News

The secret sentencing of a Uighur website editor emerged this week, eight months after he was tried along with other journalists and dissidents charged in the 2009 unrest in northwestern Xinjiang, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. A court in the far-western district of Aksu sentenced Tursunjan Hezim, who edited a well-known Uighur website, Bilik, to seven years in prison on...

Thousands of Turkish journalists took to the streets here on Sunday demanding the release of colleagues in prison and raising the issue of press freedom. Journalists supported by activists, intellectuals, and some opposition parties marched in central Istanbul, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has eported. Some carried banners that read "Freedom to journalists", "No to wire tappings," and "Justice right...

Unidentified gunmen killed Al-Jazeera cameraman Ali Hassan al-Jaber and wounded his colleague near the eastern rebel-held city of Benghazi in an ambush on Saturday, according to the Qatar-based satellite station. This is the first confirmed death reported in the Libyan conflict, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said. The Al-Jazeera crew was returning from...

No newspapers were distributed Friday in Côte d’Ivoire, where the protracted political impasse is creating an extremely grave if not impossible situation for journalists and news media. As the country seems to head steadily towards civil war, with casualties every day, journalists are being exposed to threats, arrests and reprisals, and often have to risk lives to report in some neighbourhoods...

Brazilian reporter Andrei Netto of the O Estado de São Paulo newspaper has been released after being held for eight days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “We share the joy and relief of Netto’s family and friends, but the situation of journalists in Libya continues to be very worrying,” RSF said. “Foreign journalists who enter the country without...

There have been mixed feelings about the guilty verdicts and sentences ranging from 4 to 30 years in prison that a court in San Salvador passed Wednesdat on 11 of the 31 people, mainly gang members, who were tried for the September 2009 murder of Franco-Spanish documentary filmmaker and journalist Christian Poveda. “The sequence of events and the immediate motive seem clear but was a two-day trial...

The government of Swaziland has banned the daily live transmission of the BBC Focus on Africa programme after one of the news clips, broadcast on the English channel of the state radio, Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), was critical of the government. The programme, broadcast daily in the mornings, mid-day and evenings, has been off air for the past week. The state radio has...

Three global press organisations have agreed to assess the media landscape in Montenegro, a young democracy which hopes to join the European Union but whose candidacy has raised press freedom concerns. The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the International Press Institute (IPI) and the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) recently sent a joint delegation to...

Seven journalists covering the conflict in Libya are unaccounted for, according to research by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which expressed deep concern about their well-being. The most recent to go missing is Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, a correspondent for London's Guardian newspaper, whose disappearance was reported today. Also, on Wednesday, three BBC journalists recounted a harrowing 21 hours...

A judge's instruction backing the fair use of photos snapped by landowners at a controversial mining project in Madang, Papua New Guinea, is being welcomed by the Pacific Freedom Forum. "The judiciary in Papua New Guinea deserves praise for refusing to gag the use of photos," said PFF chair Susuve Laumaea, of Papua New Guinea. PFF has reviewed the background into the case brought by the...