Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, the Independent newspaper has reported. The Intelligence and Security Committee, the parliamentary watchdog of the intelligence and security agencies which has a cross-party membership from both Houses, wants to press ministers to introduce a...
Pakistani security forces allegedly killed Qari Muhammad Shoib, a Mingora-based print journalist on Saturday night when he was driving in his car at Nishat Chowk of Mingora city in the restive Swat Valley of North West Pakistan. Qari Shoib, 32, was a dynamic journalist who regularly reported on the conflict between Taliban militants and Pakistan security forces for daily Azadi and PPA news Agency...
Afghan abductors kept a Canadian journalist captive, sometimes blindfolded and chained, in a cave for four weeks before she was freed, the reporter said Sunday. Mellissa Fung, a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Afghanistan, was freed on Saturday after being abducted a month ago near capital Kabul. Fung was the second abducted foreign journalist to be released in two days. On...
A Dutch journalist abducted by suspected Taliban rebels in Afghanistan a week ago was freed Friday and is in good health, her employer said. Joanie de Rijke, 43, was captured on Saturday last week while she was en route to do a story about a group of Taliban who had killed 10 French soldiers in August, an editor at the Belgian P-magazine told agence France-Presse (AFP). Michael Lescroart...
A Belgian journalist who was held captive for three days by Mai-Mai militiamen in Congo has been free, the German newspaper he works for said on Friday. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said on its website that the journalist, Thomas Scheen, and two Congolese co-workers who were seized in east Congo earlier this week were now under the care of United Nations peacekeepers and doing well. Some details...
A Belgian reporter has been abducted by pro-government Mai-Mai rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported Thursday. RSF has called on the Mai-Mai militiamen holding Belgian journalist Thomas Scheen, together with his interpreter and his driver, in the Rutshuru region of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu to release them at once. Scheen is a correspondent...
The press freedom situation in Sri Lanka has noticeably deteriorated over the past year, marked by a continuation in murders, attacks, abductions, intimidation and harassment of the media, says an international press freedom mission to Sri Lanka. Media in war-affected areas in the north and east continue to be the most insecure, facing threats and restrictions from all parties, says the mission...
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the state security court to withdraw its case against Fayez al-Ajrashi, editor-in-chief of privately-owned weekly El-Ekhbariya. Al-Ajrashi, who was released from Al-Juweida prison (15 km south of Amman) on November 2 after paying 3,000 dinars (approx 3,300 euros) in bail. Al-Ajrashi is still facing charges of "inflaming sectarian strife" and "sowing...
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has denounced the prosecution of Nizar Al-Abadi, an Iraqi journalist who has been living in Yemen since 1991. ANHRI has also condemned the actions of the public prosecutor, the press and publishers who are acting on behalf of the state security forces against journalists working within the law and the regulations of their profession. Al-Abadi...
A suicide bomb attack on October 29 outside the Ethiopian consulate in Hargeisa, Somaliland, injured three journalists who were walking in front of the consular premises, according to delayed reports. The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) said in a statement that journalist Mohamed Harun Ahmed of the Somaliland Space Channel, was severely injured as both of his legs were broken by the...
