News

A Tajik government decree charging privately-owned media for access to public information has been described as “utterly grotesque” by press freedom organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Issued on October 31, the decree “On the recovery by state institutions of the costs of presenting information” took effect on November 19. The media were not consulted about the decree, which was not...

Three journalists, all on assignment for the Guardian, were abducted in December 2009 and released after six days, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting the paper. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi, ad two unnamed Afghan journalists had been planning to interview militants in Afghanistan’s mountainous Kunar province near the border with Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province...

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authorities have detained since Monday even as the Hamas-led government in Gaza continued harassing journalists, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Mohamed Eshtewi, Al-Aqsa television bureau chief in the West Bank, was arrested on Monday near a supermarket in the city of Tulkarem following two days of intermittent police...

There has been an unrelenting wave of unsolved attacks on journalists in Kyrgyzstan, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In two separate cases on Tuesday, a journalist was beaten and a newspaper received a bullet in an envelope along with threatening notes, according to local news reports. Last week, several other journalists and political analysts who...

Several journalists attempting to report on clashes this week and last between government forces and protesters were detained and beaten up in Khartoum and the nearby city of Omdurman. Police detained more than 100 people during the clashes, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. On Monday, police arrested Lucia John Abui, a journalist...

Syrenius Cephus, the publisher of the Plain Truth daily newspaper, and Michael Makinde, the general manager of the Seamarco Printing Press, are being held in connection with a report claiming that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government supplied arms to dissident forces in neighbouring Guinea. “If the report that appeared in Plain Truth is baseless and defamatory, we think the...

Unidentified assailants shot and killed Brazilian media owner and radio host José Givonaldo Vieira on Monday morning in northeastern Pernambuco state, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. CPJ called on Brazilian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into Vieira’s killing and to promptly bring to justice all those responsible...

The managing editor of a private newspaper in Cameroon has been held in police custody since Thursday, accused of insulting President Paul Biya, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Managing Editor Jean-Bosco Talla of the weekly Germinal was picked up by police in the capital, Yaoundé, on Thursday and taken to the State...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has commended the US Senate judiciary committee for successfully pushing forward the new Federal Shield Law Bill. In a 14-5 decision, members of the committee voted to send the bill to the full Senate, all the while defeating several amendments that would have diluted the extent of its reach. “This is a fairly good news for the journalism world in the United States"...

A Russian police officer who fatally shot an online publisher in government custody in 2008 was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in a low-security prison settlement Friday, Reuters and other news agencies reported. The family of the victim, Magomed Yevloyev, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) they would appeal the verdict because their own...