News

(CJFE/IFEX) - Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) commends the Quebec Labour Relations Board's decision to refuse to force Quebec journalist Karine Gagnon to reveal confidential sources in a hearing yesterday. Last November, Gagnon, of Le Journal de Québec, wrote a report about the potential health threat of asbestos in government buildings. Immediately after it was published, a source...

(BIANET/IFEX) - Sociologist Ismail Besikci, known in Turkey for his enduring academic interest in the Kurds and for facing both an end to his academic career and imprisonment over his books, is on trial under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code. Besikci had written an article entitled "We did not talk, we had it printed", which was published in the monthly magazine, "Popüler Kürtür Esmer"...

(BIANET/IFEX) - On 14 June 2007, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decreed that freedom of expression was not curtailed in the case of Hünkar Demirel, the manager of the weekly newspaper "Yedinci Gündem", who appealed to the ECHR after he was convicted of "aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation by spreading propaganda". Demirel was put to trial over an article published in the...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has called for the release of a secondary school teacher and a total of five journalists who have been arrested over an article about a school essay on the comical indiscretions of an imaginary president. eThe teacher and an "Info-Matin" reporter were arrested on 14 June 2007. "Info-Matin's" editor and the editors of three other newspapers were arrested on 20...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has renewed its calls for the Philippines government to decriminalise libel, after another journalist was jailed for defamation in a lawsuit issued by a former congressman. According to IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Jofelle Tesorio, former correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders condemns the use of violence by members of the national police and United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) against several journalists, including Daylue Goah of the privately-owned daily "New Democrat" and Evans Ballah of "Public Agenda", during a student demonstration on 19 June 2007. Goah was seriously injured. "Such police brutality against journalists...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders expressed surprise that the government of Antigua and Barbuda expelled the former editor of the daily "Antigua Sun", Vernon Khelawan, and a colleague of privately-owned Observer Radio, Lennox Linton, on 12 and 13 June 2007. Both men are citizens of countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), with agreements allowing free movement for...

New York, June 21, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the recent release of Vladimir Chugunov, founder and editor of the independent weekly Chugunka inthe town ofSolnechnogorsk, who had been held incommunicado since January 21 on a charge of “threatening to murder or cause serious health damage.” The criminal case is still pending, however, and CPJ today called on authorities to...

Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about a new wave of threats and attacks on journalists in May and June, in which the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have often been to blame. The organisation is also worried about hostility towards the media displayed in recent student protests against an announced cut in government funding for state universities. “The...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a lawsuit that was brought against the Spanish daily El País in the southwestern city of Wroclaw on 5 June accusing it of “defaming the Polish people” in an article by former Spanish parliamentarian Pilar Rahola entitled “Poland still freezes the soul” that was published on 17 March. “We deplore the use, for the first time, of article 132 of the Polish...