2005-2014

The chief editor of an independent Belarusian weekly asked for asylum in neighboring Ukraine after facing official harassment in his homeland, a media watchdog group said Friday. Andrei Shentorovich fled to Ukraine shortly after March's election in Belarus in which authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko won a third term in a vote the opposition and Western observers and governments called...

NEW YORK: The newspapers of the future cheap digital screens that can be rolled up and stuffed in a back pocket have been just around the corner for the last three decades. But by next year, the future may finally have arrived. Some of the world's top newspaper publishers are planning to introduce a form of electronic newspaper that will allow users to download entire editions from the Web onto...

Journalists in Assam have condemned the recent threat issued by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) to four journalists in the state. The ULFA 'commander in chief' Paresh Baruah in a statement on June 8 had accused the journalists of trying to create an atmosphere of confusion over the peace initiative to facilitate direct talks between Government of India and ULFA. OMEGA OF THE ULFA: A...

Tokyo: The Tokyo District Court granted refugee status Tuesday to an Afghan journalist, nullifying an earlier decision by the justice minister denying him asylum and ordering him deported. Presiding Judge Toshihiko Tsuruoka said the man, whose name was withheld to protect his identity, would face persecution in his homeland for reporting news stories critical of Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers...

Iran has banned The Economist magazine for describing the Persian Gulf as merely "the Gulf" in a map published in the latest edition, state television reported Wednesday. It is the second time in two years that Iran has banned such an international publication for failing to use the term "Persian Gulf" in a map. In 2004, it banned the National Geographic atlas when a new edition appeared with the...

(HRW/IFEX) - (Brussels, June 14, 2006) - Despite the welcome release from prison expected today for newspaper director Mohamed Benchicou, critics of Algeria's government continue to risk reprisal in the form of a barrage of defamation suits and, on occasion, dubious criminal charges, Human Rights Watch said today. Such prosecutions and other pressures have significantly curbed press freedom in...

Thai caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has filed criminal and civil defamation suits against the opposition Democrat Party and three newspaper editors, and is seeking 800-million-baht (around US$20 million) in damages. Thaksin said he was libeled by Democrat Party spokesman Thepthai Senpong when the latter suggested that Thaksin is clinging to power. Thaksin has been running government...

(CEHURDES/IFEX) - The Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES), a Kathmandu-based freedom of expression monitoring group, condemns the threat against journalist Binod Tripathi by Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) - Maoist rebels. Maoist cadres threatened Tripathi over a news report published in "Kantipur", a leading private-sector daily, on 11 June 2006, which said the rebels had set...

The sacking of Serge July, the editor of the French daily newspaper Liberation , marks a turning point in the history of French journalism. It is also seen as a test case for editorial independence and the viability of print media in France. "If my departure can contribute to the refinancing of the newspaper (by its main shareholder, Edouard de Rothschild), I will not stand in the way," July (63)...

"We were wrong!" You almost never see these words on the cover of a major magazine, but on June 5, Newsweek said just that. The magazine headlined, in boxcar type, "20 years ago, Newsweek predicted that a single, 40-year-old woman had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married." Over a photograph of a bride and groom, the magazine admitted its 1986 story had been incorrect...