2005-2014

(FNJ/IFEX) - The Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists, in their written suggestion to the Interim Constitution Drafting Committee, stressed the need to guarantee freedom of the press and expression. The Nepali Congress, in its proposed draft Constitution, has suggested that, keeping in view the special role that the press played during the people's movement, the press should be established as the...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today demanded the release of 20 journalists who have been jailed during the last nine months in Ethiopia for political reasons and called on other world leaders to pressure the Ethiopian government for their release as well. Seventeen journalists were arrested during the violent suppression of anti-government riots that followed the...

At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media. Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web...

It is amazing how some people in our society are perceived not to be entitled to speak on matters that affect all Zambians irrespective of ethnicity, religion, race or social status. For some time now, we have looked in awesome wonder how some people in the Mwanawasa Government see it fit and logical to attack clergymen and women whenever they give their objective views about any given situation...

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention today of Hangzhou journalist Zan Aizong. Authorities placed Zan under a seven-day administrative detention this evening after warning him to stop writing about arrests and injuries involving Christians protesting the July 29 demolition of a church, according to the Independent Chinese PEN Center. “The government has launched a...

New York, August 10, 2006-A judge in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, today convicted the editor of an Azeri-language independent newspaper on a charge of criminally defaming a leader of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, according to international news reports. Shakhin Agabeili, editor-in-chief of Milli Yol, was sentenced to a year in prison in connection with the 2005 article, but a Milli Yol...

The High Court (HC) yesterday issued a contempt rule on The Prothom Alo Publisher Mahfuz Anam, Editor Matiur Rahman and Reporter Zahid Hossain for publishing a report on harassment of justice seekers in the HC Division of the Supreme Court. Following a contempt petition filed by a Supreme Court advocate, a division bench of the HC issued the rule on them to explain within three weeks why contempt...

NAIROBI, Aug 10 (IPS) - Concerns about restrictions on press freedom in Africa have surfaced again, this during a two-day conference held in Kenya that attracted over 100 media representatives from across the continent. The Aug. 8-9 gathering took place in the capital, Nairobi. It was organised in part by the United Nations-affiliated University for Peace. "The media is threatened from everywhere...

New York, August 10, 2006—The body of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, a longtime police reporter who became editor of a crime magazine, was found on the outskirts of the northern city of Chihuahua on Wednesday afternoon. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating whether Perea's murder is related to his work. Perea's body was found at 2 p.m. on the side of a road about 9 miles (15 kilometers...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Border has called for the immediate release of editor Shahin Agabeyli, of the newspaper "Milli Yol", who was sentenced to a year in jail for supposedly "insulting" and "blackmailing" former parliament spokesman Arif Ramhimzadeh in articles he wrote. "This is a harsh and disproportionate sentence," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "Without judging the...