News

A court in the Amazonian state of Acre released Antônio Muniz, a local TV commentator and columnist for the daily newspaper O Rio Branco, on December 4, two days after he was jailed in connection with a 2002 conviction on a charge of defaming a senator. “The court’s decision was necessary because press offences have been decriminalised,” Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said. “We are...

Iranian authorities decided on Monday to shut the reformist daily Hayate No. The Press Supervisory Board revoked the licence of the Tehran-based daily Hayate No “for working outside the regulations,” the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. The agency provided no details of the alleged violations. Hayate No is considered supportive of...

Prominent Russian journalist Olga Kotovskaya was killed after she apparently fell from the 14th floor of a building in the centre of Kaliningrad (the capital of a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania) six days after a court ruled that she had been unfairly stripped of the TV station she had created, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Kotovskaya died on November 16, six days...

There is a climate of fear to which Ethiopia’s independent media are currently exposed. The Addis Ababa-based weekly Addis Neger suspended publication Friday after several of its editors fled the country in the past few days because they were afraid they would be arrested. “The spectre of the 2005 crackdown on the opposition and on the independent press is resurfacing in the run-up to the May 2010...

The toll of journalists killed in Thursday'ss suicide bombing in Mogadishu’s Shamo Hotel has risen to three. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), a Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) partner organisation, freelance fixer and cameraman Abdigafar Abdulkadir Hassan, aka Yaasir Mario died Thursday evening in the Medina Hospital, to which he had been taken in a critical condition...

Journalist Laxman Choudhury of the daily Sambad was finally freed on bail Thursday after being held for ten weeks in Gajapati district in Orissa. Released on the orders of the Orissa high court, he is still facing a sedition charge because the local police found Maoist leaflets in his possession. On leaving prison, Choudhury thanked all of his colleagues who campaigned for his release.

Three journalists were among the victims of a suicide bombing at a Benadir University graduation ceremony in Mogadishu Thursday. Twenty-two people were killed at Hotel Shamo, including three government ministers, by suspected Islamic insurgents, according to the Associated Press (AP). Hassan Zubeyr, a cameraman for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television network and Radio Shabelle reporter Mohamed...

Two prominent Iranian journalists, Hengameh Shahidi and Saeed Laylaz, have been sentenced to extended prison terms. Shahidi was sentenced on Monday to six years and three months in prison, while Laylaz was sentenced to a prison sentence of no fewer than nine years, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international news reports. Shahidi‎, who is...

After being held by police for 12 days at the headquarters of the criminal investigation department in Kuwait City, journalist Mohammed Al-Jassem appeared in court again Tuesday morning and was able to challenge the legality of his detention and the way the investigation has been conducted, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. At the end of a hearing of more than two hours, the court...

The 2009 Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) - Fnac Press Freedom Prize was awarded Tuesday to Israeli newspaper reporter Amira Hass and Chechen quarterly Dosh at a ceremony hosted by journalist Bernard de La Villardière at the Espace Fondation EDF in Paris. “In a world dominated by lies that are organised and manipulated, the RSF - Fnac Prize winners deserve our recognition and solidarity not only...