News

A Moscow-based English language newspaper which poked fun at Russia and the West has closed after its backers stopped funding it, its editor said on Monday, according to Reuters. Officials from a Russian government agency responsible for the media visited the offices of the Exile on June 5 and took away copies for analysis, scaring investors who have withdrawn their support, editor Mark Ames told...

Mohamed Nema Oumar, the publisher of the privately-owned, Arabic-language weekly Al-Houriya, was released on the evening of June 13 after being held for 30 hours in a police station in the Nouakchott district of Tevragh Zeina, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). He was charged two days later with "libel and insult" and was ordered to report to the police twice a week pending trial...

Traditional authorities in Swaziland continue to harass and intimidate the media, particularly in instances when the Swazi monarchy faces criticism, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). On June 14, the traditional governor, Jim Gama, who is regarded as the traditional prime minister, launched a scathing attack on the print media and threatened journalists for what he claimed...

Fátima Monterrosa, an investigative journalist for the Mexican magazine Emeequis, has been subjected to threats after publishing an article entitled "A Viceroyalty Named Tlaxcala". The article exposed a series of anomalies in the administration of the state government of Tlaxcala. The work of Monterrosa is well known in the journalistic community in Mexico. She has worked as a press correspondent...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner to raise the problem of risks to journalists covering fighting in the Palestinian territories at the Israel-EU Association Council meeting in Luxemburg on June 16. "The death of Fadel Shana, of the British news agency Reuters, on April 16, has reawakened our concern about the lack of...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged authorities to drop charges against Hassan Rachidi, the head of Al-Jazeera's bureau in Morocco, accused of broadcasting false information and conspiracy. IFJ said in a statement Monday that it believed the court case, stemming from Al-Jazeera reporting incorrectly on Saturday that there had been deaths during protests in the south-western...

US soldiers who killed a Reuters journalist in Iraq acted within military rules, but the Army's probe of the incident was tainted by its failure to preserve evidence, a Pentagon investigation said on Monday. The Defense Department's inspector general, the Pentagon's watchdog agency, found that U.S. soldiers who fired on a Reuters car in west Baghdad in August 2005, killing Reuters Television...

The Azerbaijan police Saturday raided an event organised by the "Che Guevera Fan Club" to mark the 80th birthday of Che Guevera, according to the Institute for Reporter Freedom and Safety (IRFS). Of the 25 people present, 20 were detained by police and taken to Nasimi District Police Department #22. Among those detained were IRFS Chairman Emin Huseynov and IRFS researchers Rasim Aliyev and...

Burmese authorities have arrested a journalist in Magway, and are holding him in Rangoon in what observers say is part of a continuing effort to stifle news and information coming out of Burma's cyclone-ravaged provinces, according to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA). SEAPA Alerts partner Mizzima News says journalist Zaw Thet Htwe, the former editor-in-chief of First Eleven Sports...

A Colombian journalist has been threatened and asked not to distribute his magazine in a remote town, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). On June 14, at 2:20 p.m. (local time) in the national capital, Bogotá, journalist Pedro Antonio Cárdenas was stopped by two men travelling on a motorcycle. After pointing a revolver at him, they threw him to the ground and beat him up...