Ethics and Freedom

The Ethiopian Supreme Court reinstated fines on Monday against four newspaper publishing companies over their coverage of the disputed 2005 national election, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Judge Dagne Melaku, presiding over a panel of three-judge panel, upheld fines initially imposed in July 2007 against the Fasil, Serkalem, Sisay, and Zekarias publishing houses for...

The Malaysian home affairs ministry has issued to leading English-language daily, The Star, a warning about an article criticising the caning of three Muslim women under Sharia law, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has said. “As one of the country’s most widely-read newspapers, The Star should have a free hand to provide its readers with the broadest range of news and views on social issues,” Paris...

Kazakh authorities have banned the distribution of the independent weekly Respublika-Delovoye Obozreniye, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday. On March 1, the Medeu District Court in Almaty denied the weekly’s appeal and left in place a ban on the paper’s distribution that had been imposed in mid-February. The ban will remain in place until the newspaper pays 60 million Kazakh...

A Kuwaiti court has fined a journalist and two newspapers for statements deemed offensive to the ruling family and the prime minister, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On Sunday, a criminal court in Kuwait fined opposition writer and journalist Mohammed Abdulqader al-Jassem 3,000 Kuwaiti dinars (US$10,500) for publishing an article in November critical of Prime Minister...

The board of governors of the state-owned broadcaster RAI has decided to suspend all political discussion programmes on its three TV stations during the one-month run-up to regional elections scheduled for March 28 and 29, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The reason given was the difficulty of ensuring “equality of treatment.” It is extraordinary that RAI should be backing away from...

Although a number of journalists and netizens have been freed in in Iran during the past few days, the crackdown on media and journalists is continuing. The daily Etemad was suspended on March 1 and the weekly Iran Dokht’s licence has been cancelled. At the same time, journalists continue to be arrested in Tehran and many others throughout the country have received summonses, according to...

Intelligence officials in Afghanistan privately issued a ban on live coverage to news outlets on Monday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) spokesman Said Ansari told media managers not to report live from the scene of a terrorist attack anywhere in Afghanistan in a series of individual meetings held Monday, saying the order was for the...

A Zimbabwean freelance journalist was arrested Monday for the third time this year—this time for taking footage of prisoners outside a courthouse in the capital, Harare, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said quoting local journalists. Officers of Zimbabwe’s Prison Service arrested Andrison Shadreck Manyere, an award-winning photojournalist and videographer, after he filmed the...

Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, was finally freed Friday along with around 100 ordinary offenders under a presidential pardon issued in honour of Mawlid (the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday), according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Dehah’s lawyer, Brahim Ould Ebety, said his client had become an embarrassment for the government. He thanked all those who fought for Dehah’s...

“You have guns, we have pens,” was the message that the Sulaymaniyah-based independent newspaper Hawlati (Citizen) printed on an otherwise blank front page on February 24 in a bold protest against a spate of threats, harassment and physical violence against journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan in the run-up to a parliamentary election on March 6. Hawlati’s front page is just one example of the growing...