News

The Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) decreed on Tuesday that journalists should not be jailed over their work, two days after two were jailed for libel, the state WAM news agency reported. Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum "has issued instructions ... not to imprison journalists for reasons related to their work," said the head of the National Media Council, Sheikh Abdullah bin...

Reporters Without Borders today voiced its concern about a series of attacks against the press in the run-up to regional elections in Colombia on 28 October. A crew from privately-owned television Caracol was yesterday the target of a vicious attack with machetes and stones while reporting on a scam in connection with land sales. A few days previously, a journalist on the privately-owned daily La...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times may launch a free, tabloid-sized daily newspaper, Times Publisher David Hiller said on Thursday. Hiller, speaking at a luncheon in Los Angeles, said the new paper would be similar to Redeye, a paper published and distributed for free at commuter stations by the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune and the Times are both owned by Tribune Co, which is going...

Egypt's prosecutor general has reversed a decision to send an outspoken tabloid newspaper editor who questioned President Hosni Mubarak's health to the country's emergency court of no appeal. A judiciary official said Friday that Al-Dustour editor Ibrahim Eissa will instead face a regular criminal court where appeals are possible on October 1. The official did not elaborate on the reasons why the...

There is worldwide outrage at the apparently deliberate fatal shooting of Japanese cameraman Kenji Nagai by a Burmese soldier on Thursday. Video footage shown on Japan’s Fuji News Network has revealed that Nagai, who was filming near a group of demonstrators in Yangon, was pushed to the ground and shot at near point-blank range. The Japanese embassy in Burma said the bullet entered Nagai’s body...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a wave of arrests of dissidents yesterday as a peaceful protest in support of political prisoners was being prepared in front of the Justice Ministry in the Havana. Among the around 30 people arrested and still being held are four journalists: free-lance Idania Yanes Contreras, Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, correspondent for the websites Payolibre and...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) applauds the efforts taken by coalitions to promote Freedom of Information (FOI) Laws in Africa and reaffirms its unflinching support and collaboration with the stakeholders involved in the process. Today as we commemorate the International Right to Know Day, the IFJ reiterate its support to the FOI coalitions in Africa and calls on its affiliates...

(MFWA/IFEX) - The proceedings against Malick Jones, a principal producer with the state-owned Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), and Mam Sait Ceesay, a former editor of the pro-government "Daily Observer" newspaper, were suspended on 26 September 2007. The decision followed defence counsel Antouman Gaye's submission that the case was filed without a fiat of the Attorney General as...

New York, September 27, 2007—Haitian President René Préval has pledged support for an independent committee evaluating stalled investigations into a series of unsolved journalist murders this decade and said that all political obstacles to justice have now been removed. Meeting with a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday, Préval expressed his “full support” for the...

(CEPET/IFEX) - Mexico, 25 September 2007 - Arcadio Acevedo, a columnist with the newspaper "Expreso de Chiapas", has denounced the media coordination office of the government of Chiapas (Coordinación de Comunicación Social, Cocoso) for threatening to withdraw official advertising from the newspaper if he continues writing on "forbidden topics". He further claims that such pressures are exerted...