News

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined its Israeli affiliate, the National Federation of Israel Journalists (NFIJ), to call on the Israeli government to revoke its plans to close down the country's only public broadcaster, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA). According to the NFIJ, the government last week introduced a plan to lay off IBA's 2000 staff, about 900 of whom...

Police in Kampala are hunting for a suspect in the death of a Vision Group photo journalist, Mubiru Royce Kakebe, who reportedly died from a tetanus attack from injuries he sustained from Percy Nanyondo in January this year as he carried on with his work. Sources in the police told Human Rights Network for Journalists - Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) that Kakebe reported an assault at a police post in...

Algerian authorities are deploying large numbers of police and arresting protesters to prevent demonstrations in the capital in advance of the April 17, 2014 presidential elections, Human Rights Watch said Monday. Officials recently targeted a movement opposed to a fourth term for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Algerian authorities should rescind the 2001 decree banning all demonstrations in...

Azerbaijan should promptly revise its libel laws to meet international standards for freedom of expression and the media, the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) and Media Rights Institute (MRI) have said. The organizations called on Azerbaijan's Parliament (Milli Meclis) to strike down articles 147 (libel), 148 (insult), 323 (humiliation of honor and dignity of the President of the...

Reporters Without Borders has condemned the March 14 arrest of Huang Qi, the director of the independent news website 64 Tianwang, and last week’s arrests of three citizen-journalists who are contributors to the site and who are still detained. They were arrested in connection with their coverage of protests and other actions that “petitioners” staged in Tiananmen Square in an attempt to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed alarm at the blocking on Thursday of independent and pro-opposition news websites in Russia, including Ezhednevny Zhurnal, Grani, Kasparov, and the website of the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy. The popular blog of anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny and the personal blogging platform LiveJournal were also blocked. "Russian authorities are...

Journalists covering the ongoing crisis in the southern Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea continue to be detained, harassed, and obstructed, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on all sides of the crisis to allow journalists to report freely on the events in Crimea and Ukraine. Attacks on local and international journalists in Crimea have been on the...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has expressed concern at threats made against Balbina Flores Martínez, Mexico correspondent for the international press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders. On Wednesday, Flores received a series of telephone calls in which she was told that someone had been hired to "harm her," according to news reports. "Mexican authorities must launch a timely...

The guilty verdict and prison sentence given to veteran Somali journalist, Mohamed Aweys Mudey, is unacceptable, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). It has appealed to Ethiopian authorities to quash his sentence and release him with immediate effect. According to IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Mudey has been sentenced to 27 years in...

The Freetown high court has cautioned and discharged Independent Observer managing editor Jonathan Leigh and editor Bai Bai Sesay after pressuring them into pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to defame the president. “Sierra Leone’s justice system took more than ten hearings to drop this case (on March 10),” said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of the Reporters Without Borders...