2005-2014

Authorities in Bangladesh on Tuesday ordered the arrest of a cartoonist and confiscated copies of a major newspaper's weekly supplement for publishing a "blasphemous" caricature. "The government has confiscated the issue as the c-artoon hurt the religious sentiments of the people. Moreover, an order was issued to arrest cartoonist Arifur Rahman," an official statement said, referring to the weekly...

The Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDVZ) has warned against "damage to the sensitive good that is the freedom of the press" in Germany. The "series of preliminary proceedings launched of late against journalists for allegedly aiding and abetting the betrayal of secrets" pointed to a "highly questionable interpretation of freedom of the press," Helmut Heinen, the president of...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder to leave his job for a year, a sweeping victory for the rival St. Paul Pioneer Press, which had accused its former publisher of misusing proprietary information. Ridder's actions when he joined the Star Tribune in March caused the Pioneer Press "irreparable harm," Judge David C. Higgs wrote. He said an injunction was...

The Swedish cartoonist who depicted Islam's prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog has gone into hiding following a death threat from Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Lars Vilks, who was whisked away by the police when he returned to Sweden from Germany on Sunday, said police have described the threats against him as "very serious." The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, offered $100,000 over the...

The New York Times Co will end its paid TimesSelect Web service and make most of its website available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to read articles by well-known columnists like Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman...

Members of the Somali Transitional National Government security forces raided the Radio Shabelle office in the capital, Mogadishu, Saturday morning and detained 19 staff members, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The security forces accused the journalists of throwing a grenade at a police patrol. Security forces fired into a nearby hallway during a daily editorial meeting...

A 14-year-old boy was assaulted last week in Islamabad for his father's reporting, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Hassan Sharjil, son of prominent journalist Shakil Ahmad Turabi, editor-in-chief of the South Asian News Agency, was beaten September 14 by a man outside his school as he was dropped off for classes in the morning. Another man remained at the wheel of a four

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the treatment meted out to two British journalists, Andrew Carter and Aidan Hartley, and their Chinese fixer Dean Peng, working for the investigative programme "Unreported World" on British TV's Channel 4. The two were investigating the fate of petitioners held by the authorities in a western district of the capital, when they were assaulted by...

(CEPET/IFEX) - Mexico, 18 September 2007 - Federal judicial authorities have acquitted four journalists in Monclova, Coahuila, in northeastern Mexico, of the dubious charges brought against them by officials who arrested and mistreated the journalists when they tried to cover an anti-narcotics operation in August 2007. On 7 August, the journalists were arrested and detained by Army troops and...

The Burmese junta has cut off the mobile phones of prominent pro-democracy supporters and of some journalists representing foreign media, including two from Agence France-Presse, the news agency has reported. The management of AFP has requested that the authorities in Burma (Myanmar) restore mobile phone service to its reporters so that they can carry out their work. Burma's military government...