News

A one-year jail sentence and fine of 5 million CFA francs has been slapped by an Abidjan criminal court on Traoré Médandjé, a leading reporter for the daily L'Intelligent d'Abidjan, on charges of defaming and trying to blackmail a former health ministry official. The case was prompted by an article headlined “Vavoua's illegal boutique clinics,” published on September 4, 2009, in which Médjandé...

Timothy Kalyegira, a former Daily Monitor columnist and current publisher of an online newspaper, Tuesday became the first Ugandan to face sedition charges arising from the use of new media, the Daily Monitor has reported. Police on Monday summoned Kalyegira to appear for interrogation over reports that questioned whether it was really the Somali-based militants, the al-Shabaab, that bombed and...

Benin suspended Radio France Internationale (RFI) broadcasts for 14 hours on Tuesday and questioned one of its journalists after it aired reports on accusations against the president, witnesses said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The reports aired over the weekend as the tiny West African country celebrated 50 years of independence from France, with some 10 African heads of state...

A journalist of Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper was killed in clashes between the Israeli and Lebanese armies which erupted Tuesday, shattering several years of relative calm on the tense Israel-Lebanon border. The Lebanese news site NOW Lebanon named the journalist as Assaf Abu Rahal, according to the International Press Institute (IPI). Arab news reports also said Ali Chouayb, a journalist working...

The police prevented the staff of the opposition newspaper Azadlig from entering its premises Monday at the behest of Agbey Askerov, the head of the state-owned publishing house Azerbaijan, which prints the newspaper, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Askerov is demanding immediate repayment of a debt of 15,000 manats (15,000 euros), which he says dates...

There has been a series of fresh threats and acts of intimidation against journalists in Yemen. The political class seems to have no qualms about using violence against journalists who write about corruption or embezzlement. Utterly illegal and arbitrary arrests are becoming commonplace, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The situation is becoming more...

The department of public prosecution has brought new charges against Kurdish writer Mehmet Güler and publisher Ragip Zarakolu. This time they are to be prosecuted for a book about the political system that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) would like to introduce, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. In a trial due to begin on September 30 before...

With just a week to go to a presidential election on 9 August, Rwandan authorities are openly flouting the rules of the democratic game. Press freedom violations, including the jailing of journalists, the closure of news media and the murder of a newspaper editor a month ago, have intensified in the run-up to the election. The government's latest repressive measure has been the suspension of some...

All four Mexican journalists abducted by drug traffickers last week are now free, ending an ordeal that drew international attention to pervasive anti-press violence in Mexico. Two reporters were brought to safety by federal police on Saturday, joining two colleagues who had been freed earlier. Javier Canales, a cameraman for the national media group Milenio, and Alejandro Hernández, a cameraman...

Three Uighur-language website managers were sentenced Friday to prison terms of three to 10 years after being found guilty under broad charges of “endangering state security.” The men had been jailed after ethnic rioting in July 2009 in Urumqi, capital of the far-western, predominantly Muslim, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Nijat Azat, who managed the website Shabnam, was sentenced to a 10...