News

1 February 2006

France jails Ivoirian army officer over disappeared journalist

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, February 1, 2006 - French authorities have jailed an Ivoirian army officer in connection with the 2004 disappearance in Ivory Coast of journalist Guy-André Kieffer, according to Kieffer's wife and Agence France-Presse. Osange Silou-Kieffer told CPJ today that Capt. Jean-Tony Oulaï was arrested on January 11 in Paris and is being questioned by a French judge investigating...

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1 February 2006

Threaten one, intimidate a million

A couple of simple caricatures printed in a Danish newspaper has the Arab world outraged. Unfortunately, the paper apologized for the Muhammad-critical cartoons and democratic values lost out to totalitarian ideology. In Germany and the rest of free Europe, one likes to talk about the necessity of learning from the past, of helping newcomers to the democratic club and of supporting stable...

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1 February 2006

Danish Muslims deserve mosque, says editor

Building a mosque in Copenhagen would help to relieve tensions between Denmark and the Muslim world, says Herbert Pundik, a former editor of daily newspaper Politiken. The country's 200,000 Muslims currently are relegated to some 50 makeshift mosques throughout the country. Pundik suggested that construction of a permanent mosque could serve as an olive branch to Muslims angered by drawings of the...

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1 February 2006

Alienated Danish Muslims sought help from Arabs

Twelve drawings of Muhammad printed in a major Danish newspaper have turned millions of Muslims against Denmark. And one man's mission has transformed the caricatures into the stuff of international diplomacy. The Arab world, though, isn't being given the full story. It was just twelve simple drawing published in a Danish newspaper. But they have triggered an international relations crisis for...

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1 February 2006

Online publishers react cautiously to WAN move on search engines

The Association of Online Publishers (AOP), UK, has cautiously welcomed the campaign led by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) to encourage publishers to seek compensation from search engines which it argues exploit their editorial content for commercial gain. "There's absolutely no doubt that quality content delivered by established brands is more valuable to consumers than the vast...

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1 February 2006

Newspapers take aim at Google in copyright dispute

The newspaper, magazine and book publishing industries have come together to explore ways to challenge the exploitation of content by search engines without fair compensation to copyright owners. A task force of global and European publishers organisations, led by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), has agreed to work together to examine the options open to publishers to assert their rights...

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1 February 2006

Orissa bureaucrat files Rs 30 lakh defamation case against daily

BHUBANESWAR: Development Commissioner Ajit Kumar Tripathy has filed a defamation case of Rs 30 lakh against vernacular daily ‘The Samaja’ in the court of Senior Civil Judge, Bhubaneswar over an article published in the paper. President and member of the Lok Sevak Mandal, printer, publisher and editor of the paper have been made parties in the case. Senior lawyer Prashant Routray and his associate...

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1 February 2006

High Court quashes proceedings against columnist

The Madras High Court today quashed the chargesheet filed against columnist S Gurumurthy for refusing to divulge information and answer questions put to him by the Tamil Nadu police in connection with the September 2004 murder of temple official Sankararaman. He was also charged under section 14 of the Press and Registration of Books Act 1867 for his articles published in an English Daily on...

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1 February 2006

Upsetting Muslims the French way

The Americans may call them surrender-monkeys, but the French can sometimes teach the world something about pluck -- or maybe foolhardiness. France Soir has just courted big trouble by printing across two pages all 12 of the Danish newspaper cartoons that have caused such a furore in the Muslim world. For good measure, they ran their own cartoon across the front page, featuring not just the...

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1 February 2006

Fatwa issued against Danish troops in Iraq

A fatwa, or legal Islamic ruling, appears to have been issued against Danish soldiers stationed in Iraq, the Danish defence ministry said on Tuesday. "I can confirm that we've heard about the fatwa from a reliable source in Iraq ... so we believe it's true," Defence Minister Soeren Gade's spokesman Jacob Winther told AFP. The report came amid rising Muslim anger over 12 cartoons published in...

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