2005-2014

Two city journalists — a female PTI staffer and NDTV India reporter Dharmendra Tiwari — were threatened, abused and assaulted by two railway officials inside a Titwala-bound local train on Saturday night, says an Indian Express report. The incident occurred when the reporters were returning home to Ghatkopar from Sion at 10.45 pm. According to a complaint filed by the reporters with the Kurla...

Turkmenistan has released a reporter working for US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) after two weeks of detention, Reuters has reported quoting a RFE/RL statement. RFE/RL said last month Sazak Durdymuradov, a contributing reporter on its Turkmen service, was detained and tortured after he refused to stop working for the Prague-based broadcaster. "The move came amid growing pressure...

The Chicago Tribune will cut 80 of its 578 newsroom jobs by the end of August, joining other Tribune newspapers that are laying off staff and trimming the size of their papers as they try to save money, according to a report on the paper's website, says Reuters. A spokesman for the paper declined to comment on the report. The cuts amount to nearly 14 per cent of the paper's news staff, and come on...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed alarm at a draft law in Iran that would extend the death penalty to include crimes committed online. Passed by parliament on first reading on July 2, the proposed law would, for example, apply the death penalty to bloggers and website editors who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." "This proposal is horrifying," Paris-based RSF said....

The government of Botswana has gazetted a media practitioners' bill which is expected to regulate the media by, among other things, setting up a statutory press council. The bill, passed on June 27, also seeks to register media practitioners residing in Botswana and provides for hefty penalties for any violation of the law, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). As an example...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the July 5 release of two Pakistan journalists who were abducted from Mohmand Agency by an alleged Taliban group in the notorious Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the country's north west on July 3. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), an IFJ affiliate, freelance reporter Pir Zubair Shah and...

The South Asian Centre for Journalists Reporting Conflict (SCJRC), a joint venture of the Press Institute of India (PII) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was inaugurated in Chennai on Friday, according to the Hindu It was the need to uphold freedom of the press and to ensure the protection of those dedicated to journalism that spurred the two organisations to set up the...

Shortly after the editor of daily Hamro Prajashakti moved the High Court against the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) government, the newspaper office was attacked by masked men who injured seven journalists, including editor Anjan Upadhya, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. The journalists of various newspapers and agency who gathered at the office at Ranipool, about 10 km from here...

Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border, says a Reuters report. "When it was proven that they're journalists and not spies, we freed them," Taliban spokesman Asad said. A group of tribal elders had gone to negotiate for the release of the journalists, freelance reporter Pir Zubair Shah...

Two freelance journalists - reporter Pir Zubair Shah and photographer Akhtar Soomoro - were abducted thursday by a Taliban group in the Mohmand region of the Tribal Areas while doing a story on marble production, which the authorities plan to develop. "The abudction of these two respected journalists is incomprehensible and we hope the Taliban leaders will quickly heed the calls for their release...