News

Tajikistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced two men found guilty of killing a Russian journalist earlier this year to 21 years each in a high-security prison, RIA-Novosti has reported. Ilyas Shurpayev, a reporter for Russia's state-run Channel One, was found dead in his rented apartment in Moscow on March 21. Reading out the verdict, the presiding judge said the defendants were guilty of a...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the July 28 decision by Niger's public prosecutor to appeal against an investigating judge's decision on July 23 to dismiss the charges on which Radio Saraounia manager Moussa Kaka has been held since September 2007. The authorities would have had to free Kaka if the prosecutor had not filed his appeal. "The government's determination to keep Kaka in...

During the weekend of July 26-27, unidentified individuals broke into the offices of CIMAC (Comunicación e Información de la Mujer), a Mexico City-based non-govermental organisation that reports on women's issues through the "Cimacnoticias" news agency. The assailants stole some of the organisation's equipment and destroyed a number of documents. CIMAC editor Carolina Velázquez explained in an...

Afghan television reporter Mohammad Nasir Fayyaz was detained one day after his television station aired a documentary that was critical of some cabinet members and their ministries, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The programme was cut short while being broadcast, apparently at the demand of the government, media reports said. Afghan and foreign media reports said Fayyaz...

The Hamas-led government in Gaza should immediately halt a wave of censorship and harassment of Palestinian media outlets and journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. CPJ also called on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to end its longstanding obstruction of certain media outlets in the West Bank On Tuesday, for the second consecutive day, Hamas banned distribution in...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned Friday's vicious attack on Zurab Tsechoyev, editor of Mashr, a human rights website based in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. At least 50 armed, masked men in camouflage gear raided Tsechoyev's home, shoved him into an armoured personnel carrier, drove him to an unknown location, and interrogated and beat him for five...

A Panamanian judge has barred sports columnist Bienvenido Brown from leaving the country and ordered him to stand trial on criminal defamation charges filed in 2005. Eleventh Criminal Court Judge Josefina Sclopis issued the ruling on Friday against Brown, a columnist with the daily La Estrella de Panamá, the newspaper reported. The judge's decision stemmed from a criminal defamation suit against...

Kurdish freelance journalist Saman Rasoulpour was arrested on July 27 at his home in Mahabad, in Iran's predominantly Kurdish northwest, two days after some 200 Kurds staged a peaceful demonstration in Mahabad to demand the overturning of the death sentences imposed on journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed "Hiva" Botimar, and Kurdish teacher Farzad Kamangar. "We call on the authorities to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over the July 26 arrest of a Palestinian cameraman in Gaza by Hamas security services. Hamas security agents arrested Sawah Abu Seif, a cameraman with German broadcaster ARD TV, in his home in Tel al-Hawa in southwest Gaza following an explosion that Hamas blamed on Fatah, which killed six people in Gaza, according to local...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of Mohammed Naseer Fayyaz, the host of the programme "Haqeeqat" (The Truth) on Afghanistan's privately-owned Ariana TV, who was arrested on July 28 by members of the Directorate for National Security (DNS) at the government's behest. "Harsh comments were made on the air about two ministers and the president but the government is making a...