2005-2014

(SEAPA/IFEX) - On 4 August 2007, amid political tensions arising from the controversial formation of the new government, an unknown group of men attacked the office of a major newspaper, "Suara Timor Lorosa'e" (STL). STL managing director Francisco Belo Simoes Da Costa said most of the windows in the office have been destroyed. "It is really an attack against freedom of the press. People who don't...

Reporters Without Borders condemns the parliamentary human rights and media committee’s decision on 3 August to reject a request from the Belarus Association of Journalists (BAJ) that it should consider whether article 10 of the media law violates articles 33 and 34 of the constitution. Article 10 of the media law requires news media to register with the local authorities where their premises are...

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Haiti has created an independent commission to speed up stalled investigations into the slayings of journalists in the impoverished nation. Eight journalists have been killed in the Caribbean country since 2000, and the notoriously weak and corrupt justice system has yet to convict anyone in the deaths. The nine-member body, made up of Haitian journalists, will review each...

Reporters Without Borders today reiterated its call for the release of Munir Mengal, the head of the Baloch Voice TV station, who was arrested by police in Qalat, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, on being freed on 6 August by the intelligence agency that had been holding him at a secret location for the past 16 months. He is now being held in Khudzar prison under a 30-day custody order...

Global pree freedom advocates have expressed alarm at the deteriorating conditions for journalists in Manipur. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed alarm over the fact that an adverse situation for media workers in Manipur has turned markedly worse in the space of a mere week. By all credible accounts, this has happened on account both of militant groups operating in...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged the Pakistan government to release journalist Munir Mengal, who was just released from 16 months’ military detention only to be put back in jail under a 30-day custody order. According to reports Mengal, the head of the Baloch Voice TV station, was released by intelligence agencies on August 6 but was arrested soon after by police in...

Though the role of anti-tobacco advertising in reducing youth smoking has been fairly well established in recent years, a new study indicates that newspaper editorial coverage also may have a significant indirect impact. The study evaluates the relationship between newspaper coverage of the Florida Tobacco Control Program's (FTCP) health promotion campaign with declines in youth smoking reported...

Afghan secret police have arrested journalist and blogger Kamran Mir Hazar, editor of the kabulpress.org website, for the second time in just over a month. As he left his office Thursday in the company of some colleagues, he was arrested by four men waiting outside. They identified themselves as members of the secret police and took him away, without saying why. “Once again the authorities have...

The Malaysian government is still harassing bloggers and their families. Marine Lee, the wife of blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, was questioned by police in a Kuala Lumpur police station yesterday about her husband’s Malaysia Today website, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who edits the independent website Malaysia Today, posted an article on July 11 that is

New York, August 9, 2007—A Senegalese government official accused of lying about his educational degree threatened reporters with violence this week, according to news reports and local journalists. Transport Minister Farba Senghor threatened over a newsroom speakerphone on Tuesday to “beat up” private daily Walf Grand-Place’s reporter Pape Sambaré Ndour, after calling the journalist a “bastard,”...