News

The Sudanese police Monday arrested 70 journalists in capital Khartoum where they had gathered to present a memorandum to lawmakers asking them to revise the Press and Media Law and to make it conform to the interim constitution. Scores of journalists rallied outside parliament condemning the censorship which flouts the freedom of expression supposed to be enshrined in Sudan's interim constitution...

The Jornal Atual newspaper, based in the inland town of Itaguaí in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state, has suffered a significant reduction in its distribution. According to the newspaper's owner, Marcelo Godinho, 15 street newsstand vendors have refused since November 6 to put the newspaper out for sale to their customers. All of the newsstands in question belong to the same owner, known as "Rodolfo"...

The Argentine Journalism Forum (Foro de Periodismo Argentino, FOPEA) has condemned the assault on journalist Fabricio Glibota on November 14. The incident took place while Glibota was carrying out his work in the city of Resistencia, the capital of the northern province of Chaco, and is one of the worst attacks against the press to occur in Argentina this year. Glibota, a journalist for Radio...

A group of soldiers, accompanied by police agents, a prosecutor and a representative from the transport and communications ministry burst into the headquarters of a Peruvian radio station, cancelled its broadcasting signal and seized all of its equipment. The incident took place on November 12 in Tacna, southern Peru, which was declared to be in a state of emergency on November 4 after the region...

The police has shut down Radio Galkayo and arrested journalist Hassan Mohammed Jama, the director of the radio station in the Mudug region of Puntland, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has reported. The commander of the Puntland police in the region, Colonel Abdirisak Ismail, who is known as Darwish, along with a team of well-armed police officers raided Radio Galkayo at 2:00 p.m....

Zambia's members of Parliament (MPs) have called for the regulation of media organisations through the use of statutory instruments as opposed to self-regulation because of the alleged biased media coverage of the just ended presidential by-election. According to a report in the Zambia Daily Mail of November 14 and the live broadcast of Parliament Radio which Media Institute of Southern Africa...

Two publications in Pakistan's Sindh province, the daily Islam and the weekly Zarb-e-Momin, have been banned for the alleged offence of spreading "anti-state feelings". Although the order was made by the Sindh provincial government under an article of the Criminal Procedure Code dealing with forfeiture for spreading "anti-state feeling", the action appears to have been initiated by the Federal...

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) has expressed concern over reports on violations of freedom of expression and access to information in several African countries, including Zimbabwe. In her report to the 44th Session of the ACHPR in Abuja, Nigeria on November 13, advocate Pansy Tlakula, the ACHPR's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in...

An appeal court in Saida (440 km southwest of Algiers) has imposed a two-month prison sentence on journalist Hassan Bourras in addition to the fine of 40,000 dinars (460 euros) to which he was originally sentenced, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court on October 28 issued the additional sentence after upholding his conviction on charges of libel and “attacking state institutions...

Authorities in Zimbabwe should halt harassment of media and human rights lawyer Harrison Nkomo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Nkomo is awaiting word on whether he will face criminal charges after a client left Zimbabwe in the midst of a case, said Beatrice Mtetwa, co-founder of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Nkomo was defending Phillip Taylor, a British national...