News

Georgian authorities on Wednesday released journalist Shalva Ramishvili from prison, after he served a full four-year term for alleged blackmail, according to the International Press Institute (IPI). Ramishvili, a former reporter for - and part owner of - TV broadcaster ‘202’, has always protested his innocence, claiming his conviction was punishment for his criticism of Georgian President Mikhail...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have urged Serbian lawmakers to throw out a package of controversial draft amendments to the Public Information Act proposed by the government of Serbia. In a letter to the President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, IFJ President Jim Boumelha urged him to withdraw the amendments. He wrote: "We are concerned...

An Urdu-languge daily Asaap has closed down after it came under “tremendous pressure” from the Pakistan government and the security forces which were controlling its offices both inside and out. Editor, Abid Mir, speaking on the telephone from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan told Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) that he had “published the last edition on August 18” as a result of the...

The car of an investigative journalist, Enrico Porsia, was bombed in the early hours of Wednesday outside the house in Conca, near the southern Corsican town of Porto-Vecchio, where he is staying while on vacation, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The explosion caused considerable damage to the car but no injuries. An Italian national who was once a member of the Red Brigades, Porsia...

A Mauritanian court has sentenced an online editor to six months in prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). A court in capital Nouakchott found Hanevy Ould Dehah, editor of the online publication Taqadoumy, guilty of acts "contrary to Islam and decent behavior" after he published an article about sex education, his lawyer Brahim Ould Ebetty told Agence France-Presse (AFP)...

Following the brutal murder on Sunday of radio journalist Bruno Koko Chirambiza in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo—the third journalist to be slain in the restive region since 2007—the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Congolese authorities to end the alarming pattern of impunity in journalist murders. Eight unidentified assailants in civilian clothing attacked Chirambiza...

The government of Somaliland has launched a crackdown on independent journalists in the breakaway country. On Sunday, the Sahil regional court in the costal city of Berbera sentenced the editor-in-chief of the online publication Berberanews, Mohamed Said, in absentia to three years in jail on defamation charges, according to local journalists. Said has been in hiding since mid-August. Judge Osman...

Masked assailants on Monday stormed a radio station and a television outlet critical of the country's interim government, forcing the broadcasters off the air in the latest attack on the Honduran media, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. At 8 p.m., eight individuals wearing ski masks forced their way into the Tegucigalpa offices shared by Radio Globo and Canal 36, local press...

The fourth session of the mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, including journalists, took place in Tehran today. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed dismay at procedural irregularities and the fact that the trial is only open to state-owned media. In the aftermath of the country's disputed June 12 presidential election, Iranian authorities have expelled foreign...

Four journalists from Uganda's largest independent newspaper are facing criminal prosecutions, joining four others already charged since 2007, according to local journalists and news reports. Criminal prosecutions against the Monitor are on the rise against the backdrop of mounting national tensions in the lead-up to general elections in 2011. This month, President Yoweri Museveni, who is expected...