Ethics and Freedom

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) says it has received several calls from journalists complaining of the difficulties they have had in covering the ongoing street protests against the government’s pension reform plans. A Canal+ reporter was hit repeatedly by members of the CRS riot police in Paris on October 17. On the grounds of an alleged “invasion of the privacy”...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned an armed attack on Kuwait City-based Scope TV, which was overrun by about 150 people brandishing knives and pistols on October 17. Some 10 people were injured in the course of the violence, the privately-owned satellite TV station’s executive director told the news agency Reuters. Employees said the assailants were...

Egyptian authorities have introduced a host of new regulations ahead of parliamentary elections to be held on 29 November, in an apparent attempt to clamp down on independent media. The move comes less than three weeks after Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief and founder of the private daily Al-Dustour, and a critic of the government, was dismissed after the newspaper was bought out by new owners...

Abdulmalik Boboyev, one of Uzbekistan’s few remaining independent reporters, was fined 10,000 dollars by a Tashkent court Friday on charges of defamation, insult and threatening public order. Boboyev, who pleaded not guilty, had been facing a possible five-year jail sentence, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). A journalist who is renowned for the quality...

The bolivian law against racism was approved by the senate on October 8 and was immediately promulgated by President Evo Morales. The senate adopted the lower house’s version of the law without any changes despite major protests by media and journalists’ organisations against two articles that make it an offence for the press to publish racist comments or statements that incite racism, according...

A Panamanian court of appeals has convicted two TV journalists of criminal defamation and banned them from professional work for one year, news reports said. While President Ricardo Martinelli said he would pardon the journalists, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that lawmakers should repeal all criminal penalties for defamation. The case stems from a 2005 story...

A Panama City court has banned TVN Canal 2 news editor Sabrina Bacal and Justino González, a former TVN Canal 2 reporter who is now a KW Continente commentator, from working as journalists for one year as well as fining them $6,000, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Issued on appeal on September 27 and announced on October 4, the sentences replaced the...

Turkish reporter Ismail Saymaz faces 79 years in prison due to the publication of critical articles for the Turkish daily newspaper Radikal, IPI's National Committee in Turkey has reported. Saymaz, accused of "violating the secrecy of an investigation" in relation to the Ergenekon trials and events in the city of Erzincan, has previously been charged with no less than eight other criminal cases...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the unprecedented harassment of Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of the Prachatai news website. Detained at Bangkok airport on September 24, on her return from an international conference, she has been told she was arrested on a warrant issued in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen in September 2009 in...

The issue of editorial confidentiality has been dominating media discussions in recent days in Austria, after the Vienna Higher Regional Court (OLG) ordered Austrian Public Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) to release the unedited tapes of an episode of a documentary series called “Am Schauplatz” (“On the scene”) that was filmed in March this year. The documentary became the subject of controversy...