News

There has been no improvement in the human rights and press freedom situation in Cuba since Raúl Castro took over from his older brother Fidel as acting President of the Council of State a year ago, on 31 July 2006, Reporters Without Borders said as Cuba today celebrated the 54th anniversary of a rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks. With Fidel Castro still hospitalized, Raúl presided over today’s...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the government’s political exploitation of the fact that a much-commented TV report about pork buns made with cardboard supposedly turned out to have been fabricated. The authorities have used it to launch a campaign against fake news reports with "heavy penalties" for the journalists responsible. "Journalist Zi Beijia’s arrest has enabled the institutions...

NEW DELHI, July 26: The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has noted with consternation and alarm the decision reportedly taken by the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (Citu) in West Bengal to suspend distribution of newspapers in Kolkata on 8 August. In a Press release issued in the Capital today, INS president Mr Hormusji N. Cama stated: “This decision, we are informed, has been taken to extend...

(CMFR/IFEX) - A radio station manager of a local broadcasting company was shot by a government official on 25 July 2007 in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, an island province approximately 480 km from Manila. Ferdinand "Bambi" Yngson, manager of GMA Network's Super Radyo dySB in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, and a member of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, was on his bicycle...

NEW YORK: You can do a lot with the Internet — except, it seems, satisfactorily measure how people use it. Trackers of Internet usage have recently been tinkering with their methodologies in an attempt to properly reflect the ever-changing patterns of Web users and the shifting face of the Internet itself. Yet instead of providing more clarity, these recent changes are causing confusion among...

Reporters Without Borders voiced relief on learning that a Danish journalist and his Afghan interpreter were freed shortly after being kidnapped last night in Taangar, in the eastern province of Konar. The provincial governor said they were released after a few hours. "Their swift release is excellent news but their abduction, however brief, confirms that the vicious circle of kidnappings of...

Reporters Without Borders has renewed an appeal for the release of journalist, Hada [one name], a Mongolian political prisoner since 1995, whose family says he has recently been maltreated, and also condemned the denial of free expression online to the Mongolian minority. "The slogan for the Beijing Olympics, ’One World, One Dream’, leaves a bitter taste for China’s minorities," the worldwide...

Port Harcourt, Nigeria (AHN) - Gunmen stormed into a newspaper office and shot a British professor and a security guard in the city of Port Harcourt in oil-rich Niger Delta, Wednesday. The professor received bullet on the hand while the guard was shot in leg. The gunmen then robbed the newspaper of several laptops and trashed the office. Professor Michael Watts, who was attending an awards...

New York, July 25, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from prison on Tuesday of a Tunisian human rights lawyer who had been jailed nearly 28 months because of online articles he wrote criticizing the Tunisian government. Mohammed Abbou and more than 20 other political prisoners were freed by order of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The order, which grants a form of...

BERLIN: Germany officials said Wednesday they could not confirm reports from Afghanistan that a German journalist working for the Stern newsmagazine had been kidnapped and released, and Stern said he had never been kidnapped. Instead, officials in Afghanistan said a Danish journalist of Afghan origin had escaped a kidnapping attempt. Stern said journalist Christoph Reuter, subject of the initial...