A criminal court judge in Togo Wednesday last imposed an indefinite ban on the distribution of a Benin newspaper that had raised questions about the alleged involvement of a half-brother of President Faure Gnassingbé in drug trafficking. The ban on Tribune d'Afrique, a private bimonthly based in Benin that has a bureau in the Togolese capital of Lomé, was based on charges of publishing false news...
A six-month jail sentence has been imposed by a Dakar court on Abdourahmane Diallo, the editor of the Express News daily, for defaming President Abdoulaye Wade's chief of staff, Pape Samba Mboup. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Diallo, who was tried in absentia, but he has not yet been detained. The Dakar criminal court that had tried Diallo in absentia finally issued its verdict on...
Authorities in Azerbaijan have refused to investigate an attack on two newspaper journalists, Yeni Musavat reporter Elmin Badalov and Milli Yol deputy editor Anar Gerayly, by a wealthy businessman’s private security guards. The two journalists were photographing luxury homes in the Baku neighbourhood of Shuvlan on July 28 when they were attacked and beaten by security guards. The guards held them...
Latvian authorities are pursuing a criminal investigation into netizen Ilmārs Poikāns and journalist Ilze Nagla of the state TV station LTV1 for exposing a serious security flaw in the national tax office’s data storage system, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Using the pseudonym of Neo and portraying himself a member of a fictitious hacker group called...
An imprisoned Iranian journalist is suing Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) over allegations that the telecommunications company provided the Islamic regime with a monitoring system it used to spy on the opposition Green movement, according to the Guardian. Isa Saharkhiz, a prominent journalist and political figure, was arrested after last summer's disputed presidential election. Saharkhiz, who is...
An assistant professor of journalism at Western Washington University, whose reporting on a Chicago murder case helped free a man convicted as a teenager of the 1993 crime, does not have to turn over her notes to the police officers accused of framing him, a federal judge in Seattle has ruled, according to Seattle Times. The details: [ Link] U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman also ruled that the...
A photo journalist of a language newspaper published from Punjab allegedly instigated a 20-year-old uneducated girl to immolate herself outside the deputy commissioner's office in Amritsar on Monday. The journalist, it is suspected, wanted to buy the girl's disputed property. Twenty-year-old Manpreet Kaur reached the DC office in the courts complex with a bottle of kerosene and match sticks on...
Venezuelan authorities Friday hastily quashed a ban on newspapers printing violent images after a firestorm of criticism from media outlets, rights groups and UN officials who branded it censorship, according to news reports. The announcement, made overnight to the state news agency AVN by the legal director of the public defender's office, Larry Davoe, reversed a court order this week imposing a...
The Bangladesh supreme court has imposed a six-month jail sentence on Mahmudur Rahman, the acting editor of the opposition daily Amar Desh, and a one-month jail sentence on Oliullah Noman, one of his reporters, for contempt of court, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Headed by Chief Justice Mohammad Fazlul Karim, the supreme court panel on Thursday found...
Chad's national assembly has passed a media bill that the government resubmitted at the start of the month. Adopted on Thursday by 82 votes for, 2 against and 11 abstentions, the new law suppresses its predecessor's provisions for prison sentences for insults and defamation and the crime of insulting the president, but it introduces sentences of 6 to 12 months in prison, fines of 100,000 to 1...
