News

15 June 2009
Ahmadinejad criticises international media, Iran clamps down on news of widespread protests

Ahmadinejad criticises international media, Iran clamps down on news of widespread protests

Iranian authorities have criticised international media reports and taken steps to control the flow of information from independent news sources as anti-government protests raged in the country for the third day on Monday. Opposition candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have appealed to their supporters not to accept the “rigged results.” The British Broadcasting Co said that electronic...

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15 June 2009

Gambian journalist arrested over false story

The editor of a private newspaper in the Gambia has been in police custody since Wednesday because of a story that falsely reported the sacking of two government officials, according to local journalists. Abdulhamid Adiamoh, managing editor of the daily Today, is being held in a cell at the Major Crimes Unit of police headquarters in the capital Banjul since his arrest on Wednesday, the...

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15 June 2009

Five suspects detained in Mexican journalist's killing

Five men have been detained in connection with the May 25 killing of Eliseo Barrón Hernández, a reporter and photographer for the local daily La Opinión in the northern Durango state in Mexico. "We are encouraged by the detention of these five men who are reportedly members of a drug cartel," said Carlos Lauría, senior programme coordinator for the Americas, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)...

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15 June 2009
Canada, Australia should step up efforts to free captive journalists being held in Somalia

Canada, Australia should step up efforts to free captive journalists being held in Somalia

The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged the Canadian and Australian governments to work for the immediate release of two freelance journalists who have been held captive in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, since August. On Wednesday last, a woman claiming to be captive journalist Amanda Lindhout called the Canadian broadcaster CTV, saying she fears for her life and pleading for the government...

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15 June 2009

Civil society initiative on media policy

This set of documents has been put together in the hope that they will help inform the ongoing (if sporadic) public debate on media regulation in India, with particular reference to the broadcast sector. This set includes a backgrounder on media regulation (or the lack thereof), a backgrounder on broadcast legislation, summaries of case law relating to different aspects of media practice, and a...

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11 June 2009
Journalists assaulted in Islamabad while covering protest by student group of Jamaat

Journalists assaulted in Islamabad while covering protest by student group of Jamaat

Three journalists were injured when they were assaulted by workers of the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). The journalists were assaulted while covering an IJT protest rally on June 8 in capital Islamabad, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. The injured included Syed Mehdi, photojournalist for the daily the Nation, Muhammad Asim, photojournalist...

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11 June 2009

Court seizes magazine in Senegal, suspends distribution over President Wade

A magistrate's court in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, suspended on June 3 distribution of the June 2009 edition of L'Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine, and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover page that the court claimed were an "insult" to President Abdoulaye Wade. According to the presiding magistrate, the headlines "Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal...

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11 June 2009
CJFE urges Canadian broadcast regulator to allow Al Jazeera English broadcasts

CJFE urges Canadian broadcast regulator to allow Al Jazeera English broadcasts

the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) has urged CRTC to allow Al Jazeera English Television to be broadcast in Canada. CJFE sent a letter in support of the application urging the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to approve ECGL's (Ethnic Channels Group Limited) request for the addition of Al Jazeera English to the lists of eligible satellite services...

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11 June 2009

Colombia: Journalist and community leader killed in Caquetá department

Hernando Salas Rojas, director of the Curillo municipality's local television station, in Caquetá department, was murdered on May 20, delayed reports have said. According to sources consulted by Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa (FLIP) , unknown individuals burst into the journalist's home and fired several shots at him. Salas, who also previously worked in radio, was a community leader and the...

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11 June 2009

National daily's correspondent detained in east Algerian city

Rabah Lamouchi, the national Arabic-language daily Ennahar's correspondent in Tebessa (460 km east of Algiers), has been arrested on the grounds that he was not officially accredited by the newspaper. This is denied by the paper's editor, who told Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) it was just a pretext. Another Ennahar correspondent was held for three days last month. "This case is disturbing...

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