Taha Al-Alawi, the head of satellite television station Al-Masar TV, was killed in the Werij district of southern Baghdad on Friday. Gunmen shot at the car in which he was travelling. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) urged Iraqi authorities to carry out a proper investigation into this killing in order to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Impunity for...
The operations of Geo TV network’s profitable sports channel, Geo Super, have been suspended in Pakistan on the orders of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), which regulates TV stations, cable operators, Internet and mobile phones, and is responsible for developing access to information. Geo News, which is also part of the Geo TV network, has accused the PEMRA of blocking...
There are no longer any journalists in prison in Cuba. The last one was Albert Santiago Du Bouchet, who arrived in Spain Friday along with 36 other Cuban dissidents who were released on condition that they agree to go into exile, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The head of the independent Habana Press agency, Du Bouchet had been detained since April 18...
Andrey Pachobut, the correspondent of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, has been detained since April 6, when he was arrested as he was trying to leave the western city of Hrodna to take part in a videoconference in Minsk with Members of the European Parliament about the persecution of journalists in Belarus. It seems that the government’s conciliatory gestures in recent days were designed solely...
Saad Al-Awsi, the editor of weekly Al-Shahid Al-Mustaqil (The Independent Witness), was abducted by gunmen on March 25 from Rusafa prison in southeastern Baghdad where he was serving a one-year sentence, according to delayed reports. His family, which has received no news of him since his disappearance, wrote a letter on April 3 to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and to the head of the intelligence...
Peasant, trade union and indigenous groups and affiliated news media are designated as “permanent military targets” in three leaflets apparently issued by paramilitary groups – the Black Eagles, “Rastrojos” and United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) – that have been circulating in the southwestern city of Popayán and the surrounding Cauca region since late February. The latest leaflet, dated...
A news blackout has been imposed by Iraqi authorities on events at Camp Ashraf, a camp in northern Iraq that houses 3,500 Iranian exiles. An attack by the Iraqi army yesterday reportedly resulted in the deaths of around 30 residents and many wounded. According to several news organisations, the camp is surrounded by armoured vehicles and army trucks. Journalists have been forced to remain at the...
Bennet Rupesinghe, one of the editors of the Colombo-based online newspaper LankaeNews, was released on bail Friday after a week in pre-trial detention for allegedly making threats, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Arrested when he reported to police in the Colombo suburb of Wellampitiya on March 31, Rupesinghe was freed on payment of 310,000 rupees (2...
The Libyan government has decided to deport 26 foreign journalists on the grounds that their visas had expired. The names of journalists, who had all been invited to Tripoli by the government, were posted last night in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying. They were initially told they would have to leave today. But the authorities announced today that their “departure was postponed...
Severe harassment by Palestinian Authority and Hamas security forces targeting Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza has had a pronounced chilling effect on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. In a new report, Human Rights Watch called on Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza to hold their security forces to account for systematic, severe abuses and...
