2005-2014

A French reporter was stabbed Saturday last at a hotel in Iraq's northern Kurdish city of Irbil, police said. The reporter was hospitalised with minor injuries to her arm, according to Irbil police chief Brig Gen Abdul-Khaliq Talat. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned the attack on Cécile Hennion, a reporter working for Le Monde. “This brazen attack shows how dangerous the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has rejected the Sri Lankan government’s proposed national media policy in favour of a self-generated, self-regulated and independent framework that encompasses journalists from all sides of the nation’s conflict. According to the Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa refused to divulge...

The editor of a women’s rights magazine in Afghanistan was arrested in Iran on March 4 and continues to be held without charge. The Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA) has reported that Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly Haqoq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights) magazine, was reportedly detained by Iranian officials in Qumm, near the Iranian capital Tehran. Documents, phones and a computer...

Six people affiliated with the Sri Lankan news website OutreachSL have been detained by the Terrorist Investigation Division of the Sri Lankan police force in Colombo since last week, according to Agence France-Presse and local news reports. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CJ) has urged the government of Sri Lanka to charge these journalists and media workers or release them...

Financial Times is ending its 15-year relationship with the Business Standard, says a report in Mint. BS will retain the right to use the FT brand as well as content through at least 2008. As of now, FT is closing an online content deal with Network 18 Media and Investments Ltd, the diversified media conglomerate, which, through its TV18 India Ltd, runs CNBC TV18 as well as Moneycontrol.com...

The editor of an opposition daily in Azerbaijan has been sentenced to a four-year prison term on charges of hooliganism and inflicting minor bodily harm in November. He has been in custody ever since. Acording to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Genimet Zakhidov, editor the daily Azadlyg (Freedom), was secretly brought to the Yasamal District Court in Azerbaijan’s capital...

A federal judge in Washington has ordered a journalist to pay up to $5,000 a day if she continues to refuse to reveal her sources, acording to the Associated Press (AP). US District Judge Reggie Walton ruled that former USA Today reporter Toni Locy must pay the fines starting midnight on Tuesday next. The first week she is required to pay $500 a day, $1,000 a day for the second week and $5,000 a...

The news editor of a prominent Shiite-run television station in Iraq was released Friday afternoon from US custody, two weeks after a raid aimed at disrupting Iranian-backed militia groups, a producer for the station told the Associated Press. The AP report said: Hafidh al-Beshara, the news editor and manager of political programming for Al-Forat TV, and his son were taken into custody after...

The United Nations has sharply criticised as inadequate a Congolese military investigation and murder trial which followed the killing of a UN radio journalist by armed men in military uniform last June, news agencies have reported. Serge Maheshe was shot in the legs and chest by two men on June 13 as he was leaving a friend's home in the eastern town of Bukavu, where he was editor-in-chief of UN...

Nine years after King Hamad bin-Issa al-Khalifa’s installation as head of state of Bahrain, the Gulf island nation is yet to implement the legislative reforms that it has been promising for several years. While Bahraini journalists are able to speak out a bit more than their colleagues in many other Gulf countries, the press freedom situation is far from satisfactory. No journalist has been