News

A new defamation law has been enacted in Ireland that establishes blasphemy as an offence punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros. The law took effect on January 1. Article 36 defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering “matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that...

Unidentified intruders broke into the offices of the Riga-based daily Neatkariga Rita Avize and its publishing house SIA Mediju Nams on the night of January 1 in which windows were broken, the offices of editors and leading reporters were badly damaged, and many files were destroyed or defaced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “They tried to make us think it was an ordinary burglary...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned Yemen’s attempt to use the current anti-terror push to crush human rights after security forces today fired on a crowd of protestors staging a ‘sit-in’ outside the offices of a banned newspaper. “The Ali Abdallah Saleh government is taking advantage of support from foreign powers in the fight against terrorism on its soil to deliberately violate people...

A Somali Islamist attempted on Saturday to murder Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons that caused such a controversy in 2005. Westergaard escaped unhurt but the attack could have been fatal. “Some Muslims may have been shocked by Westergaard’s cartoons, but there is no justification for such violence and intolerance,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said....

This has been a grim year for Yemen’s independent press, the victim of an media war waged by the government under the guise of combating terrorism and sedition, and the situation could get even worse in 2010, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said Thursday, following the arrests of two more journalists in the past four days. The first of the past week’s media arrests was that of Khalid Jahafi, a...

Canadian journalist Michelle Lang died Wednesday while embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Lang was working for the Calgary Herald and Canwest News Service when she was killed along with four Canadian soldiers while travelling in a Canadian military convoy. Their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb about two miles...

A TV crew working for the French TV station France 3 that was abducted in the northeastern province of Kapisa on December 29. The victims include two French journalists and at least two Afghans, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The security situation in Afghanistan, including the Kapisa region, is such that we cannot rule out any hypothesis,” Paris-based RSF said. “We will have to...

A new criminal charge has been filed against imprisoned Azerbaijani editor Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. Based on Fatullayev’s account and the government’s long record of persecuting the editor, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believes the charge to be fabricated. On Tuesday, guards at Prison Colony No 12 in Baku claimed...

The Iranian government, struggling to silence the many critical voices in the country, has arrested 11 journalists since Sunday, including former International Press Freedom Award recipient Mashallah Shamsolvaezin and the prominent writer Emadeddin Baghi, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. CPJ condemned the arrests and called for the release of all detained...

A Cameroonian newspaper editor, jailed this month after publishing a book excerpt that alleged sexual activities by President Paul Biya, was convicted on Monday of “insulting the head of state.” Judge Ibrahim Ba sentenced Jean-Bosco Talla, managing editor of the weekly Germinal, to a one-year suspended term and a fine of 3.15 million CFA francs (US$6,800), the paper’s editor-in-chief, Duke...