Omar al-Bashir on September 27 put an end by decree to censorship of all publications before printing that has been carried out by the...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) is extremely worried for the safety of Mouctar Bah, the Conakry correspondent of Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, and Amadou Diallo, the BBC’s correspondent. After being threatened and roughed up by soldiers while covering the violent dispersal of an opposition demonstration two days ago in which hundreds died, they are now reportedly wanted by...

The Italian editor whose newspaper is being sued for defamation by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday likened the situation to attacks on the American press during the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to the resignation of US President Richard Nixon. “Like the American journalists, our journalists were doing their work and were publishing information that had to be published,” said...

A Moroccan independent daily has been closed down amid an escalating government campaign to silence critical journalists. On Tuesday, police prevented Taoufik Bouachrine, managing publisher and editor of the daily Akhbar al-Youm, and dozens of staff members from entering the offices of the Casablanca-based newspaper. The sudden move followed a statement from the Ministry of the Interior accusing...

Russian online journalist Aleksandr Podrabinek, 56, known for his sharp commentary on political and social issues, has gone into hiding after receiving a series of threats stemming from a September 21 commentary on the news website Yezhednevny Zhurnal that pointed out the human rights abuses of the Soviet government. Angered by Podrabinek’s piece, members of the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi (Ours...