News

Two commercial TV presenters, Fahim Kohdamani of Emroz and Ajmal Alamzai of Ariana TV, were arrested in Kabul on Monday. Alamzai was released late Monday night but Kohdamani is still being held, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “We call for Kohdamani’s immediate and unconditional release,” Paris-based said. “The Afghan government has again failed to respect press freedom, arbitrarily...

GENEVA (Reuters) - Some 200 secular, religious and media groups from around the world on Wednesday urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to reject a call from Islamic countries for a global fight against "defamation of religion." The groups, including some Muslim bodies, issued their appeal in a statement on the eve of a vote in the Council in Geneva on a resolution proposed by the 56...

Anil Mazumdar, the editor of Assamese daily Aji, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in front of his house in Guwahati on Tuesday night. Majumdar was returning home from office around 10:30 pm when he was attacked.

Serbian authorities must step up their investigation into the killing of journalist and publisher Slavko Ćuruvija, the International Press Institute and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation, said Wednesday, one month before the 10th anniversary of his death. Slavko Ćuruvija was shot dead by two masked men in front of his home in the centre of Belgrade on April 11, 1999, Serbian...

The media in Myanmar (Burma) are alarmed at the plan of the junta's Press Scrutiny and Registration Board—better known as the Censors' Board—to censor the digital copies of articles to be published in Burmese journals and magazines, according to Mizzima News. Burmese journalists said they see this new system as impractical as the Internet speed in the country is too slow for downloading and...

Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan journalist who worked for Canadian media, including the broadcaster CTV News, was gunned down on March 10 by two men in a vehicle as he was getting out of his own car in the centre of the southern city of Kandahar, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Ahmad, also known as Jojo Yazemi, died on the spot. His body was taken to a nearby hospital where members of his...

Vadim Rogozhin, managing director of the independent media holding company Vzglyad in the southern city of Saratov, was hospitalised in serious condition on March 10 after surviving a brutal attack last week, his company said in an official statement, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Two unidentified assailants attacked Rogozhin, 38, as he was leaving an elevator at his...

US federal authorities have confirmed that 92 videotapes detailing the interrogation of detainees at secret prisons were destroyed in 2005 by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is urging the new Obama administration to lead an investigation into this infringement upon the American people's constitutional rights and punish those who are responsible. "The sheer...

Chinese authorities in Tibet should open the region to foreign journalists and release imprisoned Tibetan journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded. Tuesday is the 50th anniversary of an uprising against Chinese rule. Foreigners, including journalists, were ordered out of Kangding City, a Tibetan region of Sichuan, today after two homemade explosives were thrown at police...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of the manager of the Poobalasingam Book Depot bookshop in Colombo, who was arrested by anti-terrorism police at his home in the Colombo suburb of Wellawatte on March 5 for sending copies of Ananda Vikatan, a Tamil weekly magazine published in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to another branch of the same bookshop in Jaffna, in the...