2005-2014

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has blamed callous management at Channel-5, a private TV station in Pakistan, which contributed to the death of a cameraman who killed himself after his employer refused to pay his salary. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalist (PFUJ), an IFJ affiliate, Mohammad Azam Khan, 26, who worked as a cameraman for Channel-5 in Lahore had not...

Israel has lifted a four-week ban on international journalists entering Gaza and temporarily eased a blockade on shipments of goods to the coastal strip, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The announcement follows weeks of pressure from foreign governments and the leaders of major news organisations urging Israel to reopen Gaza to the media. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said on...

A bomb exploded Wednesday at the Agence France-Presse (AFP) office in Athens causing minor damage but no injuries, the international news agency said. An underground group labelled as anarchist by Greek police claimed responsibility. The bomb, made up of four small gas cannisters, was placed at the front door to the office on the fifth floor of a block in the centre of the Greek capital. It...

An independent Kazakh journalist is being continually harassed by the country's National Security Committee (KNB), which wants him to reveal how he obtained an internal KNB memo. The harassment led Ramazan Esergepov to seek refuge inside the US consulate in Almaty. “The pressure applied to Esergepov was out of all proportion,” Reporters sans Frontières said. “KNB should track down the source of...

Rachid Nini, publisher of Al-Massae newspaper, has been fined another 600,000 dirhams (54,000 euros) by a Casablanca court for allegedly libelling a prominent lawyer. The fine, imposed on December 1, may force Morocco’s leading Arabic-language daily to close down. Al-Massae had already said it would probably have to shut down after an appeal court ruling on October 30 confirming that it would have...

Prominent Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was abducted at dawn on Wednesday from her home near capital Harare. The journalist, a former broadcaster at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) then privately-owned Voice of the People (VOP), was snatched from her home in Norton, 40 kilometres from the capital, by 15 men in plain clothes, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human...

A freelance journalist has been sentenced to six months in prison in the Kurdish city of Erbil for writing an article about health and sex for independent weekly Hawlati. Adel Hussein, a doctor and a freelance journalist, was found guilty of violating "public custom" on November 24 by a court in Erbil for publishing an article in April 2007 in Hawlati about health and sex, Tariq Fatih, the weekly...

Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief of Al Dustour, the daily newspaper in Egypt, has been awarded the 2008 Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) that honours an editor or publisher in the Arab region. The prize, which is made in memory of Gebran Tueni, the Lebanese publisher and WAN Board Member who was killed by a car bomb in Beirut in December 2005...

An Australian television correspondent who said he was traumatised from covering wars and natural disasters has been sentenced to jail for 10 months by a Singapore court for drug offences. Peter Lloyd, 42, New Delhi-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was arrested while on holiday in Singapore on July 16, and pleaded guilty to three drug-related offences. In...

A radio commentator was shot dead as he was leaving work, becoming the eighth journalist killed in the Philippines this year, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Leo Mila, 38, of Radio Natin in San Roque township in Northern Samar province, was heading to the gate of the station's compound on his motorcycle when shots rang out late Tuesday. More from the AP report: [ Link] Authorities found...