2005-2014

A team of journalists working for US media company National Public Radio had a narrow escape from a car bombing in Baghdad after Iraqi soldiers warned them that a device had been attached to the bottom of their armoured car. The bomb exploded about 15 feet from the NPR journalists. It destroyed the car but nobody was injured. Ivan Watson, a 33 year-old reporter for NPR on temporary assignment in...

The treatment meted out by the French police to Vittorio de Filippis, former managing editor of leftwing daily Libération, has prompted widespread condemnation and furore. Filippis was manhandled, handcuffed, humiliated in front of his sons, twice forced to strip and submit to body cavity searches and interrogated without lawyers by an investigating magistrate— all over a two-year-old libel case...

Ramattan news agency has closed down all its West Bank offices and suspended its website operations after security officers loyal to Paliestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas raided its headquarters in Ramallah and summoned eight employees for interrogation. Ramattan has accused PA of waging a campaign of harassment and intimidation against its staff in the West Bank. The independent agency...

A Belgian TV journalist and his crew were assaulted while reporting on AIDS in Central China, Reuters has reported. After interviewing several representatives of AIDS groups on Thursday, Belgian journalist Tom Van de Weghe and his production team from Flemish public television VRT were beaten and robbed of cash and equipment by 12 men recruited by authorities in Henan province, a VRT spokesperson...

A regional governor in Somalia's breakway Puntland region said Sunday they had made contact with the abductors of four journalists, including a Briton and a Spaniard, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. Bossaso Governor Musa Gueleh Yusuf said they were "trying to have them released as soon as possible." He said, "The kidnappers are asking for a ransom, but we refuse negotiations. We just want...

The body of Sabina Sehgal Saikia, a consulting editor with the Times of India, was today consigned to flames at the Lodhi Road cremation grounds in New Delhi. The body of Sabina, who was trapped on the sixth floor of the Taj Hotel during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, was discovered on Saturday among a pile of bodies in a section of the hotel. Sabina had been SMSing her family and friends till past...

There has been a string of threats issued against journalists in Southeast Europe, rendered particularly ominous by violent attacks on journalists throughout 2008. Last week, Drago Hedl, a columnist for the Croatian Jutarnji List, received an SMS threatening to "massacre" him, just as a parliament member accused of war crimes was holding a press conference during which he singled out for criticism

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has welcomed the defeat of so-called BKA law (anti-terrorism law) in the Bundesrat (Upper House of the German Parliament). Several Federal States abstained from the voting. "This is a very important victory for press freedom in Germany and in Europe," said EFJ President Arne König. "Our German affiliates, also in cooperation with all major media...

Serious concerned have been raised about the constricting environment the government of Swaziland is imposing on freedom of expression. Under a Suppression of Terrorism Act that has been passed by the Parliament in May 2008, Swazi journalists, political activists and human rights defenders have apparently become persona non-grata, battered and/or arrested. The Swaziland Act is the latest in a

The escalating number of violent attacks on certain parts of the Nepali media can no longer be regarded as hooliganism. Instead, they point to an organised assault on freedom of expression in Nepal, free speech group ARTICLE 19 has asserted. On the morning of October 24, the CEO of leading media house Himalmedia was attacked on his way to work. Just a few weeks later, bundles of Himalmedia's newly