2005-2014

Three South African nationals employed by Sky News - Bernet Hasani Sono, Resemate Chauke and Simon Musimani - who were serving a six-month jail term in Zimbabwe have since been released after a High Court judge reviewed the sentence and commuted it to a fine. The three were convicted on their own plea to contravening Section 33 (1) of the Postal and Telecommunications Chapter 12:03 by illegally...

Fourteen media outlets have been fined in 2008 by the electoral courts for publishing interviews with those seeking office in the upcoming municipal elections, scheduled for October, or in some cases, even just their photographs. Electoral judges deemed that the media outlets and the politicians were carrying out election advertising before July 6, the official starting date of the campaign...

Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi died five years ago on July 10, 2003 from a cerebral haemorrhage following beatings she received in Evin prison, Tehran. In January, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial because of irregularities that affected the appeal court's verdict in November 2005. "Five years after the death of Zahra Kazemi and despite the decision to reopen the case, we have...

Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller and Chicago Tribune Editor-in-Chief Ann Marie Lipinski have resigned, seven months after real-estate billionaire Sam Zell completed his buyout of the company, says a Bloomberg News report. A successor to Hiller is expected to be named by late September, Tribune Chief Operating Officer Randy Michaels said on July 14 in a memo to employees. Lipinski became...

An associate of Kotak Mahindra Group has bought 27.76 per cent stake in publisher Business Standard Ltd that was held by Great Eastern Shipping Co Ltd, the publisher said at the weekend, according to Reuters. Infina Finance Pvt Ltd, an associate of Kotak Mahindra Group, which controls Kotak Mahindra Bank, which bought the holding did not disclose financial details. The Mint newspaper on Monday...

Cameroonian authorities have lifted a ban on three private broadcasters summarily closed in connection with their critical coverage in February, but police are withholding equipment seized from one station, according to local journalists and news reports. Equinoxe Télévision, sister radio station Radio Equinoxe, and Magic FM were authorized to return to air on July 4 by Communications Minister...

A contributing reporter for the Turkmen Service of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who was forcibly held for two weeks in two different psychiatric facilities has now had his phone disabled, according to RFE/RL. Bowing to international pressure, authorities freed Sazak Durdymuradov on July 3. A security officer warned him to "go and tell the truth" about his treatment in...

The pending Mass Media and Freedom of Information Proclamation, passed by the Ethiopian House of Peoples’ Representatives on July 1, does not fully incorporate public input, including that of local journalists and legal experts. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says the bill is flawed and has urged Ethiopian President Girma Woldegiorgis to reject it and send it back to...

Reuters has urged the US military to hand over video footage from US attack helicopters and other materials relating to the killing of two Iraqi staff in Baghdad a year ago. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed in a US helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad on July 12, 2007. Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had gone to the area after hearing of a military raid on a...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the reopening of Afaq TV, a Palestinian commercial TV station based in the West Bank city of Nablus which Israeli soldiers closed on July 10 for one year on the grounds that it was a "terrorist" media outlet. The station has stopped broadcasting and seals have been place over its entrance. "Palestinian journalists must be allowed to enjoy the same...