2005-2014

Adolfo Cerrudo, a leader of the radical pro-government Popular Civic Committees, alleged to have taken part in physical assaults on journalists, has been placed under house arrest since November 14. Cerrudo took part in physical assaults, along with 200 other committee members, against a score of journalists outside San Pedro de La Paz prison, who were there to cover the investigation into the...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Journalistic Freedom Observatory (JFO) have renewed their call for the release of photographer Ibrahim Jassam of Reuters news agency, who has been detained by the US Army since September 1, 2008. A contingent of US and Iraqi forces took Jassam from his home in Mahmudiyah in the south of the capital, seizing four cameras, his phone and his laptop computer. He...

The family of journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho are being harassed a year and a half after he was murdered in Porto Ferreira, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. There are concerns that this is linked to their participation in the investigation of the crime perpetrated on him. After Barbon was murdered on May 5, their house was attacked and his widow, Kátia Rosa Camargo, received several silent...

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) has called for justice in the killing of Vancouver journalist Tara Singh Hayer, who was murdered 10 years ago. On November 18, 1998, the then 62-year-old publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times was shot to death at his Surrey, British Columbia home. His murder remains unsolved. CJFE's Executive Director Annie Game said in a statement, "The murder of...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed concern at attacks on news media and journalists in Nicaragua, preventing them from covering the unrest following the November 9 elections. Reporting teams from the newspapers La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario and Canal 2 planning to cover pro- and anti-government demonstrations in León were reportedly stoned and prevented by supporters of the...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has accused the German Football Federation of launching an unfair campaign of distortion and lies against a journalist who has criticised its President, Theo Zwanziger, one of the country's leading sports officials. Jens Weinreich, an investigative journalist with Berliner Zeitung, is a specialist in the area of international politics of sports who has...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged Taiwan's National Police Agency (NPA) to stop asking media personnel for information about protesters at a recent public demonstration. According to the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ), an IFJ affiliate, members of the Taiwan police have reportedly asked media workers to provide photographs of demonstrators who participated in the...

A newspaper reporter has been imprisoned for two months after having been detained by military personnel when he was on his way to cover a confrontation between opposing gangs of suspected drug traffickers in Arcelia, Guerrero, southern Mexico. According to national and Guerrero-based media outlets, on September 6 a group of approximately 30 men from Mexico State arrived in Guerrero and entered...

An Abu Dhabi court of appeal has suspended the Emarat Alyoum newspaper for defamation. The court also on November 19 fined the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Sami Al-Alraymi, 20,000 dirham (approx US$5,400) and the newspaper 500,000 dirham (approx US$136,000). The sentences are based on a lawsuit filed by the Warsan Stables, based in UAE, in January 2007 following a front-page article published in...

Radio Ritmo station in the western Ecuadorian province of Santa Elena has been closed down. The close, according to the Lima-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), came after the Telecommunications Superintendence (Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, SUPERTEL) acted on a resolution by the National Radio and Television Council (Consejo Nacional de Radiodifusión y Televisión, CONARTEL) which...