2005-2014

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has welcomed the release on March 8 of reporter Khalil Khosa of Azadi, a daily based in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province of Pakistan. Khosa had been missing for eight days, after failing to return from a news conference in Nasirabad, in the south of the province, on February 29. Khosa has not described the circumstances of his abduction but he said his...

Nothing is sacred except the flagship newspaper, New York Times Co said on Tuesday, addressing investor concern over a sluggish share price and calls by an investor group to sell non-core assets, acording to Reuters. The company, whose stock has sunk 35 per cent since a high last June, faces a proxy battle by dissident shareholders Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners, who aim to push...

An Egyptian court sentenced a journalist to one year in jail on Monday for libelling imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour and his wife, Reuters has reported. But Nour, who is serving a five-year sentence on what he says are baseless fraud charges, asked the court to drop the custodial sentence because he does not approve of jailing journalists for publishing offences. The journalist, Taher...

A former USA Today reporter who was ordered to pay hefty fines starting at midnight Tuesday for refusing to name confidential sources for a story, has been granted a stay, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported quoting court sources. "It is ordered that the motion for a stay pending appeal be granted," a clerk at a US court of appeals in Washington told AFP, reading from the order. "Appellant has...

The suspect in the 2004 killing of radio broadcaster Herson Hinolan surrendered to the authorities on after a key witness retracted his earlier testimony against the suspect, according to the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Alfredo Arcenio, a former mayor of Lezo town in Aklan, approximately 345 km south of Manila, surrendered to the Kalibo Regional Trial Court...

Journalists in Sierra Leone are challenging laws that criminalise free speech and authorise prison terms of up to seven years for those who criticise the government. The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) filed the lawsuit with the country's Supreme Court: last week, seeking to overturn Sierra Leone's criminal libel and false news laws. The laws allow prison sentences for expression...

Guatemala President Álvaro Colom has broached the possibility of declassifying a number of military documents that would shed light on the fate of thousands of Guatemalans who disappeared during the years of internal armed struggle in the country. The president, on February 25 during an event marking National Victims' Day, said his initiative is supported by a number of high-ranking military...

The editor of privately-owned twice-weekly newspaper L'interprète was abducted by unidentified armed men near a bus stop in the Kinshasa neighbourhood of Masina on March 7, according to delayed reports received by Journaliste en danger (JED). Editor Nsimba Embete Ponte is being held in a secret location and the official motives for his arrest remain unknown. According to information obtained by...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed concern at Nicaragua's commutation of sentences in the cases of the convicted murderers of journalists María José Bravo and Carlos Guadamuz, a development that it claimed "adds to the climate of impunity surrounding freedom of the press in Latin America." According to a report in the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa this week, justices of the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has announced a new factfinding mission to Pakistan and issued a challenge to the new government and media to work together for a “fresh start for press freedom.” “The time is right for change and for all sides to break out of the cycle of violence, political pressure, and media indifference that has created crisis conditions for journalism in the...