News

An Associated Press (AP) reporter has been reprimanded for comments on his Facebook page, according to Wired News. Richard Richtmyer, a Philadelphia-based newsman, posted a comment on his Facebook profile late last month criticising the executive management of newspaper publisher McClatchy, whose stock plummeted following a 2006 acquisition of San Jose-based Knight Ridder. “It seems like the ones...

Hiram Oliveros Ortiz, an alleged participant in the assassination of La Mañana newspaper director Roberto Javier Mora García, was on June 3 sentenced to 16 years in prison by Judge José Alberto Ciprés Sánchez of the Second Bench Criminal Court in Nuevo Loredo, Tamaulipas state, northern Mexico, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) has reported. Oliveros Ortiz, who is being held at...

Attempts to unravel the murder of journalist Francis Nyaruri have run into problems after key witnesses began receiving death threats. The family lawyer, Andrew Mandi (who practises in the Nyamira District of Kenya's Nyanza Province) and Robert Natwoli (a police officer in Nyamira) have gone into hiding after they were threatened with death, the Nairobi-based Media Institute has reported. The...

An intentionally-set fire completely destroyed the facilities of FM Radio Activa, in El Bolsón, Río Negro province, located on the border with Chile. The incident took place on June 1 around 10:30 p.m. (local time), half an hour after the last employee, an operator, had left the station, Foro de Periodismo Argentino (FOPEA) has reported. The El Bolsón public prosecutor, Francisco Arrien, told...

A military tribunal in Yaoundé sentenced Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwe, general manager and editor-in-chief, respectively, of La Nouvelle newspaper, to five years in prison and a 500,000 FCFA (approx. US$1,066) fine at the end of a closed-door hearing. No appeal was permitted on June 3; the journalists were only informed of the hearing after the fact, Journaliste en Danger (JED) has...

Nedim Sener, a reporter for the daily Milliyet, who has written a book about the murder of journalist Hrant Dink, faces up to 28 years in prison after police officers filed complaints against him, the IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET) has reported. Sener's book is titled The Dink Murder and Intelligence Lies. The book deals with the gendarmerie, police and national intelligence officers who...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Mexico's federal justice and defence ministries to investigate a June 4 incident in the northern city of Ciudad Juárez in which soldiers beat several journalists including photographer José Luis González of El Diario, a regional newspaper that suffered a great deal in 2008. In a separate development, one of El Diario’s bureaux has just had to close...

Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, the director of somalia's privately-owned Universal TV has been released by his captors. Four armed and hooded men abducted the journalist five days earlier on the road between Afgoye and Mogadishu. The Djibouti-based independent Somali news agency SOMINA reported that that Ali, also known as “Jeckey,” was abducted by four masked gunmen who stopped his car as he was returning...

Several news media outlets have been waging an aggressive campaign against “Life in Kosovo,” an investigative programme broadcast by public TV service RTK, and the programme’s presenter, Jeta Xharra, who has received death threats. The campaign started after a "Life in Kosovo" report about alleged atrocities by the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) during the 1998-99 Kosovo War. "A Life in Kosovo" crew...

Abduvakhab Moniev, the deputy editor of the Kyrgyz-language weekly Achyg Sayasat (Open Politics), was severely assaulted by an unidentified individual on June 5 in Bishkek, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The newspaper has often been the target of harassment by the authorities. “The increase in harassment of the media in the run-up to the July 23 presidential election is worrying,”...