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The Committee to Protect Journalists has welcomed Thursday's move by Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court to strike down criminal defamation, saying it is not compatible with the country's new constitution. The court ruled that criminal defamation violated freedom of expression and that civil suits would adequately protect individuals alleging defamation, reports said. The ruling is in response to a...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the detention of Hassan Ishaq, reporter for the privately owned daily Al-Jarida, who has been held without charge by Sudanese security forces since Tuesday. Ashraf Abd al-Aziz, Al-Jarida's editorial director, told CPJ he believed Ishaq had been arrested in connection with his coverage of a speech on Saturday by a leader of the opposition Sudanese...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Jordanian authorities to drop the terrorism charges and release from custody staffers of the Al-Abasiya TV station in Amman who were arrested after a recent raid and shutdown of the outlet. "Charging journalists and media workers with terrorism offenses is a big step in the wrong direction for Jordan, which once was considered a leader in press...

The International Press Institute (IPI) Thursday strongly condemned the continued detention of journalist Abdullah Elshamy by Egyptian authorities and called for the immediate release of all journalists being held in prison because of their work. According to media reports, Elshamy, a journalist for Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel who has been detained since August 14 without charge, was told in...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed alarm at Bishkek City Court's refusal to open a new investigation into the case of Azimjon Askarov, a journalist and human rights defender who has been imprisoned in Kyrgyzstan since 2010 in retaliation for his work exposing wrongdoing. The court scrapped today an earlier decision by a lower Bishkek court, which had ruled that the journalist's...

The International Press Institute (IPI) Thrsday urged Israeli authorities to refrain from interfering in media outlets’ editorial decisions following a raid last Friday on the studios of a Palestinian broadcaster. Israeli security forces raided the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC)’s East Jerusalem studios while the station was broadcasting the morning programme “Good Morning...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) in condemning an attack on a journalist on Sunday, June 7. Thakur Gurung, the news editor of Radio Bihani in Dhading district, was attacked in Bansathali, Kathmandu by an unidentified group while he was returning from a program that he attended in the capacity of a journalist. He...

The Nigerian National Committee of the International Press Institute (IPI) has viewed with grave concern the persistent assault on the media by the Nigerian government. The Committee condemned in particular the ongoing ambushing and impounding of newspaper delivery vans and the seizure and destruction of newspapers by the military under the dubious guise of protecting national security. The...

The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) today commended the ruling of the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, sitting in Abuja, Nigeria on 10 June, concerning the case of Deyda Hydara versus The Gambia. According to independent sources, the defendant state produced Captain Lamin K. Saine as their witness. Captain Saine was a senior official at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and was...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is deeply concerned that Macau’s public broadcaster, Teledifusão de Macau S.A. (TDM), allegedly imposed self-censorship during the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4 and tried to deprive journalists of their right to choose their on-screen clothing. On the eve of the 1989 anniversary last week, supervisors at TeledifusÃ...