News

Journalists in at least three Iraqi cities were harassed on Wednesday as police, soldiers, prisoners, some government employees, and displaced persons kicked off the early voting phase of Iraq's provincial councils elections, according to local and international news reports and journalists who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In the southern city of Basra, 15 Iraqi reporters...

The Nicaraguan attorney-general's office has dropped a criminal investigation into a nonprofit journalism organisation headed by the prominent editor Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios after finding no evidence of wrongdoing, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported on its blog. A remarkable number of media groups and individuals, including CPJ, spoke out against the investigation as...

Reporter Francis Nyaruri was found decapitated and with his hands bound on Thursday in a forest in western Kenya, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Nyaruri, who wrote for the private Weekly Citizen under the pen name Mong'are Mokua, had been missing since January 15, according to local journalists and relatives. Nyanza deputy police Chief Larry Kieng confirmed to reporters...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has denied claims from political leaders in Gaza that it was biased in its claims of Hamas interference and intimidation of journalists. In a statement issued on January 25, Hamas accused IFJ of "baseless statements" and "unacceptable partiality" following its comments after a two-day mission of international journalists' leaders to Gaza last week...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned a proposed criminal law amendment before Czech Republic parliament that would ban the media from publishing the contents of police telephone taps or any information about the tapping of phones by the police. The proposed amendment provides for sentences of one to five years in prison and fines up to 5 million crowns (182,000 euros) for violators. “In...

Fiji deported Fiji Times publisher Rex Gardner on January 27, five days after he and the newspaper were fined 100,000 Fiji dollars (40,000 euros) for publishing a reader’s letter criticising a court decision. Gardner is the third newspaper publisher with Australian nationality to be expelled by Fiji’s military-backed government in the past year. His predecessor at the Fiji Times, Evan Hannah, was...

Pakistani authorities have been arged to adopt energetic measures following the murder of a journalist and an attack on a privately-owned TV station within a space of 48 hours over the last weekend. On January 24, Aamir Wakil, 40, a married man with four children, was murdered close to his home in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. On January 26, an angry crowd ransacked the studios of Samaa TV in the...

Angry opposition supporters burned down two pro-government television stations in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar on Monday, a few hours after authorities destroyed the antenna of an opposition radio station, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting news reports and local journalists. The violence highlighted escalating political tensions between Malagasy President...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed dismay at Equatorial Guinea deputy information minister Purita Opo Barila’s arbitrary decision, announced on January 19, to dismiss four journalists from state radio and TV broadcaster RTVGE for “insubordination” and “lack of enthusiasm.” “Equatorial Guinea is one of those African countries about which nothing or almost nothing is known because the...

A wave of censorship has hit many Iranian and foreign Farsi-language websites since January 24. Most of the sites contain articles critical of the government and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose term expires on June 12. International news media websites have also been blocked since January 26, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “After directly targeting human rights activists, the...