News

Ecuadoran government agents seized two private television stations early Tuesday morning and shuttered a critical radio station late Monday night. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by allegations that the actions were politically motivated. Members of the government’s Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD), backed by dozens of police officers, seized the Quito offices of local...

The Niger communication ministry has decided to close down Niamey's House of the Press, a centre used by journalists for various activities, including training seminars organised by the French and US embassies. Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) voiced its support for the journalist organisations and House of the Press members who issued a joint statement on July 2 saying they were...

In what could be a setback to the campaign for legal protection of journalists under threat, the Manila Court of Appeals denied on June 27 a petition for a writ of amparo filed by an Oriental Mindoro-based journalist, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Oriental Mindoro is a province approximately 140 km south of Manila. In a 21-page decision penned by Associate...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed concern over the reported disappearance of Wiqar Kiyani, a journalist working for the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom, shortly after he returned to Islamabad from a reporting assignment in Karachi. According to reports received from the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), an IFJ affiliate, Kiyani's home was raided...

Two city journalists — a female PTI staffer and NDTV India reporter Dharmendra Tiwari — were threatened, abused and assaulted by two railway officials inside a Titwala-bound local train on Saturday night, says an Indian Express report. The incident occurred when the reporters were returning home to Ghatkopar from Sion at 10.45 pm. According to a complaint filed by the reporters with the Kurla...

Turkmenistan has released a reporter working for US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) after two weeks of detention, Reuters has reported quoting a RFE/RL statement. RFE/RL said last month Sazak Durdymuradov, a contributing reporter on its Turkmen service, was detained and tortured after he refused to stop working for the Prague-based broadcaster. "The move came amid growing pressure...

The Chicago Tribune will cut 80 of its 578 newsroom jobs by the end of August, joining other Tribune newspapers that are laying off staff and trimming the size of their papers as they try to save money, according to a report on the paper's website, says Reuters. A spokesman for the paper declined to comment on the report. The cuts amount to nearly 14 per cent of the paper's news staff, and come on...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed alarm at a draft law in Iran that would extend the death penalty to include crimes committed online. Passed by parliament on first reading on July 2, the proposed law would, for example, apply the death penalty to bloggers and website editors who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." "This proposal is horrifying," Paris-based RSF said....

The government of Botswana has gazetted a media practitioners' bill which is expected to regulate the media by, among other things, setting up a statutory press council. The bill, passed on June 27, also seeks to register media practitioners residing in Botswana and provides for hefty penalties for any violation of the law, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). As an example...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the July 5 release of two Pakistan journalists who were abducted from Mohmand Agency by an alleged Taliban group in the notorious Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the country's north west on July 3. According to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), an IFJ affiliate, freelance reporter Pir Zubair Shah and...