Conflict Journalism

(FNJ/IFEX) - In a meeting on 9 May 2006, the Council of Ministers annulled three ordinances - including the controversial media ordinance - promulgated by the former royal government. Talking to reporters at the Prime Minister's official residence after the cabinet meeting, Minister for Land Reform and Management Prabhu Narayan Chaudhari said the government has decided to scrap or review all the...

The sixth central committee meeting of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) was conducted today, 1 May 2006, at the central office of the Federation in Media Village. The meeting was conducted under the leadership of President Bishnu Nisthuri. In the meeting, members discussed and made decisions about the situation of press freedom and freedom of expression; the future strategy...

(CEHURDES/IFEX) - CEHURDES has condemned the acts of intimidation and threats against a group of journalists by Maoist cadres in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu. On 28 April 2006, Maoist cadres aggressively questioned, threatened and harassed Kumar Shrestha, a photo-journalist with Himalayan Films Pvt. Ltd., Amit Sthapit of "Yuva Hunkaar" and Bimal Raj Gautam, Shrestha's assistant, as they were...

TEMPE, Ariz., April 28 (UPI) -- Terrorists use the press and public relations as weapons, an Arizona State University study found. Researchers analyzed almost 300 al-Qaida messages and found that jihadist operations use consistent patterns of outreach that establish them socially and religiously, generate public sympathy and intimidate opponents. Threats, in fact, are part of terrorist "talking...

During the 1970s, I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. The dissident novelist Zdenek Urbánek told me, "In one respect, we are more fortunate than you in the west. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and watch on television, nothing of the official truth. Unlike you, we have learned to read between the lines, because real truth is always subversive."...

New York, April 18, 2006 - More than 200 Nepalese journalists have been detained since April 4 while participating in pro-democracy protests to demand press freedom or while covering the nationwide demonstrations, according to information compiled by the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ). The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the immediate release of the 31 journalists who remain...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) voiced concern about detained Sudanese cameraman Sami Al-Haj of the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, and reiterated its call for his release in the absence of specific charges after speaking to his London-based lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith. Arrested by the Pakistani army on the Afghan border in December 2001, Al-Haj has been held at the US detention centre at...

Kathmandu, April 14, 06 - The Center for Human Rights and Democratic Studies (CEHURDES) - a Kathmandu-based freedom of expression monitoring group - condemns fresh arrests of journalists, lawyers, development workers and threats by the government against private media organizations in the country. On Friday, police took into custody 13 journalists in the western hilly district of Baglung as they...

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- Baton-wielding police beat journalists who were protesting against a media clampdown in the Nepalese capital on Saturday, as a general strike called by the opposition to demand the king's ouster shut down this Himalayan nation. About 200 journalists marched through the capital Kathmandu demanding the restoration of press freedom and the release of dozens of journalists...

With anti-monarchy protests in Nepal being increasingly tackled with a heavy hand by the King Gyanendra regime, those covering the protest rallies across the country are also finding themselves at the receiving end. Seven journalists were injured on Saturday alone when they were beaten up by the police. All were covering the protest rallies. The Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) has...