News

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum (WEF) have condemned the UN Human Rights Council’s repeated efforts to undermine freedom of expression in the name of protecting religious sensibilities. “WAN reminds the UN that the Council’s proper role is to defend freedom of expression and not to support the censorship of opinion at the request of autocracies,” the WAN Board...

The 61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum opened in Sweden June 2 with recognition of Sweden’s superb media example for the rest of the world—top-ranked digital developments combined with a deep love of print. “In the exploitation of the new opportunities created by the Internet, the Swedish, like their Nordic neighbours, have also proved leaders, whether through their digital...

The daily Nezavissimaya Gazeta has been ordered to vacate offices it rents from the city of Moscow within one month, in a move seen by press freedom advocates as worrying for press freedom in Russia. The notice to quit is supposedly to allow for major works in the building, but the paper’s management is convinced the decision is linked to recent articles critical of a speech by the mayor, Yuri...

Xavier Vidal-Folch, Deputy Director of the Spanish daily El Pais, has been elected President of the World Editors Forum (WEF), the global association for senior newsroom executives within the World Association of Newspapers WAN). Vidal-Folch was elected by the Board of WEF, meeting in Göteborg, Sweden, on the eve of the annual World Editors Forum conference. He succeeds George Brock, Saturday...

Fabakary B Ceesay, a reporter with the opposition newspaper Foroyaa in the Gambia, was threatened with abduction and violence by an anonymous caller on May 20 and 21, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). MFWA sources in the Gambia reported that the caller told Ceesay to stop writing articles critical of the government or "face the consequences." The calls came to Ceesay on two...

In what PEN has called a "shocking and very discouraging turn of events," writer and independent journalist Normando Hernández González has been removed from a hospital where he was receiving essential medical treatment and returned to Kilo 7 Prison in Camagüey, Cuba, where he is reportedly now being held in complete isolation in life-threatening conditions. According to PEN's information, on May...

ARTICLE 19 has welcomed the May 27 decision of Russia's Constitutional Court to uphold the appeal of a former NGO leader against criminal charges which were widely believed to be excessive. Manana Aslamazyan, former director of the Educated Media Foundation, had been charged with smuggling after failing to declare an amount of money she brought into Russia in 2007 which slightly exceeded the legal...

Two recent judicial decisions in Paraguay and the Dominican Republic have recognised access to public information as a fundamental human right. "The decisions of the courts in Paraguay and Dominican Republic represent clear progress in the protection and fulfillment of the right to freedom of information, and ARTICLE 19 warmly welcomes these rulings. They should be used to inspire others in Latin...

When community radio station Sarare Estéreo's journalists arrived for work at dawn on May 29 in Saravena, Aracua department, they found a gigantic graffiti message on the station door, apparently from the Colombian paramilitary group, Autodefensa Unidas de Colombia (AUC), according to the Internaitonal Federation of Journalists (IFJ). This is only the most recent of a series of threatening...

ANHRI has condemned the persistence of Egyptian Islamist preacher Sheikh Wajdi Ghunaim in his continuous harassment of the Bahraini newspaper Al-Ayam, and his prosecution of Eisa Al Shayji, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, and journalist-writer Saeed Al-Hamad. Ghunaim is suing the journalists for alleged slander before the Criminal Court. Ghunaim—an Egyptian preacher expelled from Bahrain in...