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Two Ethiopian journalists were thrown in prison on Monday after a judge convicted them under an obsolete press law in connection with coverage of sensitive topics dating back several years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, editor of the weekly, Muslim-oriented newspaper Salafiyya, and Asrat Wedajo, former...

The Taraz Regional Court in southern Kazakhstan sentenced to jail Ramazan Yesergepov, editor of Almaty-based weekly Alma-Ata Info, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On August 8, the court sentenced Yesergepov to three years in prison on a criminal charge of "collecting information that contains state secrets," the local press said. Rozlana Taukina, head of the Almaty-based...

Gunmen shot dead an Afghan television journalist and severely wounded his colleague Monday in northwestern Pakistan. Janullah Hashim Zada was gunned down as he travelled on a public minibus from Torkham on the Afghan border to the main northwestern city of Peshawar, a Khyber Agency official told the Associated Press. Zada's colleague, Ali Khan, was seriously hurt with a gunshot wound to the neck...

Prosecutors in Abakan, the capital of the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia, have filed defamation charges against online editor Mikhail Afanasyev, over a blog entry about Monday's explosion at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant that killed dozens of workers, according to news reports. Prosecutors opened a criminal probe against Afanasyev on Wednesday, after he and his two colleagues at...

The Hamas interior ministry has decided to deny Palestinian and foreign journalists access to the southern city of Rafah and to all hospitals in the Gaza Strip until further notice. The ban was issued on August 14, after fighting broke out in Rafah between the Hamas government and a radical Islamist group. "The Hamas-led government's interior ministry has again demonstrated a desire to control...

Former police officers Odin Fernandes da Silva and Davi Liberato de Araújo were convicted for being part of the militia that abducted and tortured a team of journalists from O Dia newspaper in the Batan Favela area, Rio de Janeiro, in May 2008. Judge Alexandre Abrahão sentenced both individuals to 31 years in prison on August 12, according to Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo de Investigação...

Paramilitary police have summarily sealed the studios of Sky One Radio, based in Cameroon capital Yaoundé, the station's president, Joseph Angoula Angoula, has told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The station was accused of "recurring violations of legal and administrative regulations" of media laws, according to a statement on the Web site of Cameroon's Communications...

The Afghanistan government has imposed a media blackout on election-related violence during Thursday's presidential polls. Afghanistan's National Security Council released a statement through the Foreign Ministry Tuesday and official spokesmen contacted news bureaus by telephone to discourage reporting on violent incidents from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, according to local and international...

U.S. immigration officials have released a Pakistani journalist who reports for Voice of America's Deewa Radio and whose home was destroyed by Taliban militants last month in northwestern Pakistan. Rahman Bunairee was freed Wednesday, more than one week after he arrived in the United States and was taken into custody at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, VOA reported. The Department...

A Ljubljana district court on August 6 banned the daily Dnevnik from mentioning Italian businessman Pierpaolo Cerani as controversial or involved in corruption scandals, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Dnevnik can report about him only in positive way, without mentioning his involvement in former scandals until there has been an outcome to the libel suit he has brought against the...