News

Community radio station Radio Diversia, which is active on human rights issues connected to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community in Bogota, received threats recently from a group calling itself "La Organización", the Foundation for Press Freedom has reported. The harassment against the station began on April 30 when unknown individuals stole various computers from the station...

Twenty journalists were injured in the massive suicide car bomb blast on Wednesday that killed at least 30 people and injured over 250, in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab province. Offices of a number of newspapers and television stations were also damaged in the blast. According to the Punjab Union of Journalists (PUJ), more than 20 journalists and media workers suffered multiple...

Lydia Cacho, a well-known Mexican journalist and human rights defender, is reportedly being followed by an unknown, armed man who has been seen outside her house on several occasions in the last few days. Cacho told London-based ARTICLE 19 that a blue and silver 2008 Chevrolet motor vehicle has been seen at different hours in front of her house. Witnesses have described the driver as a robust man...

Myanmarese (Burmese) military authorities have been urged to lift all restrictions on press coverage of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial. Some Burmese journalists have intermittently been allowed to attend the trial, which is taking place inside Insein prison, but no foreign reporter has been allowed in and the Burmese media are not able to cover it freely, according to Paris-based...

A Baku court has rejected a request for the release of Mushfig Huseynov, a reporter with the daily Bizim Yol, who has had serious health problems since he was jailed in January 2008 for allegedly taking a bribe. “Huseynov’s state of health is grounds for immediate release,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “The law requires it. Prison conditions in Azerbaijan are appalling and do...

The intermediary in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares has been convicted, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Judge Francisco Mario Liberato sentenced Cássio Santana de Sousa to 23 years in prison on Wednesday for his participation in Linhares' killing in the northern city of Fortaleza, according to local news reports. Santana was...

The government of Gabon has launched a crackdown on independent media coverage of President Omar Bongo's hospitalisation and potential succession issues. Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, has been in a Spanish hospital since earlier this month amid conflicting reports about his condition. On Saturday, the state-run National Communication Council (known by its French acronym as CNC)...

Authorities found the body of a journalist who covered the police beat in northern Mexico Tuesday morning after he was abducted from his house on Monday night, according to Mexican news reports. Authorities found the body of Eliseo Barrón Hernández, left, a reporter and photographer for the Torreón-based daily La Opinión, in the city of Gómez Palacio, Durango, where he lived, reported the national...

Two journalists, a Canadian and an Australian, who have been held hostage for over nine months in Somalia are in poor health and have sought greater help from their governments to secure their release. Freelance Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan said they were in poor health and urged their respective governments to help free them, according to news...

Somalian radio reporter Nur Muse Hussein died Tuesday as a result of gunshot wounds suffered while covering fighting in April. Hussein, a veteran correspondent for Radio IQK, suffered two bullet wounds to his right leg while reporting on clashes between militia groups in the central town of Beledweyn on April 20, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSJ). We offer our deep...