News

The Lebanese news website Al-Akhbar is being harassed after it published US diplomatic cables that were first disclosed by WikiLeaks. The website was hacked last week by unknown attackers, while the Tunisian government blocked domestic access to the site. Saudi officials blocked access to the independent website Elaph, which also published some of the cables. "We condemn efforts to restrict news...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is worried about the dangers for Haitian and foreign journalists from the rioting that has shaken the country since the widely disputed results of the general elections were announced on December 7. Although the media have so far been largely spared, RSF urge the supporters of the various parties and alliances to refrain from turning...

Jailed Iranian journalist Abdolreza Tajik and embattled Somali news radio station Radio Shabelle have been awarded the Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) Press Freedom Prize for 2010. The award is given in associated with French retail chain FNAC. “This year we are honouring a courageous journalist, Abdolreza Tajik, and a beleaguered radio station, Radio Shabelle,” RSF secretary-general Jean-François...

There have been numerous cases of deliberate obstruction in Egypt of journalists trying to cover the second round of legislative elections on December 5, just as it had in the first round on November 28, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The landslide victory of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) was no longer in doubt after massive fraud during...

There have been a number of cases of police violence in Greece against journalists during the demonstrations of the past few weeks, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The level of violence employed by the police has been outrageous, it reported. Journalists said they were thrown to the ground and beaten, or were prevented from working by use of physical...

Libya Press news agency has decided to shut down its Tripoli office and leave Libya because security officials have said they "do not want any presence of the agency inside Libya," the agency said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday. Libya Press announced that it will resume work from several foreign capitals. The agency added that it informed its reporters that it "cannot offer...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for the release of journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu after visiting him in prison in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. CPJ made the call at a press conference marking the end of a four-day mission to Burundi. CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney and East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes on Thursday met Kavumbagu, editor of...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Saudi authorities to immediately release Mohamed al-Abdulkarim, an Islamic law professor, human rights activist, and the editor-in-chief of an online magazine. He was arrested on Sunday, two weeks after an article he wrote was published online. Al-Abdulkarim wrote critically about the Saudi Arabian royal family...

The Venezuelan government has acquired a 20 per cent stake in Globovisión, the only over-the-air TV channel that is still very critical of President Hugo Chávez after RCTV was stripped of its licence in 2007. RCTV was subsequently suspended from broadcasting by cable as well, and its latest attempt to return to cable broadcasting was blocked on November 25. The state took over on tuesday the...

The Ukrainian attorney-general’s office announced Tuesday that the investigation into the role that Gen Oleksiy Pukach, a former intelligence officer, played in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in September 2000 in Kiev has been completed and that the case is being set to trial. Significantly, the statement added that investigators had not succeeded in building a case against any other...