News

Jordanian intelligence prevented Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), from entering Jordan on the night of December 15 and detained him for six hours at Amman's Alia airport before deporting him to Cairo. Gamal Eid was heading to Amman on his way back from Beirut after participating in the celebrations honouring Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the Al...

The chairperson of Namibia's Legislative body, the National Council, has called on the Ombudsman Office to investigate the Namibian's SMS readers' page and radio chat show programmes as to whether they are being used to demonise Namibian leaders. The Namibian publishes SMS messages from readers on various topics in Namibia. The call was made by Margret Mensah, chairperson of the National Council...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has expressed concern at the state of photojournalism in Europe following an EFJ seminar in Paris last weekend. "The importance of a photo, an image which tells a story and is an irreplaceable part of journalism, must be protected and treated as any other editorial creative work," said Arne König, EFJ President, who participated in the meeting on 'Photo...

Pakistani businessman Munir Mengal, a member of the Balochi minority who was arrested for planning to launch a Balochi satellite TV station and detained by military intelligence (MI) and the police, was kept incommunicado for 16 months under the orders of then President Pervez Musharraf. Mengal made this revelation to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) during an interview in a European country where...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has wlcomed the progress being made in the investigation into the abduction and torture of two journalists employed by Brazilian newspaper, O Dia, and their driver in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Batan on May 14. Three military police officers wanted in connection with the case—Fabio Gonçalves Soares (also known as 'Fabinho Catiri'), Marcos Antonio Alves da Silva...

Journalist Habib Papy Boudendji, popularly known as Habib Bilalou, of satirical weekly Le Nganga, left hospital on December 10 after treatment for serious injuries from a brutal beating by soldiers within the presidential palace on December 5. In one of his articles, carried by Le Nganga on November 27, he pointed the finger at the head of state’s eldest daughter and director of the presidential...

Journalists in the Gambia still live in fear of authorities who have allowed continuing impunity to the killers of Deyda Hydara, co-founder of the Point, four years after his murder on December 16, 2004. Hydara, who was also correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), was shot dead by unidentified gunmen from a taxi as he was driving his car in an outlying...

Contrary to initial claims by the Mozambican police, Aníbal “Anibalzinho” António dos Santos Junior, the convicted killer of journalist Carlos Cardoso, was not recaptured after escaping from prison for the third time on December 7 and is still on the run. “We are puzzled and worried,” Paris-based Reporters sans frontières (RSF) reacted. “How can a convict of this kind escape three times...

The police in Burkina Faso on Monday summoned four leaders of the Collective against Impunity, two days after they organised a march calling for a renewed investigation into the unsolved 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo. Among those questioned was Jean-Claude Meda, the president of the Association of Journalists of Burkina Faso, who told the New York-based Committee to Protect...

A plenary session of the Damascus appeal court has refused to grant journalist and human rights activist Michel Kilo early release, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The judges on December 15 overturned an earlier ruling by the court in favour of Kilo’s release from Adra prison, in a Damascus suburb. Overturning a Damascus criminal court’s decision, the appeal court had ruled on...