California Judge Cormac Carney has ordered William Gertz, a national security reporter for the Washington Times, to appear in court for open-ended questioning on his reporting techniques. The order comes regarding Gertz's article discussing supposed espionage attempts by China in the United States. "Confidentiality of sources is essential to the news-gathering process. The judge's decision to have...
A French magistrate placed a journalist under formal investigation on Thursday over the unauthorised publication of pictures of a new model of car, drawing protests from press freedom campaigners, says a Reuters report. Prosecutors raided the offices of specialist magazine Auto Plus on Tuesday, seizing computers and documents and arresting journalist Bruno Thomas, the author of the scoop last year...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has voiced its protest against the detention without charge of an Associated Press (AP) journalist who was seized by US and Iraqi forces last month in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. Ahmed Nouri Raziak, a 38-year-old cameraman who has worked with AP Television News since 2003, was detained at his home in the Iraqi city of Tikrit on June 4, AP reported, and is...
The Kuwaiti government's issuing of a resolution to prevent official staff from writing in newspapers is a harsh blow to press freedom and freedom of expression, taking Kuwait back decades and violating several constitutional articles that ensure the freedoms of opinion and expression. Al Qabas newspaper revealed a governmental document, which has been under preparation since February 2008, that...
Fourteen media outlets have been fined in 2008 by the electoral courts for publishing interviews with those seeking office in the upcoming municipal elections, scheduled for October, or in some cases, even just their photographs. Electoral judges deemed that the media outlets and the politicians were carrying out election advertising before July 6, the official starting date of the campaign...
A Rabat court Friday fined Al-Jazeera's Rabat bureau chief, Hassan Rachidi, 50,000 dirhams (approx. 4,500 euros) under article 42 of the press law because the Qatar-based satellite TV station wrongly reported in June that people were killed in clashes between police and protesters in the southern port city of Sidi Ifni. "We welcome the fact that the judges had the good sense not to impose a jail...
Hundreds of Afghan journalists and writers took part in demonstrations on July 8 in 15 provinces to call for the release of Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh, a young journalist under sentence of death. This exemplary show of solidarity came as Kambakhsh's appeal against his conviction has ground to a halt in Kabul and no date has been set for the next hearing. "The appeal court should have quashed Kambakhsh...
The Niger communication ministry has decided to close down Niamey's House of the Press, a centre used by journalists for various activities, including training seminars organised by the French and US embassies. Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) voiced its support for the journalist organisations and House of the Press members who issued a joint statement on July 2 saying they were...
The government of Botswana has gazetted a media practitioners' bill which is expected to regulate the media by, among other things, setting up a statutory press council. The bill, passed on June 27, also seeks to register media practitioners residing in Botswana and provides for hefty penalties for any violation of the law, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). As an example...
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed alarm at a draft law in Iran that would extend the death penalty to include crimes committed online. Passed by parliament on first reading on July 2, the proposed law would, for example, apply the death penalty to bloggers and website editors who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." "This proposal is horrifying," Paris-based RSF said....
