News

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention today of Hangzhou journalist Zan Aizong. Authorities placed Zan under a seven-day administrative detention this evening after warning him to stop writing about arrests and injuries involving Christians protesting the July 29 demolition of a church, according to the Independent Chinese PEN Center. “The government has launched a...

New York, August 10, 2006-A judge in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, today convicted the editor of an Azeri-language independent newspaper on a charge of criminally defaming a leader of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party, according to international news reports. Shakhin Agabeili, editor-in-chief of Milli Yol, was sentenced to a year in prison in connection with the 2005 article, but a Milli Yol...

The High Court (HC) yesterday issued a contempt rule on The Prothom Alo Publisher Mahfuz Anam, Editor Matiur Rahman and Reporter Zahid Hossain for publishing a report on harassment of justice seekers in the HC Division of the Supreme Court. Following a contempt petition filed by a Supreme Court advocate, a division bench of the HC issued the rule on them to explain within three weeks why contempt...

NAIROBI, Aug 10 (IPS) - Concerns about restrictions on press freedom in Africa have surfaced again, this during a two-day conference held in Kenya that attracted over 100 media representatives from across the continent. The Aug. 8-9 gathering took place in the capital, Nairobi. It was organised in part by the United Nations-affiliated University for Peace. "The media is threatened from everywhere...

New York, August 10, 2006—The body of Enrique Perea Quintanilla, a longtime police reporter who became editor of a crime magazine, was found on the outskirts of the northern city of Chihuahua on Wednesday afternoon. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating whether Perea's murder is related to his work. Perea's body was found at 2 p.m. on the side of a road about 9 miles (15 kilometers...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Border has called for the immediate release of editor Shahin Agabeyli, of the newspaper "Milli Yol", who was sentenced to a year in jail for supposedly "insulting" and "blackmailing" former parliament spokesman Arif Ramhimzadeh in articles he wrote. "This is a harsh and disproportionate sentence," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "Without judging the...

HABANIYAH, Iraq -- U.S. Marines who cracked the Jill Carroll kidnapping case say the American journalist was held for a time in a home within sight of a sprawling U.S. military base in western Iraq. The Marines said the big break occurred May 19 when they searched a suspect's home near the Taqqadum logistics base seven weeks after Carroll's release. Jake Cusack, 24, a first lieutenant from Grand...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, August 9, 2006 - The editor of the private newspaper Umuco has gone into hiding following official criticism of articles in his paper and a police summons, according to several local sources. Bonaventure Bizumuremyi also complained of receiving threatening phone calls, the sources said. The incidents come days after another Umuco journalist, Jean-Léonard Rugambage, was freed...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 9 — American marines have captured four Iraqi men suspected of playing a role in the kidnapping of an American journalist, Jill Carroll, in Baghdad in January, American military officials said Wednesday. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said the four men, whom he declined to identify, were arrested in the Sunni Arab-dominated region west of Baghdad. On Wednesday, an American...

(FLIP/IFEX) - Milton Fabián Sánchez, a journalist with the radio station Yumbo Estéreo, was murdered on 9 August 2006 in Yumbo, a city in southeastern Colombia. The journalist was on his way home at approximately 10:30 p.m. (local time) when he was approached by two attackers that shot him twice from a motorcycle. Seriously wounded, Sánchez was first taken to the Hospital La Buena Esperanza in...