News

A series of death threats have been received by Marites Dañguilan Vitug, editor-in-chief of the online news outlet Newsbreak, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Vitug, a veteran editor and reporter based in Manila, told New York-based CPJ she received four threatening, anonymous text messages on her mobile phone between Monday and today. The first message, received Monday...

Colombian journalist Clodomiro Castilla Ospino was dead shot on Friday by an unidentified gunman in the northern city of Montería, according to local press reports. Castilla, 50, editor and publisher of local news magazine El Pulso del Tiempo, was reading a book outside his home in Montería around 9 p.m., when an unidentified gunman shot him at least eight times. A second man picked up the...

A group of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers stoned the office of a Malayalam daily in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday protesting a cartoon carried by it on the currency note garland controversy involving Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and party supremo Mayawati. According to a spokesman of the newspaper, Tejas, the slogan-shouting group, holding the BSP flag, smashed the office sign board and damaged...

Five journalists were wounded while covering violent clashes between security personnel and protesters outside the capital, Kampala, on Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Scores of protestors and mourners came to Kasubi, a Kampala suburb, after a fire of unknown origin destroyed the historically significant royal tombs of the Buganda kingdom on Tuesday. Mukiibi...

A Turkish appellate court should overturn the unjust convictions of publisher and editor Haci Bogatekin, who faces several years in prison on various “insult” charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Bogatekin, owner of the biweekly Gerger Firat and editor of the news website Gergerfirat, was convicted March 2 on charges of “insulting” state prosecutors and “offending the...

Azerbaijani editor Genimet Zakhidov, who served more than half of a four-year term on fabricated “hooliganism” charges, was released from prison on Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. “We're relieved Azerbaijani officials released our colleague Genimet Zakhidov, who served 28 long months in prison in retaliation for his critical journalism,” CPJ Europe and Central...

Ethiopia is preparing to jam the Amharic-language broadcasts of the US government-funded Voice of America (VOA), Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared Thursday in a press briefing with international media correspondents based in the capital, Addis Ababa. The prime minister accused VOA’s Amharic service of “engaging in destabilising propaganda,” comparing it to Radio Télévision Libre des Mille...

News channel NewsX, which was sold out last year by INX Media following a financial crunch during the global economic meltdown, is set to be re-launched under a new brand within the next few months, the Press Trust of India (PTI) has reported. “We will re-launch our channel in the second quarter of next fiscal, after the summer break... The channel will sport a new name, logo and on-air look,”...

A Tashkent appeal court Wednesday upheld photographer and documentary filmmaker Umida Akhmedova’s conviction on charges of slandering and insulting the Uzbek people, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Her lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, tried without success for three hours to convince the court that her conviction by a lower court on February 10 was illegal. They said after the hearing that...

Sudan’s official press regulator, the National Press Council, is investigating two editors accused of insulting President Omar al-Bashir, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Yass Omar al-Imam, editor-in-chief of the pro-opposition daily Rai al-Shaab, and Fayez al-Silaik, acting editor-in-chief of the independent daily Ajras al-Hurriya, were questioned Monday by officials with...