2005-2014

New York, April 27, 2006 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the arrest of Al-Jazeera TV's Cairo bureau chief, and the separate detention of three print journalists, by Egypt's state security prosecutor. Hussein Abdel Ghani, head of the Qatar-based satellite channel in Egypt, was arrested yesterday on charges of propagating false news while covering the aftermath of Monday's bomb...

(CRN/IFEX) - According to a 24 April 2006 Reuters UK release, comments recently attributed to the al Qaeda leader raised the general level of threat against the 12 Danish cartoonists who had produced the controversial cartoons for the "Jyllands-Posten" newspaper. Speaking in the context of the cartoons, bin Laden was quoted as saying, "Heretics and atheists, who denigrate religion and transgress...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned a decision by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on 25 April 2006 to block four Baluch nationalist websites for carrying "misleading information." The move comes two months after the PTA blocked access to 12 websites displaying the controversial Mohammed cartoons. "Only a judge should be able to order the filtering of an online...

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, strongly condemns the ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation against two journalists in Yemen and the hostile climate of fear that the independent press are forced to work in. Abed Al-Mahthari, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly Al Deyar, remains in hiding after...

(FMM/IFJ/RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Sri Lanka Free Media Movement (FMM) have all voiced outrage about the lack of progress in the investigation into the murder a year ago of Tamil journalist Dharmeratnam "Taraki" Sivaram, the editor of the Tamilnet news website and columnist for the "Sri Lankan Daily Mirror" newspaper. The...

MIAMI, Florida (April 27, 2006) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today called on newspaper readers throughout the Western Hemisphere to add their signatures to a public letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inâcio Lula da Silva seeking his collaboration to help solve the January 14, 1998 murder of journalist Manoel Leal de Oliveira. Six bullets took the life of the editor of the...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo! to withdraw its Internet servers from China as a fourth case was revealed of the company's collaboration with Chinese police that led to the jailing of a cyber-dissident. Human Rights in China (HRIC) has said that the verdict in the case of Wang Xiaoning, 55, sentenced to ten years in prison in September 2003 for posting "subversive" articles...

NEW YORK, April 27, 2006 - Despite overall improvements in press freedom in the Middle East and North Africa over the last several years, the region continues to rank the lowest for press freedoms in the world, according to a major study released today by Freedom House. However, there are a number of countries that are close to an upgrade from Not Free to Partly Free status, if a few key reforms...

London/Phnom Penh, April 28th, 2006 - The Alliance for Freedom of Expression in Cambodia (AFEC), a network of 28 Cambodian civil society organizations, and ARTICLE 19, an international human rights NGO, welcome last week's decision of the Council of Ministers to amend Article 63 of the UNTAC law by removing imprisonment as a penalty for defamation. "This is an important step on the way to...

TEMPE, Ariz., April 28 (UPI) -- Terrorists use the press and public relations as weapons, an Arizona State University study found. Researchers analyzed almost 300 al-Qaida messages and found that jihadist operations use consistent patterns of outreach that establish them socially and religiously, generate public sympathy and intimidate opponents. Threats, in fact, are part of terrorist "talking...