News

The trial of a Bangladeshi editor arrested for advocating ties with Israel began in Dhaka on Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post has reported. Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury, editor of the Weekly Blitz, an English-language newspaper published in the Bangladeshi capital, is facing a series of charges that include sedition. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death. Details from the Post: In November 2003...

Reporters covering the aftermath of Monday's attack on a border police outpost in Kashgar have been detained, beaten, and harassed, according to international news reports. Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported Wednesday that police in Kashgar dragged Masami Kawakita, a photographer from the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper's Tokyo headquarters, and Shinji Katsuta, a reporter for Nippon Television Network...

The police in the western Uzbek city of Nukus have brought another charge against an independent journalist to justify his arrest and detention, after initially bringing charges of drug use, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On August 2, investigators in Nukus acknowledged that Salidzhon Abdurakhmonov's blood test results revealed no sign of drug use but...

Ethiopian police in the capital, Addis Ababa, threatened on August 4 to block distribution of an independently owned newspaper if it continues its leading coverage of a new political opposition movement, according to local journalists. The Amharic-language weekly Awramba Times reported Tuesday that it had received two separate phone warnings from top police officials to stop any coverage of "anti...

President Alexander Lukashenko has signed a restrictive new media law which will allow authorities to further restrict press freedom in Belarus. The Belarusian parliament - before its adjournment in late June - rushed the bill through in three consecutive readings and passed it to the Constitutional Court for review. According to the local press, the court rubberstamped the bill in July and...

An Iranian newspaper journalist has been executed for allegedly associating with a militant group and threatening national security, officials in Iran said Tuesday, according to a report in the Guardian. Yaghoob Mirnehad, a reporter for the Tehran-based Mardomsalari newspaper, was executed along with another man on Monday, a spokesman for the judiciary said. Some background: Mirnehad, who was...

Voice of the People, a radio station operated by the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was closed down by Hamas in Gaza City on August 2. "The Islamist party Hamas must stop arbitrarily targeting news media just because they do not blindly relay its propaganda," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "Press freedom is under serious threat in the Gaza Strip...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned a shooting attack on journalist Amanaj Khalil, of the weekly Rudaw, on August 1 in Kani Kardatt, a region to the west of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan. Khalil, who was not injured, had reportedly been getting threats because of one of his articles. "This attempt to murder Khalil should be taken seriously by the authorities in Kurdistan," Paris-based...

The International Federation of Journalists has condemned changes being made in the management of major broadcast media in Korea which amount to political interference. According to IFJ affiliate, the Korean Association of Journalists (JAK), the government of Lee Myung Bak, which took over in February, is trying to manipulate media to suit their political tastes by appointing executives to state...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Senegalese authorities to put an end to the attacks on media and independent journalists and to build a new relationship with journalists. The call came after a police raid of a printing house to prevent distribution of the newspaper L'As and the interrogation of the paper's publisher. On Thursday, Mamadou Thierno Talla, L'As Director...