2005-2014

Ali Al-Mashhadani, an Iraqi cameraman employed by the Reuters news agency, was arrested on July 26 by US troops while he was visiting the Iraqi parliament press centre in Baghdad's Green Zone. "Mashhadani has been held without charge by the US military since 26 July and must be freed at once," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "It is unacceptable that US troops arrest a journalist...

Zimbabwean journalists Wycliff Nyarota and James Muonwa were Tuesday convicted of publishing falsehoods in breach of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Kwekwe Magistrate Oliver Mudzongachiso found Nyarota and Muonwa guilty of contravening Section 80 (1) (a) of AIPPA for unlawfully and intentionally...

In the first six months of 2008, a large number of Somali journalists and other media workers were subjected to various kinds of violence and oppression such as harassment, killing, professional punishment, beatings, threats, arrests, arbitrary detention, maltreatment and censorship. The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) recorded numerous cases of attacks against media professionals and

One year after the murder of US journalist Chauncey Bailey, investigation into the incident has not made any progress. Instead, the case has become more complicated as new information surrounding the motives for Bailey's murder has come to light. Evidence, some recorded by the police and some uncovered by investigative reporters, points at someone other than the currently accused defendant as a...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned recent attacks on Palestinian journalists by both governments of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority which are locked in a political power struggle. The recent reports of torturing journalists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank is the culmination of an intimidation campaign against journalists and media which started during the violent...

Only about 13 percent of the Washington daily newspaper press corps are journalists of color, according to a study on diversity by UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. There were slightly more journalists of colour covering the US capital in 2008 than there were four years earlier when UNITY conducted its...

Tajikistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced two men found guilty of killing a Russian journalist earlier this year to 21 years each in a high-security prison, RIA-Novosti has reported. Ilyas Shurpayev, a reporter for Russia's state-run Channel One, was found dead in his rented apartment in Moscow on March 21. Reading out the verdict, the presiding judge said the defendants were guilty of a...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the July 28 decision by Niger's public prosecutor to appeal against an investigating judge's decision on July 23 to dismiss the charges on which Radio Saraounia manager Moussa Kaka has been held since September 2007. The authorities would have had to free Kaka if the prosecutor had not filed his appeal. "The government's determination to keep Kaka in...

During the weekend of July 26-27, unidentified individuals broke into the offices of CIMAC (Comunicación e Información de la Mujer), a Mexico City-based non-govermental organisation that reports on women's issues through the "Cimacnoticias" news agency. The assailants stole some of the organisation's equipment and destroyed a number of documents. CIMAC editor Carolina Velázquez explained in an...

Afghan television reporter Mohammad Nasir Fayyaz was detained one day after his television station aired a documentary that was critical of some cabinet members and their ministries, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The programme was cut short while being broadcast, apparently at the demand of the government, media reports said. Afghan and foreign media reports said Fayyaz...