ARCHIVES: State Control
Security agents of the semi-autonomous government of Southern Sudan confiscated 2,500 copies of the independent biweekly newspaper, The Juba Post , on Wednesday, according to Chief Editor Michael Koma. Security officers briefly detained the paper's distribution officer on Thursday morning at Juba airport. The agents also summoned Koma for questioning, but the editor declined to appear, he told CPJ. The Juba Post is printed in Khartoum due to a lack of printing facilities in southern Sudan, Koma... MORE
Local retransmission of Radio France Internationale (RFI) was disrupted in Cotonou on the morning of March 29 just as it was broadcasting a phone-in programme focussing, on this occasion, on Bénin’s March 13 presidential election, the result of which is disputed by the opposition. Called “Appels sur l’actualité” and hosted by Juan Gomez, the programme is extremely popular in Africa. According of the official figures, President Boni Yayi won the election outright with 53 per cent of the vote in... MORE
European regulators put pressure today on 16 of the EU’s 27 states in moves to ensure bloc-wide media law is implemented at national level. The European Commission has written to the 16, including major European Union television markets in Britain, France and Italy, seeking clarification on “a wide variety of issues” concerning the law’s implementation, says an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. An EU directive demands states’ audio-visual output meets bloc-wide standards for everything from... MORE
(MISA/IFEX): The government of Swaziland has and continues to threaten with prosecution people who are expressing themselves using popular social media networks such as Facebook. The government has accused the Facebookers of being too critical of the government and ruling elites in Swaziland. On March 25, Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini assured Senators in Parliament that his government would track down, arrest and prosecute one Gangadza Masilela , whose Facebook postings have been... MORE
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 following websites: www.abidjan.net , www.lavoixdugolf.net , www.connectionivoirienne.net , www... MORE
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal supervisory agency for communications, information technology and mass media, has announced a contest for the design of software that it could use to monitor online media outlets for “extremist” content, according to Lenta.ru. The deadline for submitting designs is August 15 and the deadline the agency has set itself for testing submissions is December 15. Roskomnadzor says it is ready to spend half a million dollars on the software, that would check text, audio... MORE
Syrian authorities have imposed censorship on national and foreign news media seeking to cover events in the southern city of Deraa. The security forces have blocked access to the city so that there is no one to witness their ruthless crackdown on the protests that have been taking place there during the past few days, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Ahmed Hadifa , a 28-year old blogger better known by the blog name of Ahmad Abu Al-Kheir, was... MORE
Yemeni authorities on Thursday ordered Al-Jazeera's offices shut and its journalists stripped of accreditation, escalating a week-long series of reprisals against the station that has included beatings, expulsions, raids, and death threats. New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the government's decision to shut Al-Jazeera and urged authorities to reverse the order immediately. Saeed Thabit, Al-Jazeera's Yemen bureau chief, said a Ministry of Information... MORE
Bahraini authorities expelled a CNN reporter and briefly detained another international reporter on Wednesday amid an intensified crackdown on political unrest. New York-based pressfreedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the Bahraini government's ongoing obstruction of news media and called for authorities to allow journalists to cover this story of international import. Elsewhere in the region, anti-press attacks and harassment continued to be reported in Morocco, Yemen... MORE
Armenia has refused to allow four reporters with the Finnish public broadcaster YLE to enter the country, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On Thursday, immigration authorities at the Zvartnots International Airport in the capital, Yerevan, refused to issue visas to the four reporters, and forced them to leave the country, according to local and international press reports. Immigration authorities did not provide an explanation to the... MORE
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