Ethics and Freedom

Russian journalist Larisa Arap has been released from a psychiatric clinic near the northern city of Murmansk where she had been held against her will for 46 days. The 48-year Arap, an active member of the opposition United Civic Front, was forcefully hospitalised in what she says was retribution for an article she had written denouncing abuse against patients at another local psychiatric clinic...

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...

SACRAMENTO -- Amid concern over the frenzy of entertainment blogs and tabloids competing for inside information on Paris Hilton's days in jail and Mel Gibson's tirade during a drunk-driving arrest, state lawmakers have taken steps to clamp down on some forms of checkbook journalism. A bill wending its way through the Legislature would make it a crime for law enforcement or court employees to...

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...

A US federal judge has asked five journalists to identify the government officials who leaked details to them about a scientist under scrutiny for mailed anthrax attacks in 2001. The ruling is a victory for Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert who has argued in a civil suit that the government violated his privacy rights and ruined his chances at a job by unfairly leaking information about the probe...

The American public continues to fault news organisations for a number of perceived failures, with solid majorities criticising them for political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes. Some of the harshest indictments of the press now come from the growing segment that relies on the Internet as its main source for national and international news. The Internet news audience –...

The British Ministry of Defence is cracking down on its troops' ability to communicate with the public, with new guidelines barring them from a host of activities, including blogging. Soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel will not be able to blog, take part in surveys, speak in public, post on bulletin boards, play in multi-player computer games or send text messages or photographs without the...

Bangladeshi investigative journalist Tasneem Khalil has fled the country with his family for security reasons, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. They had previously spent a month in hiding after he was arrested and tortured in May. Khalil, 26, is a journalist for the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper who conducts research for Human Rights Watch (HRW). According to his wife, four men in...

The Roh Moo-hyun administration has decided to take disciplinary measures against South Korean journalists and their companies that do not abide by the "news embargoes'' set by government offices. The Government Information Agency (GIA) Tuesday unveiled a plan to implement it as early as next month, the Korea Times reported. Journalists who violate embargoes would be banned from interviewing...

An Iranian journalist has been arrested after he presented himself to a Tehran court in response to a summons. Neither Soheil Assefi's family nor his lawyers know where he is being held or with what he is charged. Officials from the prosecutor's office searched his home on July 31, taking personal documents and his computer's hard disk. Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of...