2005-2014

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the judicial harassment of Freddy Aponte Aponte, a journalist based in the southern city of Loja who works for privately-owned radio station, Luz y Vida. After being given a six-month jail sentence on September 25 for allegedly slandering a former mayor of Loja, he has just learnt in prison that the ex-mayor is now suing him for a million dollars in...

Within minutes of the first shots being fired at the CST railway station, commenced a non-stop television coverage of the 62-hour high voltage drama in Mumbai that shocked the world. Reporters flooded the four conflict zones, and developments were telecast as they unfolded. As people stayed glued to television sets, the gunbattles, the deaths, the widespread public anger made the Mumbai terror

The Kazakh government's human rights record, including free speech issues, is inconsistent with standards embraced by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), whose chairmanship the former is to take over in 2010. This, says Human rights Watch, risks undermining the integrity of the institution's human rights principles. One of the key problem areas is the government's rigid

Hamas security forces have freed three Palestinian journalists who they had arrested last month and accused of fabricating news critical of the Islamist group, agency Reuters has reported. The journalists, freed on December 3, worked in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for the Palestine Press, a local news agency with ties to the group's main rival, President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. The...

The Union government has issued guidelines for foreign news and current affairs magazines publishing Indian editions, requiring them to have Indians in all key editorial and executive positions. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also mandated that 75 per cent of the boards of directors of the publishing companies should be resident Indians. The magazines have been allowed to...

The Newsquest-owned Herald and Times group in Scotland has made all its 250 journalists and publishing staff redundant and asked them to re-apply for their jobs. The Glasgow-based company, which publishes the Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times announced this on December 3, according to the Scotsman newspaper. About 30-40 staff, 17 per cent of journalists, are expected to be cut as the company...

A 13-year prison sentence has been imposed by a prosecutor on Haci Bogatekin, owner and editor of Turkish fortnightly Gerger Firat for an article accusing another local prosecutor of bias. A four-and-a-half-year sentence was also requested for the editor of a website that posted the article, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Bogatekin’s December 2 court appearance was the seventh time...

Cuban journalist Ricardo González Alfonso has been chosen by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) as “2008 Journalist of the Year” for helping an independent press to survive in Cuba. After challenging the state’s monopoly of news and information, González was arrested on March 18, 2003 along with 26 other dissident journalists during the crackdown known as the “Black Spring.” Accused of being “in the...

More Internet journalists are jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, released Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 45 per cent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors. Online journalists represent the largest professional category for the first time

The Sakaal Times employees in Delhi have reached an agreement with the management on a compensation package which is agreeable to both sides. KK Laskar, convenor of the employees' action committee that has been formed to fight for the rights of employees, said that the issue of compensation had been amicably resolved to the "complete satisfaction" of the employees. Sixtyone employees were laid off...