News

The South Asian Centre for Journalists Reporting Conflict (SCJRC), a joint venture of the Press Institute of India (PII) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was inaugurated in Chennai on Friday, according to the Hindu It was the need to uphold freedom of the press and to ensure the protection of those dedicated to journalism that spurred the two organisations to set up the...

Shortly after the editor of daily Hamro Prajashakti moved the High Court against the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) government, the newspaper office was attacked by masked men who injured seven journalists, including editor Anjan Upadhya, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. The journalists of various newspapers and agency who gathered at the office at Ranipool, about 10 km from here...

Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border, says a Reuters report. "When it was proven that they're journalists and not spies, we freed them," Taliban spokesman Asad said. A group of tribal elders had gone to negotiate for the release of the journalists, freelance reporter Pir Zubair Shah...

Two freelance journalists - reporter Pir Zubair Shah and photographer Akhtar Soomoro - were abducted thursday by a Taliban group in the Mohmand region of the Tribal Areas while doing a story on marble production, which the authorities plan to develop. "The abudction of these two respected journalists is incomprehensible and we hope the Taliban leaders will quickly heed the calls for their release...

Two journalists and their companion were Friday abducted by the local Taliban in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal region even as scribes expressed concern at the deteriorating law and order situation in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, says a Press Trust of India (PTI) report. Reporter Pir Zubair Shah, photo-journalist Akhtar Soomro and Abdul Hassan, a leader of the local unit of the ruling...

There has been an upsurge in cases being brought against journalists in Kuwait, despite the fact it was the first Gulf state to decriminalise press offences. "The 2006 press law reform profoundly transformed the emirate's media landscape. We urge the authorities to continue to strengthen the protection of the right to be informed and to inform the public," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières...

The Kanifing Court trying Dida Halake, former Managing Director of the Observer Company Limited, publishers of the pro-government Daily Observer newspaper, on June 25 granted him bail after almost two weeks in detention. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that he was granted bail in the sum of 25,000 Gambian Dalasi (approx. US$11,901) and one surety to reappear on July 9...

Officers of the Institute for Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas, CICPC) have arrested Isaac Mollera Zárraga, the alleged murderer of journalist Javier García, who was found dead in his flat in Caracas on June 15, according to Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS). García, who was the host of RCTV Internacional television...

A reporter of a Rangoon-based weekly journal, Ecovision, has been charged with "committing crimes against public tranquility" and "inciting hatred against the government," according to Mizzima News. Ma Eint Khaing Oo of Ecovision was produced before the Tamwe Township Court in Rangoon Division for the first time on June 24 and charged under Section 505(b) and 124(a) of the Criminal Code. Offences...

Two journalists in Russia's Bashkortostan Republic have been convicted under the country's vague extremism law. Each has been sentenced to serve a suspended two-year prison term. Their newspaper has been shuttered. On June 25, the Kirov District Court in the regional capital of Ufa, in the central Russian Republic of Bashkortostan, convicted and sentenced Viktor Shmakov, editor-in-chief of the...