Corruption and Crime

Radio Television Mwangaza (RTM), a privately-owned station broadcasting in Lubumbashi, capital of Katanga province (southeastern DR Congo), has been the target of a slander campaign organised by Honoré Kazadi Lukonde, alias Ngube Ngube, a reported supporter of Katanga Governor Moise Katumbi Chapwe, Journaliste en danger (JED) has reported. During a May 24 press conference held at the Makutano...

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) has condemned the attack on Montenegrin sports commentator and journalist Mladen Stojovic. Stojovic, a journalist with the daily Danas and Belgrade correspondent of the Podgorica-based daily Vijesti, was assaulted Friday May 23, in his apartment in Bar. Heavy blows on his head caused amnesia, and Mladen Stojovic cannot remember exactly what...

Salimzhan Gaisin, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper Saratovsky Reporter, has been found guilty of a crime under Article 129 of the Russian Criminal Code (for "Slander in the Mass Media"), according to the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES). In summer 2007, a group of residents in the village of Bulgakovka, located in the Voskresensk district of Saratov region, complained to...

A court of appeals in the Philippines has issued prohibited the a regional trial court from proceeding with the case against the suspected masterminds in the 2005 murder of journalist Marlene Esperat, according to the Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR). Cebu is a province approximately 562 km south of Manila. In a five-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Francisco Acosta...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has voiced serious concern after it was confirmed that Jesús Lemus Barajas, editor of the daily El Tiempo, in La Piedad, Michoacán state in south-west Mexico, is being held in preventive custody in a drugs case. Paris-based RSF on Tuesday called on the federal authorities to produce clear and compelling reasons for his detention and expressed anxiety that he had...

There has been a spate of arrests, detentions, and trials of journalists in Vietnam, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Somsak Khunmi, a long-time news assistant and contributor to Chan Troi Moi (Radio New Horizon) was sentenced today to nine months in prison and three years probation following a six-hour trial Tuesday last on terrorism charges at the People’s Court of Ho Chi...

Two masked men fired at reporter Edson Ferraz of TV Diário (a station affiliated to the privately-owned Rede Globo network) on May 15 in Mogi das Cruzes, an outlying suburb of São Paulo in Brazil. Ferraz escaped unhurt. The 25-year-old journalist had been covering a case of corruption and money-laundering involving 19 local policemen and had been warned of possible reprisals. “In some respects...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the murder of Jorge Mérida Pérez, a correspondent in Quetzatenango province for the national Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre. Mérida was shot to death in his home on Saturday afternoon. CPJ called on the Guatemalan authorities to begin an immediate, thorough investigation into this brutal killing. While a motive has yet to be confirmed, early...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at allegations that federal police agents assaulted three reporters working in Culiacán, the capital of the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa. At approximately 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, three reporters working for the newspaper El Debate went to report on a roadside checkpoint being mounted by federal police agents about one block from...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for sedition charges to be dropped against Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who was jailed Tuesday. He is being held in connection with a story alleging that Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife were involved in the October 2006 murder of a Mongolian translator. Najib has denied the allegation. Raja Petra’s online article...