News

Gavin O’Reilly, the Chief Executive Officer of Ireland-based Independent News & Media PLC, has been elected the first President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the organisation created by the July merger of the World Association of Newspapers and IFRA, the research and service organisation for the news publishing industry. O’Reilly, 42, who had been President...

A court in N’Djamena Saturday ordered the automatic seizure of all issues published by the privately-owned weekly La Voix, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “This is a political decision, one that is marred by irregularities,” said one of the newpaper’s lawyers, Jean-Bernard Padaré. La Voix hopes to continue publishing. The court could not legally order the newspaper’s closure so it...

Harassment of critical journalists has been escalating in Tunisia since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali threatened to prosecute anyone who casts doubt on his reelection for a fifth five-year term in office on October 25. Journalists Zuhair Makhlouf and Taoufik Ben Brik were both sentenced to jail terms in the past week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Ben...

Najam Sethi, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Times in Pakistan, has been awarded the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). In accepting the Golden Pen, Sethi said the award "reflects the fierce commitment and courage of South Asia’s free media to the perennial quest for reporting the truth and...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over Ma’an Aqil, a journalist who was arrested at his office in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra in Damascus on November 22 by police from the national criminal investigations department, who took him to their headquarters for questioning. The police have not explained why he has been arrested. Two days after his arrest, the Union of Press...

The Chadian government has been harassing the new, privately-owned weekly La Voix. On November 28, one of its reporters was verbally abused by the interior minister and then detained for several hours while, on December 3, a court is due to rule on a government complaint challenging its legality, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. While covering the installation of a new police director...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has deplored the reported intention of the majority of the board of the German public television network ZDF – who are led by members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union – to reject the director-general’s request to renew editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender’s contract for another five years. The press freedom organisation believes the opposition to...

The November 29 presidential election in Equatorial Guinea, in the absence of any independent media, has been witnessing one-sided coverage by the state-owned media, according to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF). After winning the 2002 election with 97.1 per cent of the votes, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has “promised” to win this one with more than 97 per cent again. “It is no surprise that...

AS Mani, the editor of the Tamil magazine Naveena Netrikkan, was freed on bail Saturday after being held for a month in Tamil Nadu. Relatives told Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) that he returned home at midday. He still faces defemation charges.

The body of José Galindo Robles, the head of Radio Universidad de Guadalajara, was discovered at his home in Guadalajara, in the western state of Jalisco, on November 24, after it was noticed that several days had gone by with no word from him, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. His body was found wrapped in a blanket and with the hands tied with cable. The prosecutor’s office said the...