News

Ahead of Azerbaijan’s upcoming Parliamentary elections, nine organisations are launching a new report titled Free Expression under Attack: Azerbaijan’s Deteriorating Media Environment. The report findings come out of a joint freedom of expression mission to the country in September 2010 and highlight the Azerbaijani government’s failure to comply with its international commitments to promote and...

Brazilian police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of killing radio reporter Francisco Gomes de Medeiros in the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte, local press reports said. Gomes was shot to death Monday in front of his house. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the arrest and calls on Brazilian authorities to prosecute all those responsible to the full extent of the law. A...

The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) has expressed alarm at the threats received by TV B92 journalist Sonja Kamenkovic from Zajecar, Serbia. Since the end of August 2010 Kamenkovic has reported on the alleged violent behaviour of a police officer who reportedly injured two young men. The currently suspended police officer allegedly threatened, on several occasions, Kamenkovic and...

There has been a deterioration in the press freedom situation ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections and the 2011 presidential election, with the return of repressive practices that had disappeared, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Under the guise of “protecting the public interest,” the authorities are establishing mechanisms for controlling and...

A pair of assailants lobbed a grenade Monday evening at Horseed FM, a private radio station broadcasting from the port city of Bossasso, the economic capital of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region, according to local reports. After the grenade exploded, one of the attackers began shooting at an adjacent café, Horseed Managing Director Mahad M. Ahmed told the New York-based Committee to...

The motive for the fatal shooting of journalist and local free newspaper owner Wanderley dos Reis during an armed intrusion in his home in Ibitinga, in São Paulo state, on the evening of October 16 is still unknown, but the testimony of Moisés Fernandes da Silva, 20, who shared his house and who was present during the intrusion, may still shed light on the case, according to Paris-based press...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned an armed attack on Kuwait City-based Scope TV, which was overrun by about 150 people brandishing knives and pistols on October 17. Some 10 people were injured in the course of the violence, the privately-owned satellite TV station’s executive director told the news agency Reuters. Employees said the assailants were...

Egyptian authorities have introduced a host of new regulations ahead of parliamentary elections to be held on 29 November, in an apparent attempt to clamp down on independent media. The move comes less than three weeks after Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief and founder of the private daily Al-Dustour, and a critic of the government, was dismissed after the newspaper was bought out by new owners...

On the 10th anniversary of Tamil journalist Mayilvaganam Nimalarajan’s murder in the northern city of Jaffna, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reiterated its hope that the Sri Lankan government will finally relaunch the police investigation into his death. The Jaffna correspondent of the BBC’s Tamil and Sinhalese-language services and the Sri Lankan newspapers...

Radio station director Hojatullah Mujadadi is currently the only journalist detained in Afghanistan. Although President Hamid Karzai ordered his release, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an Afghan intelligence agency, is still holding him in appalling conditions, without allowing him the right to be defended by a lawyer. His arrests violates Afghan law, under which all cases involving...