News

Authorities in the kingdom of Swaziland should allow the news media to report freely on anti-government protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today after security forces harassed at least 10 local and international journalists covering a mass demonstration demanding political and economic reform after more than two decades of rule by King Mswati III. Police stopped reporter Niren...

The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Bahraini authorities to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into the death of a blogger while in state custody. Bahraini authorities, meanwhile, announced that they would file criminal charges against three senior editors at the Gulf kingdom's premier independent daily, continuing a months-long pattern of violence, harassment, and...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Syrian authorities to release journalist Mohamad Zaid Mastou, who was arrested on April 6 in Damascus by security agents and taken to an undisclosed location. "The manner of his arrest and the lack of information about his whereabouts raise concerns for his safety and wellbeing," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ President. "The Syrian regime...

Unidentified arsonists set fire to the home of Teresa Reyes and Radio Faluma Bimetu director Alfredo López at midnight on April 7, in the latest in a long list of attacks on the personnel and installations of this community radio station (known in Spanish as Radio Coco Dulce), based in Triunfo de la Cruz, in the Atlantic coast municipality of Tela, according to Paris-based press freedom group...

Belarusian authorities must drop politicized libel and insult charges against Andrzej Poczobut, a Grodno-based correspondent for Poland's largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and release him immediately, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Prosecutors in Grodno opened a criminal investigation against Poczobut on March 28 and charged him with insulting...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists has called on authorities in Ethiopia to ensure that broadcasts of the German state-funded station Deutsche Welle, which had been jammed, be allowed to air freely. Local journalists confirmed a report by the Bonn-based international broadcaster that its programs were inaudible in Ethiopia last week until Friday. The management of...

Brazilian journalist Luciano Leitão Pedrosa, known for his critical coverage of local authorities and criminal groups, was shot Saturday night at a restaurant in Vitória de Santo Antão in northeastern Pernambuco state, according to press reports. At about 9 p.m., a man entered a restaurant where Pedrosa had gone to buy food and shot him in the head, the Brazilian press reported. According to the...

New York-based press freedom organisation Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Burundi Justice Minister Ancilla Ntakaburimvo to intervene in the case of Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, editor of the news website NetPress who has been improperly imprisoned since July 17, 2010, on a charge of treason. In a letter to the minister, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon urged the state prosecutor to...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has denounced as “illegal and absurd” the efforts of the Tajik government to get dissident journalist Dodojon Atovulloev forcefully returned to Tajikistan from his exile in Russia and Germany and called on these two governments to protect him. The state prosecutor in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, sent an extradition request to the...

Carabobo Stereo 102.3 FM, a radio station based in the northern state of Carabobo, has been off the air since the evening of March 18 when around 30 representatives of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) turned up unannounced with soldiers, shut it down and seized its equipment, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Claiming to be carrying...