The Burmese military dictatorship may be tightening the already restricted telecommunication channels in the country to prevent information about the ongoing mass protests and arrests in Rangoon from leaking out. Members of the Burmese National League for Democracy shout slogans during a protest in front of the Burmese embassy in Seoul August 8, 2007. The protest was held in conjunction with the...
Members of the Hamas Security Force beat up journalists covering a demonstration Friday held by the rival Fatah movement, briefly arresting four of them and confiscating their cameras in a sign of growing intolerance for political opposition, Arabnews.com has reported. The Hamas men fired guns over the heads of the protesters and scuffled with Fatah members, who threw stones and bottles at a...
Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, a Guantanamo detainee since June 2002, has suffered a sharp deterioration in his health and is said to be fearing for his survival. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) voiced “deep concern” about al-Haj, whose lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith said yesterday after recovering his notes from US military censors that his client’s health has worsened considerably in recent days...
Israeli forces have been holding a Syrian TV reporter for three weeks without offering any explanation, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said today. RSF called for the immediate release of Ata Farahat, the correspondent of Syrian public television and the daily newspaper Al-Watan in the Golan Heights, who was arrested on July 30 and is currently held in Al-Jalama prison (14 km southeast of Haifa)...
The International Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression Mission to Nepal has expressed serious concern about continuous violence against journalists in Nepal. Nepalese listen to a speech by unseen Maoist Chairman Prachanda at a rally in Kathmandu. Nepal's Maoists are cementing their new found political clout by establishing unions that could cripple the country and undermine a fragile peace deal...
The US media's reporting of the war in Iraq fell sharply in the second quarter of 2007, largely due to a drop in coverage of the Washington-based policy debate, a study released Monday said. Taken together, the war's three major story lines — the US policy debate, events in Iraq and their impact on the US homefront — slipped roughly a third, to 15 per cent of an index of total news coverage, down...
The staff at a fledgling weekly newspaper in Yemen accused of damaging national security face death sentences if convicted. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Thursday warned that the recent charges brought against Al-Shar’a (The Street) and a raid on the newspaper’s office signalled a disturbing attack on independent media in the country. IFJ condemned the Yemeni government for...
A Tamil journalist was attacked with acid in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo just as he left hospital where he was undergoing treatment after an assault by soldiers in June, the Free Media Movement (FMM) has reported. A Sri Lankan policeman stands guard beside the bed of KP Mohan (right), an ethnic Tamil Journalist, in the National Hospital in Colombo August 16. An unidentified gang threw acid at...
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A group of leading editors in Nepal have accused Maoists, who are now part of the interim government, of attacking press freedom through a "sinister pattern of intimidation and threats". Ten editors of leading newspapers, magazines and a television station said that Maoist unions, demanding better conditions for workers, had even entered newspaper offices to physically...
Two Moroccan journalists who published a secret government document about terrorist threats against Morocco have been handed down prison sentences. Abderrahim Ariri, publisher of the Moroccan weekly Al-Watan Al An, and Mustafa Hormatallah, a journalist for the paper, were convicted Wednesday by a criminal court in Casablanca of “concealing items derived from a crime” under article 571 of the...
