News

Only pro-government media were admitted to a news conference which the Turkish military gave yesterday on the eve of naval manoeuvres near Famagusta bay. Three TV stations - Genc, Kibris and BRT - and the daily newspaper Yenidüzen were denied entry. An officer attached to the army’s bureau for civilian affairs told a BRT correspondent his station was excluded because it broadcast a documentary...

Baghdad: A senior Iraqi journalist was kidnapped on Wednesday in Baghdad, police said, in the latest attack against the media in Iraq. Gunmen in a convoy of cars seized Filaih Wadi Mijthab, managing editor of the state-run Al Sabah daily newspaper, while he was being driven with his son in Shi'ite-dominated Sadr City in east Baghdad. The son and driver were not taken. The media has been...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned judicial harassment of journalists who cover demonstrations. Four have been tried by revolutionary tribunals in recent weeks, three of them receiving prison sentences. Others are awaiting trial or the announcement of the court’s verdict. “We are dismayed by these sentences,” the press freedom organisation said. “These journalists just did their duty to...

Yemen's decision to block news stories delivered via mobile text messaging has drawn fire from free-press campaigners. Following a meeting with Yemeni Journalists Syndicate head Thabit Saeed Thabit on Sunday, prime minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar agreed to lift bars preventing access to political websites. But Yemen Observer reported Mujawar wants to suspend all SMS news services until his...

(MFWA/IFEX) - Lamin Fatty, a reporter with the banned newspaper "The Independent", who was convicted of publishing false information, has filed an appeal at a High Court in Banjul against his conviction. MFWA sources indicated that Lamin S. Camara, counsel for Fatty, appealed against the ruling immediately after the judge delivered it on 5 June 2007. The Kanfing District Magistrate Court, presided...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - In early 2001, Adnan Shahine was dragged into the chilly streets of Bethlehem and shot dead by Palestinian compatriots who accused him of spying for Israel. The show of brutal scruples was chronicled by Time magazine correspondent Matt Rees and the dead "collaborator" joined his thickening file of Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, stories.Weeks later, Rees happened upon...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has condemned the death threats that have been being made, since May 2007, against the Quito-based staff of the pan-Latin American television news channel Telesur. This is not the first time the station, launched by the Venezuelan government, has been the target of hostility. RSF calls on the Ecuadorean authorities to act quickly to ensure such hostilities do not continue. "The...

BUCHAREST, Romania: A Bucharest court on Wednesday sentenced a fugitive Syrian-born businessman to 20 years in prison on charges that he ordered the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Iraq. Omar Hayssam, a prosperous businessman, fled Romania last year after being temporarily released by a judge to seek treatment for cancer that was unavailable in the prison hospital. He was sentenced in...

(FNJ/IFEX) - Ambika Bhandari, editor of the "Samyentra Weekly", published in Biratchowk in Morang, a district in eastern Nepal, was threatened with death by Bikram Bhujel, owner of the "Don't Cross Me" restaurant on 11 June 2007. Bhandari was threatened regarding news published in the paper that same day. According to Shiva Bahadur Karki, president of FNJ's Morang chapter, Bhujel entered Bhandari...

(HRinfo/IFEX) - The Algerian government must drop the defamation charge against blogger "Abd el Salam Baroudy", administrator of the "Bilad Telmesan" blog ( http://bilad-13.maktoobblog.com ), for criticizing an official in an article published in February 2007. Baroudy is scheduled to face the Telmesan First Degree Court on 11 June 2007. In his article, Baroudy criticized the chair of Religious...