News

The worsening situation of the Tajik media has been detailed by the National Association of Independent Mass Media in Tajikistan (NANSMIT) in a report of its press freedom monitoring in 2010. Independent media and journalists have been subjected to constant pressure for more than six months and ten media prosecutions are currently under way. NANSMIT said in its report that it registered 58 cases...

Unionised workers at the Journal de Montreal have voted to accept a contract offer, ending an employer lockout that lasted more than two years, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. Quebecor Media locked out more than 200 employees in January 2009, arguing that journalists refused to adapt to changes in their job duties brought on by technologies including the Internet. To avoid a strike, the...

A Bloomberg News journalist was assaulted Sunday in Beijing while covering the deployment of police in response to online calls for protests in the Chinese capital, the agency reported. At least five men in plain clothes, who appeared to be security personnel, punched and kicked the reporter at Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping street at 2:45 p.m. local time Sunday. They also took the video camera he...

The government today said a Chinese woman, reportedly deported last month, was a journalist and there was no evidence about her being a spy as some media reports had suggested, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. "There was indeed a case of a Chinese lady who had met some of these (Naga) leaders. But on investigation, we were not able to establish that she was a spy," home minister P...

Spanish journalist Paco Gomez Nadal was arrested in Panama City in one of the protests staged around the country, mainly by Indian groups, against the reform of the mining law, the government said, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. “The National Police arrested foreigner Francisco Gomez Nadal at a time when he was instigating and organizing a group of citizens who were preparing to...

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has concluded that Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto, who was killed during political protests last year, was not shot by security forces, the head of the DSI said Sunday. That conclusion contradicts a preliminary finding in a DSI report leaked to Reuters in December, which indicated the bullet that killed the Japanese journalist on April 10 came...

The European Federation of Journalists has condemned a gun attack and death threat to the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Africa and its editor Sener Levent on Friday evening. The attack shocked the island’s media community and prompted trade unions and journalists’ groups in both Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities to join together to vigorously protest over this latest act of intimidation against...

ARTICLE 19 has welcomed the decriminalisation of defamation in Mexico's Puebla state, following the adoption of reforms to the local Criminal Code. At the same time, the recent reform could be further improved by introducing a civil defamation regulation adjusted to international standards including the presence of actual malice and ensure that those sued for defamation are able to mount a proper...

There are many shortcomings in the recent amendments to the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan related to defamation and insult. The Kazakh authorities have failed to fulfill their pledges to improve the legal framework for media and protect the right to freedom of expression as made prior and during its chairmanship of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), according to ARTICLE...

Events and controversies related to Islam dominated US press coverage of religion in 2010, bumping the Catholic Church from the top spot, according to a new study by the Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Much of the coverage focused on the plan to build a mosque and Islamic centre near ground zero in New York City, a Florida...