Ethics and Freedom

A Cairo court of cassation has reject a request by the lawyers of jailed blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, better known by the pen-name of Kareem Amer, for his case to be retried. The judges said they would give the reasons for their ruling on December 26, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “This decision shows the Egyptian judicial system’s lack of independence,” Paris-based RSF...

The decision to jail a blogger and an Internet café owner is an escalation in Morocco’s already intense campaign against journalists and bloggers, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Friday. CPJ called on Moroccan authorities to overturn both prison sentences on appeal. Blogger Bashir Hazzam, 26, was sentenced to four months in prison for “spreading false information...

A Tajik government decree charging privately-owned media for access to public information has been described as “utterly grotesque” by press freedom organisation Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Issued on October 31, the decree “On the recovery by state institutions of the costs of presenting information” took effect on November 19. The media were not consulted about the decree, which was not...

There has been an unrelenting wave of unsolved attacks on journalists in Kyrgyzstan, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In two separate cases on Tuesday, a journalist was beaten and a newspaper received a bullet in an envelope along with threatening notes, according to local news reports. Last week, several other journalists and political analysts who...

Syrenius Cephus, the publisher of the Plain Truth daily newspaper, and Michael Makinde, the general manager of the Seamarco Printing Press, are being held in connection with a report claiming that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government supplied arms to dissident forces in neighbouring Guinea. “If the report that appeared in Plain Truth is baseless and defamatory, we think the...

The managing editor of a private newspaper in Cameroon has been held in police custody since Thursday, accused of insulting President Paul Biya, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists and news reports. Managing Editor Jean-Bosco Talla of the weekly Germinal was picked up by police in the capital, Yaoundé, on Thursday and taken to the State...

Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has commended the US Senate judiciary committee for successfully pushing forward the new Federal Shield Law Bill. In a 14-5 decision, members of the committee voted to send the bill to the full Senate, all the while defeating several amendments that would have diluted the extent of its reach. “This is a fairly good news for the journalism world in the United States"...

A court in the Amazonian state of Acre released Antônio Muniz, a local TV commentator and columnist for the daily newspaper O Rio Branco, on December 4, two days after he was jailed in connection with a 2002 conviction on a charge of defaming a senator. “The court’s decision was necessary because press offences have been decriminalised,” Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) said. “We are...

Two prominent Iranian journalists, Hengameh Shahidi and Saeed Laylaz, have been sentenced to extended prison terms. Shahidi was sentenced on Monday to six years and three months in prison, while Laylaz was sentenced to a prison sentence of no fewer than nine years, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international news reports. Shahidi‎, who is...

After being held by police for 12 days at the headquarters of the criminal investigation department in Kuwait City, journalist Mohammed Al-Jassem appeared in court again Tuesday morning and was able to challenge the legality of his detention and the way the investigation has been conducted, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. At the end of a hearing of more than two hours, the court...