Provincial journalist Jesús Lemus Barajas was released on May 11. The founder and publisher of El Tiempo, a local newspaper in Piedad, in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán, and a former correspondent of the national daily La Jornada, Lemus was arrested on absolutely baseless drug trafficking charges on May 7, 2008 while investigating drug cartel activity in Cuerámaro, in the neighbouring...
Press freedom and online freedom of information are still being flouted in Burma, three months after Thein Sein’s election as a civilian president. He promised to “respect the role of the media” but heavy jail sentences for journalists, suspension of newspapers and police raids on Internet cafés show that there has been no let-up in controls and intimidation. And now a string of new measures have...
Palestinian news photographer Mohammed Othman was badly injured by a shot fired by an Israeli soldier while covering clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli troops at the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel on May 15, the anniversary of Israel’s creation, marked as “Nakba Day” (Day of Disaster) by Palestinians. He was taken to Shifa hospital where he...
Online newspaper editor Jean-Claude Kavumbagu was released on May 16 after being acquitted on a charge of treason for questioning in an article whether Burundi would be able to protect itself against a terrorist attack by Somalia’s Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Prosecutors had requested a life sentence last month on April...
New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the conviction and sentencing of Irina Khalip, the Minsk-based correspondent for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and called on Belarusian authorities to acquit her on appeal. The Zavodskoi District Court in Minsk May 16 declared Khalip guilty of "organising and preparing activities severely...
Investigators in Kabale must thoroughly investigate an arson attack May 13 on the home of Goodluck Musinguzi, contributor to the state-owned daily, New Vision, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Someone poured gasoline on the house and set it on fire while Musinguzi, his wife, and his newborn child were inside, he told CPJ. Musinguzi, a...
Amid a harsh media crackdown, Chinese authorities censored discussion of the May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake anniversary that referenced independent investigations into the damage, according to international news reports. New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) interviewed filmmaker Alison Klayman about activists imprisoned for documenting official negligence...
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over Mzwandile Ndlovu, a journalist held by the police in the western town of Hwange since his arrest on May 10, and about the constant harassment of employees of two independent newspapers, The Daily News and NewsDay, by police, intelligence officials and members of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. “We...
There is no clear front-runner in the presidential election run-off between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori that is due to take place on June 5 but, with three weeks still to go, the campaign is already having a devastating impact on Peru’s media, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The most serious case concerns César Levano, editor of the daily La...
Ten Ugandan and foreign journalists were physically attacked by soldiers on May 12 while covering opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s return to Uganda from Kenya, where he was treated for injuries received when the security forces used force to disperse an opposition demonstration in Kampala in April, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The violence, which...
