News

Students at Georgetown University in the US are suing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other government agencies for information in the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the project began in a investigative journalism class at Georgetown in 2007. The students were supposed to find out...

The confrontation between the government and the press in Kenya has escalated. Parliamentarians on December 16 launched a scathing attack on the media and vowed to ensure it is "tamed." One member after another tore into the media, apparently angered by the all-out campaign against a controversial Bill recently passed by Parliament that seeks to give the government power to control media content...

An appeals court has allowed Joy Radio to resume operations 30 days after the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) revoked the station's broadcasting license for non-compliance with the Communications Act and its licence agreement, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The resumption of broadcasting came after the Supreme Court of Appeal reinstated an injunction...

A court in the southeastern Haitian town of Jacmel has convicted police officer Bastien Novembre for assaulting Radio Express reporter Fritzer Philogène and ordered him to pay Philogène 100,000 gourdes (approx US$2,500) in damages. If Novembre, a member of the elite Departmental Unit for Maintaining Order (UDMO), fails to pay he could go to prison for one year. A report by his superiors also...

Ukraine's National Expert Commission on the Protection of Public Morality has ruled that the registration of daily Blik should be withdrawn and criminal proceedings brought against the newspaper. On October 23, the commission recommended that legal sanctions be taken against Blik, which is owned by Adevarul Holding, a Romanian media company, for publishing several photographs of half-naked women...

The Korean government must act urgently over fears for the future of press freedom in the country, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged. The call is among a number of IFJ proposals to end the deadlock between staff and management in a 154-day battle over editorial independence at the broadcaster YTN, a 24-hour news network. IFJ, which has concluded an emergency mission to...

A court in Gafsa (350 km south of Tunis) has sentenced reporter Fahem Boukadous in absentia to six years in prison on a charge of “forming a criminal association liable to attack persons and their property” for covering demonstrations in the Gafsa mining region. Boukadous works for Al-Hiwar Attounsi, a privately-owned TV station based in Italy that broadcasts to Tunisia. “This harsh sentence is...

The Kyrgyzstan government has refused to resume local retransmission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service unless it submits programmes for prior approval. The demand was made on December 15 by Melis Eshimkanov, head of state-owned broadcaster UTRK, who told a RFE/RL delegation its programmes were “too negative and critical.” “This political decision is intolerable,” Paris-based...

The Mexican special federal prosecutor for dealing with attacks on the media, Octavio Alberto Orellana Wiarco, has ruled out that two young women community journalists in Oaxaca State were killed because of their work. His public statement that the radio journalists of the Triqui indigenous community were shot in an attack aimed at the driver of their vehicle showed yet again the special...

Press freedom groups have expressed concern over the abduction of freelance photojournalist Shadreck Manyere and attempted abduction of Obrian Rwafa, a reporter with the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). These incidents happened just 10 days after the abduction of journalist and human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who is still missing. “Whoever was responsible, these...