News

The suspect in the 2004 killing of radio broadcaster Herson Hinolan surrendered to the authorities on after a key witness retracted his earlier testimony against the suspect, according to the Manila-based Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Alfredo Arcenio, a former mayor of Lezo town in Aklan, approximately 345 km south of Manila, surrendered to the Kalibo Regional Trial Court...

Journalists in Sierra Leone are challenging laws that criminalise free speech and authorise prison terms of up to seven years for those who criticise the government. The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) filed the lawsuit with the country's Supreme Court: last week, seeking to overturn Sierra Leone's criminal libel and false news laws. The laws allow prison sentences for expression...

Guatemala President Álvaro Colom has broached the possibility of declassifying a number of military documents that would shed light on the fate of thousands of Guatemalans who disappeared during the years of internal armed struggle in the country. The president, on February 25 during an event marking National Victims' Day, said his initiative is supported by a number of high-ranking military...

The editor of privately-owned twice-weekly newspaper L'interprète was abducted by unidentified armed men near a bus stop in the Kinshasa neighbourhood of Masina on March 7, according to delayed reports received by Journaliste en danger (JED). Editor Nsimba Embete Ponte is being held in a secret location and the official motives for his arrest remain unknown. According to information obtained by...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed concern at Nicaragua's commutation of sentences in the cases of the convicted murderers of journalists María José Bravo and Carlos Guadamuz, a development that it claimed "adds to the climate of impunity surrounding freedom of the press in Latin America." According to a report in the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa this week, justices of the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has announced a new factfinding mission to Pakistan and issued a challenge to the new government and media to work together for a “fresh start for press freedom.” “The time is right for change and for all sides to break out of the cycle of violence, political pressure, and media indifference that has created crisis conditions for journalism in the...

A French reporter was stabbed Saturday last at a hotel in Iraq's northern Kurdish city of Irbil, police said. The reporter was hospitalised with minor injuries to her arm, according to Irbil police chief Brig Gen Abdul-Khaliq Talat. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned the attack on Cécile Hennion, a reporter working for Le Monde. “This brazen attack shows how dangerous the...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has rejected the Sri Lankan government’s proposed national media policy in favour of a self-generated, self-regulated and independent framework that encompasses journalists from all sides of the nation’s conflict. According to the Free Media Movement (FMM), an IFJ affiliate, Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa refused to divulge...

The editor of a women’s rights magazine in Afghanistan was arrested in Iran on March 4 and continues to be held without charge. The Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA) has reported that Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, editor of the monthly Haqoq-e-Zan (Women’s Rights) magazine, was reportedly detained by Iranian officials in Qumm, near the Iranian capital Tehran. Documents, phones and a computer...

Six people affiliated with the Sri Lankan news website OutreachSL have been detained by the Terrorist Investigation Division of the Sri Lankan police force in Colombo since last week, according to Agence France-Presse and local news reports. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CJ) has urged the government of Sri Lanka to charge these journalists and media workers or release them...