2005-2014

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s cabinet Friday unanimously approved a bill that would restrict the use of phone taps to investigations of crimes carrying prison terms of at least 10 years and would impose heavy fines or jail terms on journalists and news media that publish transcripts of phone taps without a judge’s permission. “There would seem to be ulterior motives to this bill as it...

The Iranian government is continuing its persecution of cyber-feminists — women who use online publications to defend their rights. Nine were arrested yesterday for organising a meeting in Tehran to commemorate a big demonstration they staged two years ago. They were all released this morning. “The authorities have tried yet again to intimidate women who are just demanding their rights,” Paris...

Zimbabwe is going through serious political violence perpetrated by the party in power, ZANU PF. This violence is also taking place in a context of major economic challenges that the country faces where inflation is estimated to be greater than 1 million percent. There have also been food shortages, which are further exacerbated through the banning of humanitarian food distribution by NGOs by the

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Israeli authorities to release the findings of an army investigation into the killing of a Reuters cameraman by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip two months ago. In a meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, the CPJ delegation also urged the government to commit to a thorough, impartial, and credible inquiry into the killing...

The Sri Lankan government pressured owners and editors of several independent dailies, including the Nation and the Daily Mirror, to dissuade them from publishing critical or embarrassing articles during a visit by a European Commission trade delegation from June 9-11. "The government is mistaken if it thinks it can improve relations with the EU by using threats to silence the independent press,"...

The management of the Reporte de la Economía daily has accused a network of five bankers of being behind the murder of its vice-president, Pierre Fould Gerges, who was gunned down in Caracas on June 2. The newspaper's lawyer, Giselle Suárez, said at a news conference on June 9 that the investigation was focussing on a financial group that "constitutes an appendage of the state, which has created a...

Hudson Samarasinghe, recently appointed the chairperson of the state-controlled Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation (SLBC), called for the death of senior journalist Poddala Jayantha. This outrageous incitement to murder and violence by Samarasinghe was made 8 June 2008 during a breakfast radio talk show called "Isira". Jayantha is the general secretary of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association...

In yet another move that will worsen the flow of—and lack of access to—information in Zimbabwe, the government has slapped an import duty on all newspapers, magazines and periodicals coming into the country. On June 8, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported that all "foreign newspapers sold in Zimbabwe will now have to pay import duty, as the government moves to protect Zimbabwean media space"...

Prison authorities have seized the 300-page manuscript of a book Azadlig newspaper editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahid was trying to write while in Bayil prison #1, where he remains a prisoner, the Baku-based Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has reported. The public relations coordinator of the Justice Ministry's Penitentiary Service, Mehman Sadigov, claims the confiscation is legal. "I...

Suspended prison sentences have been passed on Iranian journalists Said Matinpour and Yaghoub Salaki Nia in separate cases. Matinpour's jail term was eight years. Nia's was one year. In each case, the sentences were handed down in closed door hearings without their lawyers being present, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Both plan to appeal. At the same time, RSF has...