Ethics and Freedom

Detentions of journalists reporting on ethnic violence in China's Xinjiang region has been continuing, according to press freedom groups. The Beijing-based Uighur academic and blogger Ilham Tohti, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has been missing since July 8 when he told a friend he had received a notice of detention. On July 6, Beijing public security officials questioned...

A group of Venezuelan journalists with the regional television network Telesur and the state-owned station Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) left Honduras on Sunday after being detained and harassed in the capital, Tegucigalpa, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. "We are gravely concerned that the media environment in Honduras has become increasingly polarized while the interim...

The six journalists who were returned to Banjul’s Mile Two prison on July were 3 released again July 7 morning on bail of 400,000 dalassi (10,800 euros). The court did not immediately demand payment of the bail but it asked fellow-journalists to act as guarantors. All six have been told to report to the Banjul high court again at 9 a.m. on July 8. “We hope they are being released for good this...

With 30 journalists currently in prison, Iran has replaced China as the world's worst jailer of journalists. Research by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows that 24 detained in the aftermath of the elections remain in custody, in addition to six journalists who were in detention prior to the disputed elections. In the past few days three journalists have been freed

Authorities in northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang are said to be harassing journalists reporting on ethnic rioting in regional capital Urumqi, according to press freedom groups. One journalist was detained for two hours in Urumqi Tuesday for reporting independently of a government-organised media tour of the damaged city, according to National Public Radio. "I went independently of the group...

Adnan Hassanpour, a Kurdish journalist whose death sentence was quashed in August 2008, was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison by the court in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj that retried his case, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has learnt from his family. The death sentence was passed on Hassanpour on July 16, 2007 by a revolutionary tribunal in Marivan, in Iran’s Kurdish northwestern region...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for reforms of the press law in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to ensure press freedom. The call followed a judgment of the Federal High Court in Abu Dhabi, on June 29, which upheld the suspension of the Emarat Al Youm newspaper in a libel suit brought by race horses owners based in UAE. The judgment of the Federal High Court cannot be...

The Debate newspaper, based in the town of Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, in São Paulo state, was ordered to pay R$593,000 (approx. US$306,000) as a result of a lawsuit for defamation filed against it in 1995 by Judge Antônio José Magdalena. According to a delayed report by the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, the order was passed on June 25. According to the newspaper's owner, Sérgio Fleury Moraes, the...

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has recommended that the government should "decriminalise" offences relating to the accreditation and the practice of journalism in Zimbabwe, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The commission ruled in favour of MISA-Zimbabwe, Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (IJAZ) and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human...

Twentyfour journalists remain jailed in Iran, according to the latest CPJ research, while the government has instituted a broad and intrusive censorship regime. The government prevented a total of five national newspapers from publishing on Wednesday, according to local news reports. At least three of the papers said that representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance had stopped...