2005-2014

The trial of Baris Pehlivan, producer of the programme “I am a witness” on the 24-hour TV news channel CNN Türk, and Nurettin Yilmaz, a former Kurdish politician and parliamentarian and author of “Witness of the recent past,” will begin in the Istanbul district of Bakirkoy on November 18. Charged with “inciting hatred and hostility” under articles 216 and 218 of the criminal code, they could get...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed dismay at former Bulgarian interior minister Rumen Petkov's public insult of journalist Jurgen Roth and call for violence against him less than a month after Ognyan Stefanov, the editor of the news website Frognews, was seriously injured in a murder attempt. “We are outraged by Rumen Petkov’s irresponsible comments,” Paris-based RSF said. “His call for...

Tunisian authorities have pressed charges against against TV reporter Fahem Boukadous because of his coverage of this year’s protests in the Gafsa mining region, 350 km south of Tunis. This he did for the independent Tunisian TV station Al-Hiwar Attounsi, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Boukadous is also charged with putting foreign news media in contact with labour leaders in Gafsa...

A court in Iraqi Kurdistan Thursday rejected a one-month prison sentence and fine against journalist Shwan Dawdi. On November 4, a criminal court in Sulaymania found Dawdi, editor-in-chief of the Kirkuk-based Hawal newspaper, guilty of three defamation charges filed by retired judge Kemal Mustafa, the former director of the Sulaymania courthouse. Dawdi was jailed the same day and fined 300,000...

A Canadian journalist was abducted this week while gathering materials for a documentary in the Bannu district in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, on the border with Afghanistan, officials said Thursday. The English-language Pakistani paper the News International, citing unnamed sources, first reported the story on Wednesday. Beverly Giesbrecht, 52, also known as Khadija Abdul...

Veteran Mexican crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was shot to death Thursday morning while in his car in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. An unidentified assailant shot Rodríguez, 40, a reporter for the local daily El Diario, at least eight times with a 9mm weapon, according to Mexican news reports and CPJ interviews. Rodríguez was sitting...

Russian newspaper Arsenyevskiye Vesti has received an official warning from the prosecutor's office of the Vladivostok Frunzensky district, which accused it of disseminating materials containing elements of extremism. The warning was issued over an article titled 'One Nation - One Constitution' published in the 3-9 September 2008 edition of Arsenyevskiye Vesti. The article dealt with the killing...

The National Communications Council (CNC), the media regulatory body in Guinea, has ordered the management of Familia FM, a community radio station in Conakry, to cease transmission for allegedly broadcasting information that the CNC claimed could "disturb the public peace" of the country. The Media Foundation for West Africa's (MFWA) correspondent reported on November 4 that following the...

Judicial authorities in Argentina have ordered the release of Gregorios Ríos, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting the murder of José Luiz Cabezas, a photographer killed in January 1997, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has reported. "We shall never forget Cabezas," said Celso Schroeder, president of the Federation of Latin America and Caribbean Journalists (FEPALC)...

The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) has launched a Justice Denied Campaign website which will carry stories meant to sound the alarm, and encourage those with the power to take action to do so. The campaign highlights the cases of 10 journalists from different regions of the world who have been silenced by imprisonment or physical attack, including murder. For them, justice has...