2005-2014

An appeal court in Saida (440 km southwest of Algiers) has imposed a two-month prison sentence on journalist Hassan Bourras in addition to the fine of 40,000 dinars (460 euros) to which he was originally sentenced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court on October 28 issued the additional sentence after upholding his conviction on charges of libel and “attacking state institutions...

Authorities in Zimbabwe should halt harassment of media and human rights lawyer Harrison Nkomo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Nkomo is awaiting word on whether he will face criminal charges after a client left Zimbabwe in the midst of a case, said Beatrice Mtetwa, co-founder of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Nkomo was defending Phillip Taylor, a British national...

The Press Council of India has issued a new set of guidelines for reporting within India on people suffering from HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), revising a set of guidelines issued last in 1993. The guidelines, developed in association with UNAIDS, were released on Sunday, and emphasise on factual accuracies and ask journalists to report a story...

A judge has banned media coverage of the trial of Egyptian tycoon Hisham Talaat Moustafa who is accused of ordering the killing of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim who jilted him, according to news reports. Egyptian media said Tamim, a close friend of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, and part of a powerful group long seen as above the law in Egypt's hierarchical class-based society...

Four men went on trial Monday in connection with the murder of Russian journalist and outspoken Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya, despite the failure of the authorities to catch the masterminds. The four have been charged with helping organise the October 2006 shooting of Politovskaya at her apartment block in central Moscow. In a victory for Politkovskaya's lawyers who had feared the process...

A Filipino broadcast journalist was killed Monday in the southern Philippines, news reports said quoting police sources. Aresio Padrigao, a commentator for local radio station DXRS, was shot dead by gunmen aboard a motorcycle in Gingoog town in Misamis Oriental province, 795 km south of Manila. Padrigao is the fourth journalist to be killed in the Philippines this year. Last year, four journalists...

The Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Company, is all set to launch its facsimile edition in India next month, Business Standard has reported. The newspaper, to be launched in Mumbai, is likely to be priced at Rs 30 a copy. The edition will be in the Berliner format, slightly longer and wider than the tabloid or compact format. WSJ’s facsimile edition plans to print 2,000 copies to...

Cost pressures and plunging share prices have forced Canadian publisher and broadcaster CanWest Global Communications Corp. to slash 560 jobs—about five per cent of its workforce—as the company faces a rougher economy and more competition, Canadian Press has reported. The company, which employs about 10,500 people in Canada, said the cuts would save $61 million a year. Some details: [ Link] "We...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Burma Media Association (BMA) have expressed outrage at the two-year sentence passed on Ein Khaing Oo, a 24-year-old journalist with the weekly Ecovision Journal, for taking photos of Cyclone Nargis victims. Ein Khaing Oo was arrested in Rangoon in June 2008 and convicted on November 14. "This unjust sentence comes amid a wave of unprecedented sentences for...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the arrests of Moussa Aksar, the editor-in-chief of the privately-owned weekly L'Evénement, and one of his journalists, Sani Aboubacar on a charge of libelling the head of the state power company. Their arrests on November 12 came a day after another newspaper editor got a three-month suspended sentence after 12 days in pre-trial custody. "What redress...