2005-2014

CAIRO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - An Egyptian newspaper editor was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday for publishing a front-page photograph of an Egyptian television and film actress that was found to be indecent, court sources said. The verdict against editor Hatem Mamdouh Mahran was the latest in a string of rulings that have handed jail terms to at least 12 journalists since September on charges...

Nov. 26, 2007 · The U.S. military continues to refuse to release any evidence against an AP photojournalist, even as they plan to bring criminal charges against him. The military first took Bilal Hussein, a member of the AP’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team, into custody in April of 2006 when Hussein provided shelter for several strangers after hearing an explosion on a nearby street in...

A Palestinian journalist working for the independent Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency was kidnapped late Saturday night by five masked gunmen and held for 11 hours. Hafez Asakreh, who is one of the editors at the news agency, was on his way to work when he was abducted by the gunmen, who forced him into their vehicle and drove to an unknown destination. He was later released unharmed. According...

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi and his wife who both work as journalists for a prestigious Arabic language newspaper escaped assassination in Baghdad's mostly Shiite Karradah district, a media watchdog group said Saturday. Abdul-Wahid Tuma and his wife, Sudad al-Salihi, who work for Al-Hayat were traveling by car Thursday when assailants in two vehicles fired at them, said Ibrahim al-Saraji, head of the...

(ANEM/IFEX) - BELGRADE, November 23, 2007 - The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) joins all parties that have already condemned the verbal assaults and insults that Petar Lukovic wrote against journalists, associates and employees of B92, an ANEM member station in Serbia. In the text he wrote for the Croatian weekly "Feral tribjun", which is also published on the Liberal...

(RSF/IFEX) - Another gang member, Bernard Joseph, was arrested on 20 November 2007 in connection with the 16 May murder of Alix Joseph, manager and programme host of Radio-Télé Provinciale, in the northwestern city of Gonaïves. Bernard Joseph was arrested in Port-au-Prince, "where he sought refuge in the hope of escaping prosecution," Gonaïves police commissioner Ernst Bouquet Dorfeuille said. He...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF welcomes an appeal court decision overturning a 17-month jail sentence imposed in November 2006 on Mohammed Rashed Shehhi, owner of the website Majan.net ( http://majan.net/ ) for allegedly defamatory comments. On 19 November 2007, the Ras Al Khaimah appeal court ruled in favour of Rashed Shehhi, who had been sentenced in a lawsuit brought by a health ministry official, Dr Yasser...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Malaysian's Internal Security Ministry has instructed the local press to refrain from reporting about a banned rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur on 25 November 2007, which is seeking the Queen of England's help in a class-action suit against Her Majesty's government. At least one newsroom received the order from a ministry official by telephone on 22 November, an industry source...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF condemns the arrests of three foreign journalists and a Chinese camerawoman on 20 November 2007 in the northeastern province of Hebei and the central province of Hubei. "It is unacceptable that such practices are still taking place in China, despite the new regulations introduced in January for the Olympic Games," RSF said. Barbara Luthi, the Beijing correspondent of the Swiss...

NEW DELHI: A sting operation, showing how the lower judiciary could be exploited to obtain arrest warrants against anyone for a bribe, has boomeranged on the journalist with the Supreme Court adamant on his unconditional apology for bringing the entire judiciary to disrepute. A Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal was on Thursday unmoved and...