Tesco Lotus, one of the biggest retailers in Thailand, has filed two staggering defamation cases against a Thai columnist and a former Member of Parliament, sending a strong message to civil society and the press to tread carefully before criticising the retailing giant in Thailand. Tesco Lotus is suing columnist/academic Kamol Kamoltrakul and former Thai National Legislative Assembly (NLA) member...
Authorities in in the Russian republic of Ingushetia want to see the back of a private television channel that has shown critical reports from the region. In an open letter to the Russian parliament, the prosecutor-general, the FSB security service and the interior ministry, delegates of the region’s Popular Assembly demanded that Moscow-based REN-TV stop broadcasting in the Republic, according to...
A Jordanian court has handed down jail terms of three months each on five newspaper journalists, including two prominent editors, for contempt of court and defamation. Editor Taher al-Adwan and reporter Sahar Qassam of the Arabic daily Al-Arab al-Youm, former Ad-Dustour editor Osama Sharif, and Ad-Dustour reporter Fayez Louzi were sentenced Thursday under the penal code to three months in prison...
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is dropping a lawsuit against French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur for reporting that he sent a text message to ex-wife Cecilia offering to call off his marriage, a statement by his new wife Carla Bruni said today. Sarkozy last month had lodged the complaint against Le Nouvel Observateur for reporting he had sent a SMS to Cecilia eight days before his marriage to ex...
An appeals court in Canada has overturned a lower court's 2004 contempt ruling against a journalist who would not reveal his source. In the ruling issued Monday in Toronto, the three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to journalist-informant confidentiality and, as a result, the contempt charge and fine against Hamilton Spectator...
Iran has closed down nine film and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of "corrupt" foreign film stars and promoting "superstitions." The Press Supervisory Board, a body controlled by hardliners, also sent warning notes to 13 other publications and magazines on "observing the provisions of the press law," the Culture Ministry said on its website, acording to an...
An Australian magazine has apologised to readers and troops serving abroad for publishing a story revealing that Prince Harry was fighting with British troops in Afghanistan, the Associated Press (AP) reported. New Idea magazine said when it ran the story in January it was unaware of an agreement between the British Ministry of Defense and major news organizations not to disclose Harry's...
The editor of a Swedish newspaper has received death threats for publishing a picture of Jesus being defecated on by the devil, acording to a report in the Local website. Östgöta Correspondenten editor Ola Sigvardsson has received several death threats since the publication of the picture, which featured on posters for a punk festival. The poster depicted a Satan figure defecating on Jesus...
Google has complied with a request by the Pentagon to remove some online images from its street-level map service because they pose a security threat to US military bases, acording to Reuters. Gen Gene Renuart, head of the military command responsible for homeland defence, said the Pentagon had talked to Google about the risks and expected the company to cooperate in removing selected images from...
An Egyptian court sentenced a journalist to one year in jail on Monday for libelling imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour and his wife, Reuters has reported. But Nour, who is serving a five-year sentence on what he says are baseless fraud charges, asked the court to drop the custodial sentence because he does not approve of jailing journalists for publishing offences. The journalist, Taher...
