2005-2014

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 11 September 2007, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ivorian police summoned five journalists of two pro-opposition daily newspapers for allegedly publishing stories they claimed cast a slur on the reputation of President Laurent Gbagbo. Two of the journalists, Coulibaly Seydou and Alexis Noume, are editors of "Le Jour Plus". The other three, Assouan N' Gueeta...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the recent interrogations, threats and harassment of journalists reporting on government spending in Côte d'Ivoire. Three journalists have been interrogated for the last three days by criminal police and threatened with death by a Member of Parliament, in relation to articles said to be defamatory towards the President...

The head of a burgeoning Afghan media empire looked down at his new BlackBerry, vibrating against a table in Washington earlier this week. "Afghan civilians injured in Gereshk suicide bombing," read the e-mail headline. Another day, another suicide bombing in another town. Another too-typical news event for Saad Mohseni's stations to broadcast across a country where prime-time programming is...

A Cairo court has sentenced four independent editors to one-year jail terms for publishing “false information.” Editors Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Wael al-Abrashy of the weekly Sawt al-Umm, Adel Hammouda of the weekly Al-Fajr, and Abdel Halim Kandil, former editor of the weekly Al-Karama were convicted Thursday of “publishing false information likely to disturb public order” in a case...

NEW YORK (AFP) - Born 10 years ago, the Google Internet search engine has grown into the electronic center of human knowledge by indexing billions of web pages as well as images, books and videos. On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24 year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of "google.com." The word is a variation of 'googol,' which refers to the number...

A Cairo court has sentenced four independent editors to one-year jail terms for publishing “false information.” Editors Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Wael al-Abrashy of the weekly Sawt al-Umm, Adel Hammouda of the weekly Al-Fajr, and Abdel Halim Kandil, former editor of the weekly Al-Karama were convicted Thursday of “publishing false information likely to disturb public order” in a case...

Moscow prosecutors have closed the criminal investigation into the March death of Kommersant defence correspondent Ivan Safronov because of “an absence of foul play,” the business daily reported Wednesday. The Central Administrative District prosecutor concluded that Safronov took his own life “for subjective, private reasons,” Kommersant said. The prosecutor’s office disclosed few

(HRinfo/IFEX) - HRINFO has expressed deep concern over a new sentence passed by the Ras Kheima court against writer Khalid El-Asly, of the Majan website ( http://www.majan.net ), and the site's head administrator Muhammed Shouhi. Both were sentenced to five months in prison. This is the second case launched against the website. A further two complaints have been filed but thus far have not been...

comScore Inc has introduced comScore Conversational Media Report, a new service that provides enhanced worldwide measurement of the audiences for blogging sites in the burgeoning conversational media space, which includes mainstream and niche blogs and social networking sites. In publishing a comprehensive reporting of audience behaviour for conversational media sites, comScore is again leading...

Chinese journalist Zhao Yan may be released on September 15 when he completes a three-year prison sentence for alleged fraud. Despite the many appeals for his release in the past, his sentence was never reduced and he was never granted early release. “After serving his three-year sentence in full, first in a state security centre and then a prison, Zhao should have all his rights restored...