News

Ross Dunkley, founder and editor of the Myanmar Times newspaper, was convicted of assault and set free for time already spent in detention by a Burmese court on Thursday. The verdict, which carried a 30-day jail term, acquitted Dunkley of other charges viewed by many journalists as trumped up by authorities to put pressure on his news operation. The conviction represented an automatic breach of...

Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of independent weekly The Standard, was released on bail of 100 dollars (69 euros) on the evening of June 30, 24 hours after the release of his reporter, Patience Nyangove. Their release on bail was confirmed when they appeared in court July 1. The two journalists and Loud Ramakgopola, a senior employee of the company that owns The Standard, were arrested during a...

There are now more than 100,000 digital subscribers to The Times and The Sunday Times one year after it introduced its paywall, owners News International claimed, according to Press Gazette. Some details: [ Link] At the end of June The Times and The Sunday Times had 101,036 monthly digital subscribers– a 28 per cent increase from 79,000 in February 2011. The figures include subscribers to all...

In a new crackdown against the independent press, Belarusian police briefly detained and beat more than a dozen reporters, and broke their equipment at a Wednesday protest rally in Minsk and Brest, according to news reports and CPJ sources in Belarus. According to the Minsk-based Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), among the reporters and photojournalists detained and beaten by police and...

A Paris court has rejected the libel suit that Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s daughter, Lola Karimova, brought against the French news website Rue89 over an article describing her as a “dictator’s daughter” who used charity events to try to “whitewash her country’s image.” Karimova had demanded 30,000 euros in damages for the article by Augustin Scalbert, which was posted on the website in May...

Cuban authorities are waging a campaign to intimidate Hablemos Press, a Havana-based independent news centre, presumably because of its criticism of the government. In the past three months, 14 of its correspondents have been threatened and 10 have been briefly detained on at least one occasion, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). According to Hablemos...

Mexican federal authorities must fully investigate renewed anonymous death threats against prominent journalist and human rights activist Lydia Cacho and bring those responsible to justice, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. "Mexican authorities must put an end to the continuous intimidation against one of Mexico's leading journalists...

Moroccan information minister Khalid Naciri obtained the dismissal of Dubai TV chief editor Omar Makhfi and his brother, Jalal, the station’s Morocco correspondent, on June 21 because Jalal referred on the air to opposition calls for protests against tomorrow’s referendum in Morocco on a proposed constitutional reform. The journalists were fired two days after the minister gave a televised address...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has joined a renewed call by BBC staff worldwide for the immediate and unconditional release of the BBC’s correspondent in Tajikistan, Urinboy Usmonov, who has been held since June 13 in the northwestern town of Kujand and said it was very concerned about his plight. “The apparent dropping of the charge of belonging to an illegal...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Ernst Joseph and Wolf “Duralph” François, hosts of the programme “They said it” on Radio Prévention in the southwestern town of Petit-Goâve, who have been detained ever since their arrest during an appearance at the public prosecutor’s office on June 22. According to Petit...