2005-2014

A court in Gafsa (350 km south of Tunis) has sentenced reporter Fahem Boukadous in absentia to six years in prison on a charge of “forming a criminal association liable to attack persons and their property” for covering demonstrations in the Gafsa mining region. Boukadous works for Al-Hiwar Attounsi, a privately-owned TV station based in Italy that broadcasts to Tunisia. “This harsh sentence is...

The Kyrgyzstan government has refused to resume local retransmission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service unless it submits programmes for prior approval. The demand was made on December 15 by Melis Eshimkanov, head of state-owned broadcaster UTRK, who told a RFE/RL delegation its programmes were “too negative and critical.” “This political decision is intolerable,” Paris-based...

The Mexican special federal prosecutor for dealing with attacks on the media, Octavio Alberto Orellana Wiarco, has ruled out that two young women community journalists in Oaxaca State were killed because of their work. His public statement that the radio journalists of the Triqui indigenous community were shot in an attack aimed at the driver of their vehicle showed yet again the special...

Press freedom groups have expressed concern over the abduction of freelance photojournalist Shadreck Manyere and attempted abduction of Obrian Rwafa, a reporter with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). These incidents happened just 10 days after the abduction of journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who is still missing. “Whoever was responsible, these...

The Madagascar government has closed down Viva TV after it broadcast a message by former president Didier Ratsiraka on December 13, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The authorities accused the station, owned by the mayor of Antananarivo, of broadcasting statements liable to “disturb public order and security.” Ratsiraka has lived in exile in Paris since 2002. “Viva’s closure signals a...

The Iraqi journalist arrested for throwing his shoes at US President George W Bush has written to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki apologising over the incident. Muntadar al-Zaidi, who relatives and colleagues said acted because he "detested" Bush and America, is being held for possible trial for aggression against a foreign head of state during an official visit. "In his letter, he asks the...

Fear might be holding Jordanians from exploiting the margin of freedoms they have. On several occasions, the Jordanian regime, in the words of King Abdullah, reiterated the need for a free press. Jordan promulgated the only law in the Arab countries that allows access to information. However, journalists are still repressed, laws and regulations have not changed and the executive authority has not

A “defamation” of religion resolution stating that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism” passed in the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday – but with fewer votes than in previous years. Over the past year opponents ranging to media watchdogs and free speech advocates to Christian and humanist groups have stepped up lobbying against the Organization...

Attacks on journalists throughout the world—by organised crime groups in Latin America, autocratic regimes in the Middle East, repressive governments in Africa and by combatants in war zones—pose serious threats to press freedom, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has said in its half-year review of press freedom worldwide. The report, presented Monday to the Board of the Paris-based WAN...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has appealed to the United Nations to help bring Gebran Tueni’s murderers to justice. A parliamentarian and publisher of one of the Middle East’s leading Arabic-language dailies, Tueni was killed in a targeted car-bombing in the Beirut suburb of Mkalles three years ago, December 12, 2005. “We join the Tueni family and all of An-Nahar’s staff in voicing our deep...