Ethics and Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on judges in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, to drop their defamation lawsuits against three popular independent weeklies for damage amounts that would bankrupt them. Claiming that Ozodagon, Farazh, and Asia-Plus published biased and defamatory articles about them in late January, judges Nur Nurov and Ulughbek Mamadshoyev of Tajikistan’s...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for Saudi-run satellite operator Arabsat to return to air the Iranian-owned Arabic-language satellite channel Al-Alam, which stopped broadcasting January 27 without prior notice. In a statement published on its website, Al-Alam said that “Arabsat, in continuation of its censorship policies and as a move to confront the news networks which...

An opinion column in Uganda’s leading independent newspaper suggesting parallels between President Yoweri Museveni and former Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos led to criminal libel charges against two journalists Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said quoting local media reports. A magistrate in the capital, Kampala, charged Angelo Izama, a senior reporter, and Henry Ochieng...

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday signed a decree establishing extensive control over Internet access and online content. The decree is due to take effect on July 1. Decree No 6 concerning “national Internet network improvement measures” requires that all online access devices such as computers and mobile phones be identified and registered with Internet service providers. This will...

Former Prime Minister Janez Jansa and the Slovenian state have brought defamation charges against Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund in connection the bribery allegations he made during a programme broadcast on Finnish TV station YLE on September 1, 2008. Berglund accused Jansa, other senior officials and high ranking military officers of collecting around 20 million euros in illegal commissions...

An Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticised Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Federal High Court Judge Mohammed Omar sentenced Editor Ezedin Mohamed of the Muslim-oriented newspaper Al-Quds to one...

Over the past month, military-controlled courts in Burma have sentenced two undercover Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reporters to punitive prison terms over their reporting, according to Committee to Protect Journalists. On January 27, a special court attached to Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison sentenced DVB reporter Ngwe Soe Lin, also known as Tun Kyaw, to 13 years in prison on charges...

An appeal court in Tajikistan has upheld an astronomical damages award against a news weekly and the announcement of new lawsuits against a total of four leading newspapers, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The damages award of 300,000 somoni (49,000 euros) against the weekly Paykon (“Arrowhead”) was confirmed on January 26 by a Dushanbe court. The newspaper had been ordered to pay...

Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrested Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, journalist on the small news agency Holguín Press on January 29 then took him to a police barracks to face charges of “insult”, “disobedience” and “illegal economic activity”. He was released the following day, but has started a hunger strike as he awaits his trial which could mean a prison sentence, Reporters sans...

Liquidators took control of Morocco's most critical publication this week after a Casablanca commercial appeals court declared on Monday that Le Journal Hebdomadaire’s former publishing group, Media Trust, and its current one, Trimedia, were bankrupt, lawyers told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Aboubakr Jamaï, co-founder and former managing director of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, told...