2005-2014

Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Gérard M. Manzi, the editor of the privately-owned weekly Umuseso, was released yesterday after his lawyer submitted signed statements by witnesses supporting his alibi in a rape charge on which the police had held him for eight days. Manzi has been told he must remain at the disposal of the police. Earlier report: Reporters Without Borders calls...

New York, August 30, 2007—Niger’s state-run High Council on Communications has banned the broadcast of live debates on an armed rebellion of nomadic Tuaregs in the north of the uranium-rich West African nation, according to local journalists. Attacks by Tuareg fighters have killed at least 45 soldiers since February, according to Reuters. The ruling on Tuesday was linked to the broadcast of a live...

Channel Five is to become the first UK broadcaster to ban staged shots used in editing from news reports, in a bid to win back trust from viewers following the spate of recent "TV fakery" scandals. Other broadcasters, including Sky News and the BBC, are said to be looking to follow Five's lead, which will see it axe what its news editor, David Kermode, calls "rather hackneyed tricks". Kermode, who...

A military court in DR Congo has imposed death sentences on two suspects and two witnesses for the murder of UN radio journalist Serge Maheshe at the end of a trial that was seen to be riddled with absurdities. Two of the four people sentenced to death Tuesday were close friends of Maheshe who were with him when he was gunned down on a Bukavu street on June 13. Serge Maheshe, a political

NEW DELHI: Curious why the messenger was being probed and harassed while the message seemed to have been lost, the Delhi HC has barred the Delhi Police from arresting two journalists who secretly filmed 11 members of parliament allegedly receiving cash to raise questions on the floor of the house. Seeking to know what action has been taken against the errant MPs, Justice S N Dhingra on Wednesday...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - A senior member of Thailand's interim National Legislative Assembly (NLA) says martial law may remain in place in 35 Thai provinces in the short term, possibly through to scheduled national elections in December 2007. On 29 August, Prasong Soonsiri, who chairs the NLA's special committee reviewing bills in preparation for the general elections, told Bangkok's English-language daily...

(CJES/IFEX) - The Saratov Volzhsky District Court has ruled in favour of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the Saratov regional section of the United Russia party against the newspaper "Saratovsky Rasklad". The court found the information stated in the article run by the newspaper on 9 August 2007 to be untrue and defamatory to the reputation of the Saratov regional section of the United...

(MFWA/IFEX) - The Libyan President Colonel Mouammar Qadhafi has filed a suit against three Niamey-based independent weekly newspapers for allegedly publishing "false information" that could undermine his honour. The newspapers are "L'Evènement", le "Canard Déchaîné" and "L'Action." Under Nigerian press laws, the editors of the three newspapers, if convicted, could face prison sentences of up to...

Reporters Without Borders condemns yesterday’s seizure of the latest issue of the Arabic-language opposition weekly Al-Midan by the security services. No official explanation was given. “As well as violating the constitution and the law, the authorities have this time targeted a publication that is a symbol of the opposition press,” the organisation said. “Al-Midan is the Communist Party of Sudan...

Reporters Without Borders insisted today that Yahoo! was responsible for the conviction of Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao and possibly other Chinese cyber-dissidents as well after the US Internet company called on 27 August for the dismissal of the lawsuit brought against it in the United States by relatives of these two imprisoned cyber-dissidents. “Wang and Shi were both convicted thanks to...