Features

Civil society groups in more than 60 countries celebrated the International Right to Know Day on September 28. Documentation of the past year's achievements of the right to access government information in various countries were released by ARTICLE 19, Privacy International, and the Open Society Justice Initiative. "Although the global movement suffered setbacks in 2007, the bottomline is that

Turkey continues to use the judicial system to curb free expression. Journalists are still being charged under Article 301 of Turkey's Penal Code, which makes "insulting Turkishness" a crime punishable by prison terms. In the first six months of this year, 451 people were involved in 94 trials for using their right to freedom of expression out of which 17 were under Article 301. The controversial

Two newsmen, Befekadu Moreda from Ethiopia and Paulos Kidane from Eritrea, both tried to flee the region to escape government oppression. But "one life (was) saved and the other lost." In a special report, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recounts their stories and provides a glimpse into the adversity facing journalists in the volatile Horn of Africa. In his native Ethiopia, Moreda was

The nondescript town of Oaxaca, about 520 km southeast of capital Mexico City, has been gathering a lot of international media attention for all the wrong reasons. Three distributors of the newspaper El Imparcial del Istmo were attacked and shot dead on October 8 on a highway in Oaxaca, following weeks of threats made to the paper, the National Centre for Social Communication (Centro Nacional de

The Valle del Cauca department in western Colombia has one of the highest rates of press freedom violations in the country, forcing journalists into silence, the Foundation for Press Freedom (Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa, FLIP) has found. According to the analysis, from 2003 to mid-2007, 50 violations were documented: 35 journalists were threatened, five of whom fled into exile; and three

The Internet has not yet become an effective tool for human rights in the Arab world, says a recent study by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo). The 215-page study, 'Electronic Media and Human Rights', is the first in Arabic to discuss human rights in the discourse of electronic Arabic media outlets. It also surveyed use of the Internet by human rights organisations. Although

Two Turkish policemen went on trial Friday for their role in a scandal which saw security forces pose for pictures with the suspected murderer of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the official Anatolia news agency reported. The trial in the northern city of Samsun is the first time that members of the security forces have been brought before a court over the January 19 murder, which the

The Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) decreed on Tuesday that journalists should not be jailed over their work, two days after two were jailed for libel, the state WAM news agency reported. Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum "has issued instructions ... not to imprison journalists for reasons related to their work," said the head of the National Media Council, Sheikh Abdullah bin

The Zimbabwean intelligence service has compiled a blacklist of 15 journalists working for independent news media who are to be subjected to “strict surveillance” and other unspecified “measures” in the run-up to next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. “The Zimbabwean government’s paranoia is accompanied by systematic repression,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said

A detailed indictment used to charge leading journalist Moussa Kaka with “complicity in a conspiracy against state authority” is being seen as “inconsistent and absurd.” The manager of privately-owned Radio Saraouniya and correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), Kaka was arrested on 20 September. “The details of the case against him are