News

South Africa's Films and Publications Amendment Bill, described by critics as deeply flawed and unconstitutional, has been signed into law. The measure was promulgated in the Government Gazette in the last week of August, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). When it was introduced in 2006, the media industry protested that it paved the way for pre-publication censorship and...

The Indian government has reportedly refused to issue a press visa to Hasnain Kazim, a German journalist of Indian origin, so that he can base himself in India as the German weekly Der Spiegel's correspondent. Indian diplomats have acknowledged verbally to German officials that the failure to approve the visa request he made five months ago is linked to the fact that his articles are regarded as...

The Supreme Court in Azerbaijan has upheld the decision of the Sabail District Court regarding the confiscation and destruction of the manuscript of a book that imprisoned Azadlig newspaper editor-in-chief Ganimat Zahid was writing, reported Zahid's spouse, Ayanda Mursaliyeva, who visited him in prison on August 31, the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) has reported. According to...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned a police assault on radio reporter Dawa Khan Meenapal at the site of a bomb attack in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, in which at least 40 people were killed and 65 wounded on August 25. According to the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA), an IFJ affiliate, Meenapal was recording witness accounts of the attack in...

Kuwaiti information minister, Al-Sheikh Ahmad Abdallah al-Sabah, has suspended privately-owned Scope TV’s political satire programme Sawtak Wasal after only three of an initially-scheduled series of 15 programmes had been broadcast, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The 20-minute programme, consisting of sketches that satirized Kuwaiti politicians, had been referred by the government...

The US is still refusing to release Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam, who has begun his second year of detention by the US military in Iraq although he has never been formally charged. Jassam is currently the only journalist held in Iraq by the US forces. Jassam was arrested by US and Iraqi soldiers in the south Baghdad district of Mahmoudiyah on September 1, 2008. The Iraqi central criminal...

Ukrainian forensic experts have concluded that the skull that was found with the help of Gen Olexy Pukach, a former interior ministry intelligence officer who was arrested on July 21, is that of Heorhiy Gongadze, a journalist who was murdered in September 2000. This was announced at a news conference recently by Valentyna Telychenko, the lawyer of Gongadze’s widow, Myroslava Gongadze. “We take...

An Amsterdam court has ruled that the Associated Press (AP) violated the Dutch royal family’s privacy by distributing photos of them in an Argentina ski resort. The court on august 28 ordered the news agency to pay 1,000 euros for each further publication of the photos up to a ceiling of 50,000 euros. “We are shocked and disappointed by the court’s decision,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said....

The interior ministry of the Republic of Khakassia (in southwestern Siberia) has withdrawn the charges of spreading false rumours that were brought against Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor the Novy Focus news website, on August 20 in connection with his coverage of an explosion at a hydro-electric plant. “We welcome this decision but we nonetheless regard this case as indicative of the hostility that...

Rangoon-based weekly Phoenix has been closed down for an indefinite perdiod by the military government’s censorship board, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Burma Media Association (BMA) have reported. The weekly is edited by Mar-J, a writer who has been subject to bans in the past for his satirical comments. The authorities have not given any specific reason for Phoenix’s closure. Mizzima...