News

The Moscow city court has continued hearings in the murder case of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova. The March 15 hearing opened with yet another attempt by lawyer Aleksandr Vassilyev, who is defending Nikita Tikhonov, the man accused of shooting and killing the two victims, to challenge Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk, saying he is biased "in favour of the prosecution". That plea, like the...

The prospect of starting your own news site is more viable an option than ever in the current media climate. Traditional news organizations are plunging left and right, the tools for publishing are free and easy, and communities are finding a new desire to access and share information. In Berkeley, California, the circumstances were similar in 2009, which led a group of journalists to fill the...

Two Guangzhou-based journalists, who advocate for political reform amid tightening restrictions on free expression, have been dismissed. While several bloggers and activists have disappeared or been detained in the last month after anonymous calls for demonstrations in support of political reform were published online, journalists in traditional media are now also being targeted, according to New...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Belarusian authorities to stop the politically motivated prosecution of Andrzej Poczobut, a prominent correspondent for Poland's largest daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. On Monday, prosecutors in the western city of Grodno filed criminal charges against Poczobut for allegedly insulting Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko in articles printed in...

A CNN crew was detained Wednesday in Manama while interviewing a prominent Bahraini human rights defender, according to a Twitter posting by the network and a CPJ interview. The detentions come amid a recent series of repressive actions by the Bahraini government, which included Wednesday's arrest of a well-known blogger. Anti-press actions were also reported in Egypt, Syria, and Libya, CPJ...

The Argentine government should ensure that the nation's two largest dailies can be distributed without interference, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. CPJ's appeal comes two days after union demonstrators blocked trucking exits at the printing facilities of Clarín and La Nación, preventing Clarín from distributing its Sunday edition. Clarín and La Nación reported on their...

Two Iraqi journalists, Sabah al-Bazi and Muammar Khadir Abdelwahad, were among the fatal victims of Tuesday’s devastating insurgent attack on the Salahadin provincial council’s headquarter in the city of Tikrit (160 km north of Baghdad). Agence France-Presse quoted a police spokesman as putting the toll from the attack at least 65 dead and 100 wounded. Saad Khaled, a cameraman working for the...

The Côte d’Ivoire Telecommunications Agency (ATCI) announced in a directive dated March 24 that it intends to block access to several independent and anti-Gbagbo websites. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has obtained a copy of the directive and is distributing it. “Internet operators and service providers are prohibiting access from within Côte d’Ivoire to the...

Reuters television producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji were released on March 28 after being held for two days but Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has meanwhile learnt that two other journalists were arrested on March 27. The London-based Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre identified them as Doha Hassan, who works for Orient TV and several websites...

Ross Dunkley, founder and editor of the Myanmar Times weekly newspaper, was released on bail from a Burmese prison Tuesday, according to international news reports. Dunkley, an Australian citizen arrested February 10 amid tense negotiations over the future of the weekly, had been denied several earlier requests for release on bail. Dunkley was released on 10 million kyat (US$11,780) bail because...