Ethics and Freedom

The interior ministry of the Republic of Khakassia (in southwestern Siberia) has withdrawn the charges of spreading false rumours that were brought against Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor the Novy Focus news website, on August 20 in connection with his coverage of an explosion at a hydro-electric plant. “We welcome this decision but we nonetheless regard this case as indicative of the hostility that...

A magistrate in Zambia issued a summons for the entire editorial staff of the southern African country's largest independent newspaper to appear in court on Wednesday on contempt charges, according to local journalists and news reports. The ruling was prompted by an op-ed commenting on the prosecution of the paper's news editor. The Post published on Thursday an op-ed by a US-based contributor...

The Vietnam government has launched a crackdown against online journalists and political bloggers for criticising the ruling Communist Party’s policies towards China. The move comes as Web-based journalists and bloggers' independent reporting challenges the tightly censored state-run media's traditional monopoly on local news and opinion, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the Samarkand Regional Court in central Uzbekistan to overturn on appeal a 12 and a half year jail sentence given to independent journalist Dilmurod Saiid. His appeal is scheduled for review September 8. On July 30, the Tailak District Court in Samarkand sentenced Saiid on charges of extortion and forgery, regional news website Ferghana...

A Ugandan newspaper's critical caricature of President Yoweri Museveni led police to interrogate three journalists on allegations of sedition, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting a defence attorney and local journalists. For four hours, 10 officers of the Media Crimes Department of Uganda's Criminal Investigations Directorate questioned the editorial decisions of...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has deplored the conditions in which dozens of Iranian journalists are being held and is concerned about the health of many of them, particularly that of Ahmad Zaid-Abadi. The columnist, who worked for Rooz Online, a Farsi and English-language reformist news website, was arrested in mid-June after the contested presidential election. Mahdieh Mohammadi, Zaid...

An Istanbul criminal court has ordered the closure, for one month, of Günlük newspaper – which is known for raising issues related to Turkey’s Kurdish minority - over an article considered by the court to constitute propaganda for a terrorist organisation. The article was published earlier this month. The verdict, handed down on August 22, did not specify why the article was deemed to be of a...

Georgian authorities on Wednesday released journalist Shalva Ramishvili from prison, after he served a full four-year term for alleged blackmail, according to the International Press Institute (IPI). Ramishvili, a former reporter for - and part owner of - TV broadcaster ‘202’, has always protested his innocence, claiming his conviction was punishment for his criticism of Georgian President Mikhail...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have urged Serbian lawmakers to throw out a package of controversial draft amendments to the Public Information Act proposed by the government of Serbia. In a letter to the President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, IFJ President Jim Boumelha urged him to withdraw the amendments. He wrote: "We are concerned...

A Mauritanian court has sentenced an online editor to six months in prison, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). A court in capital Nouakchott found Hanevy Ould Dehah, editor of the online publication Taqadoumy, guilty of acts "contrary to Islam and decent behavior" after he published an article about sex education, his lawyer Brahim Ould Ebetty told Agence France-Presse (AFP)...