Ethics and Freedom

A Thai criminal court decision has sentenced media owner, television commentator, and political activist Sondhi Limthongkul to two years in prison in connection with criminal libel charges filed by a former government minister. Sondhi posted 200,000 baht (US$5,882) bail and told courtroom reporters last thursday that he would appeal the conviction, according to local news reports. The court also...

Official harassment of Malaysiakini, a widely read online news site in Malaysia that has faced persistent threats from government authorities over its 11-year history, has increased in recent times, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Officials from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) entered Malaysiakini’s offices on September 8 and videotaped its...

The Iraqi journalist jailed for throwing his shoes at former US president George W. Bush has arrived in Greece following his release, Iraqi diplomats said Thursday, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi went to Greece for medical treatment after suffering torture while in prison, his family said. He was released on Tuesday after being jailed for one year...

The released Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former US President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was tortured during the first days of being in custody. "I have been tortured by electric shocks, beatings and whipped by cords," Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who was freed earlier in the day after nine months of imprisonment, told in the news conference at the TV station where he works in Baghdad's...

Turkey’s tax ministry has imposed an unprecedented TL 3.75 billion, or €1.74 billion fine on a media group, Dogan Yayin, a conglomerate of newspapers and television stations that has been extremely critical of the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The huge penalty, handed down earlier this week following examinations of tax reports from 2005, 2006 and 2007, follows a €345 million fine against...

Finnish photojournalist Markus Pentikäinen, convicted in 2007 for ignoring a police order to stop reporting at the scene of a 2006 demonstration in Helsinki, is to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights, according to the International Press Institute (IPI. The move comes after a Finnish Supreme Court decision of September 1 which gave him "no leave to appeal," according to weekly...

A Ljubljana District Court has rejected Slovene daily Dnevnik's appeal against a temporary injunction that stops the paper reporting on an Italian businessman's alleged involvement in a corruption scandal, the International Press Institute (IPI) has reported. The injunction, which carries fines of up to €500,000 for failure to comply, relates to articles printed in Dnevnik on July 29 in which the...

A woman journalist convicted of public indecency for wearing trousers outdoors was freed Tuesday, despite her own desire to serve a month in prison as protest against Sudan's draconian morality laws, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The judge who convicted Lubna Hussein had imposed a $200 fine as her sentence, avoiding the maximum sentence of 40 lashes in an apparent attempt to put an end...

Vietnam has freed a detained blogger and a journalist who were critical of government policies towards China and involved in a plan to distribute anti-China T-shirts, the blogger and a lawyer said on Sunday, according to Reuters. The releases came ahead of a Sept 6-9 visit by Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh to Australia and New Zealand, where he is sure to face protests and pressure over human...

Negotiations are under way in Paris to select a new Director-General for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to replace Koichiro Matsuura of Japan, who has held the position for 10 years. UNESCO’s executive council will choose his successor by secret vote in a session that began Monday and ends on September 23. Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni is one...