News

Yemeni authorities should immediately return the broadcasting equipment of the private TV station Yemen Today and permit it to resume broadcasting. Military forces raided the station, owned by former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, on June 11, 2014, following its coverage of protests in the streets of Sanaa, the capital. “Media freedom means covering the news, including presenting diverse views...

Egyptian authorities have sentenced three Al Jazeera reporters to lengthy prison terms based on ungrounded and extraordinary claims, the International Press Institute (IPI) said Monday. Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed, reporters for Al Jazeera English, were sentenced Monday on charges they were conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to broadcast false reports of civil strife in...

Authorities in Bahrain are arbitrarily detaining photographers who have covered protests and convicting them in unfair trials. Four award-winning Bahraini photographers are either in jail or facing criminal charges in what appears to be part of a policy that violates photographers’ right to freedom of expression. On June 22, 2014, Hussain Hubail, who won a 2013 award for his photographs of anti...

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) has denounced today the continuous harassment of journalists in Zimbabwe. According to the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, ZUJ, a FAJ affiliate, unidentified armed men have yesterday June 19th, burgled the house of journalist Mduduzi Mathuthu editor with the newspaper The Chronicle in the eastern city of Bulawayo while the house of another journalist...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), and the Hong Kong Radio Television Programme Staff Union in condemning the Hong Kong Police for abusing their powers and preventing media personnel from carrying out their duties. In the early hours of June 14, a group of protestors were taken away by police after they...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association (AIJA) in condemning the arrest of a US-based Afghan journalist without charge on Tuesday, June 17. Khalid Hadi Haidari, the editor-in-chief of Benawa.com, a Pashto language website established in 2004 covering human rights, freedom of speech, civil rights and related issues in...

The International Press Institute (IPI) Wednesday called on the US Justice Department to bring to a close its criminal investigation into Wikileaks over the website’s role in the publication of leaked Defense and State Department documents in 2010. Authorities have acknowledged that a criminal investigation targeting Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, remains ongoing four years after the...

Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court ruled on June 12 that the country’s criminal defamation law violates a constitutional safeguard on freedom of expression. The ruling came in a case against two journalists charged with criminal defamation following a complaint by Munyaradzi Kereke, a member of the ruling Zanu PF party. Kereke filed the complaint in 2011 against Nevanji Madanhire, editor of The...

A Slovak court’s decision ordering a tabloid to apologise to a judge for its reporting on a private party where attendees allegedly made light of a mass murder sets a dangerous precedent, the International Press Institute (IPI) and its Slovak National Committee said Wednesday. A Bratislava court on Monday ordered daily tabloid Nový ÄŒas to apologise to Slovakian Supreme Court Judge Daniel HudÃ...

The International Press Institute (IPI) Wednesday called on all parties to take greater care to ensure the safety of journalists in eastern Ukraine following the death Tuesday of a Russian correspondent and his sound engineer near Luhansk. AP reported that Igor Kornelyuk, a correspondent with the state-owned Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, and two colleagues, sound...