2005-2014

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the threats and intimidations against journalists in Somalia after the head of an Islamic militia group in Somalia warned journalists against reports which are critical of the movement. “We condemn this climate of terror and intimidation against journalists in Somalia,” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office. “It is against...

An elected New York state official is being prosecuted for his alleged attack on a photographer who was trying to take his picture, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. New York State Senator Kevin Parker, who represents Brooklyn's District 21 in the Albany-based legislature, was arrested May 8 in Brooklyn and charged with felony criminal mischief, according to the New York...

Yemeni authorities have launched a campaign to suppress independent journalism in the country, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Authorities have announced a special court to try media and publishing offences. One of the latest victims of the media crackdown launched nearly two weeks ago is Yahya Bamahfud, a blogger and former editor of the Hadhramaut news...

There has been a wave of lawsuits against independent Iraqi news media in recent weeks. Three daily newspapers and a TV station have so far been sued for defamation by senior government officials over reports about corruption, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “These attacks on independent Iraqi media run counter to the progress towards democracy which the entire nation has...

Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned Monday morning’s decision by the Israeli internal security ministry to shut down the Palestinian media centre that had been set up in the East Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah in advance of the Pope’s visit. The media centre was a temporary one that had been installed in a conference room of the Hotel Ambassador to provide documentation...

The Northern Ireland police are trying to obtain a court order in Belfast that would force Suzanne Breen, the Belfast editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune newspaper, to hand over all her source material about the Real IRA, an Irish Republican Army splinter group. “Journalists are neither police auxiliaries nor criminals,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “The confidentiality...

On the evening of April 12, Raphael Ramírez, editor of the national daily La Prensa, received two anonymous calls at his home in La Paz from an individual who threatened to kill him if he "did not stop publishing lies," Carlos Morales, the daily's director, has told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The following morning, an unidentified individual called Morales' home...

Khawar Shafiq, the Daily Waqt (Daily Time) correspondent in Faisalabad, told colleagues he managed to escape from abductors on April 11, 2009, four days three bearded men grabbed him by his home near Faisalabad and shoved him into a car. He said the men made him inhale fumes from a liquid that made him lose consciousness, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported...

Channel 4’s Asian correspondent Nick Paton-Walsh, producer Bessie Du, and cameraman Matt Jasper were briefly detained by police in Trincomalee in the east of the country before their expulsion. They are now in Bangkok with their journalist visas cancelled and banned from further visits to Sri Lanka, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The report broadcast on May 5 showed both...

Freelance journalist Roxana Saberi has been released from prison in Iran. Saberi, who was initially sentenced to an eight-year prison term for espionage on April 18, was released from Tehran's Evin Prison Monday after an appeals court reduced her punishment to a two-year suspended sentence. Although exact details about the charges against Saberi remain unknown, BBC reported that the initial charge...