Ethics and Freedom

A group of Ugandans identified as homosexual in a newspaper article headlined "Hang Them" have won damages and a court injunction ordering the paper not to repeat the exercise, human rights groups said Monday, according to The Guardian. A high court judge ruled that the story in the Rolling Stone newspaper, which printed addresses and photographs of some of the 100 people it named as "Uganda's top...

The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper has been an example of crusading journalism in Brazil for many decades. Its team of reporters and columnists are famous for the rambunctious and yet lucid way they challenge those in power. But that reputation has soured recently thanks to Folha’s heavy-handed response to two brothers who satirised the paper in a spoof web site, says a Financial Times report. The...

A judge in the southern Honduran town of Amapala has decided to try community radio reporters Elia Xiomara Hernández and Elba Yolibeth Rubio on charges of disobeying the authorities and “taking part in demonstrations that obstruct public services.” The trial is to take place on January 11, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Hernández and Rubio, who work...

Robert Shemahamba, director of Radio-Télévision Communautaire Mitumba (RTCM) and correspondent for the Syfia Grands Lacs news agency, has been arbitrarily detained since Dececmber 17 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalist is being held in a cell at the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in Uvira, Sud...

Two Uzbekistan journalists working for public television Yoshlar, Saodat Omonova and Malohat Eshankulova, were dismissed on December 9, three days after they demonstrated against censorship and corruption at the TV station, in a square in central Tashkent, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). It expressed concern over their safety, since following their...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe, has brought about a libel suite against independent weekly The Standard for quoting a US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks accusing her of involvement in diamond trafficking. She is demanding $15 million in damages, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The First Lady’s libel suit aims to undermine...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) has launched a mirror website for the US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks. Its address is http://wikileaks.rsf.org. “This is a gesture of support for WikiLeaks’ right to publish information without being obstructed,” RSF said in a statement. “We defend the free flow of information on the Internet and the...

Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) voiced clear support for media freedom during his party’s congress on December 13 but in recent months more and more lawsuits have been brought against the Kurdish media, and not just the independent ones. Newspaper editors nowadays seem to be spending their time in the...

Musa Saidykhan, who was detained for three weeks in 2006 by Gambian state security agents, was tortured and must receive compensation, a West African regional court ruled on Thursday. Saidykhan, editor-in-chief of the now-banned private biweekly The Independent, was detained for 22 days without charge by the Gambian National Intelligence Agency (NIA) during a brutal government crackdown following...

A 15-year jail sentence has been slapped by a court in Tiraspol, the capital of the breakaway region of Transnistria, on journalist Ernest Vardanean on charges of high treason and spying for Moldova, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court specified that Vardanean should be subjected to a “severe regime” while serving his sentence, issued under...