Ethics and Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Iranian authorities to release all journalists detained in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election and to lift the onerous press restrictions that are choking information at a time when the country and the world most need it. At least 13 journalists detained during a week of protests were still in government custody as of late Monday...

The Islamic Republic of Iran now ranks alongside China as the world’s biggest prison for journalists, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) . The crackdown has been intensified yet again following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s endorsement of the result of the June 12 presidential election and the opposition’s decision to call another demonstration on June 20. Iran now has a...

[Updates earlier story] Five-year prison sentences have been handed down by a military court in Cameroon to Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwé, respectively deputy managing director and editor of weekly La Nouvelle for publishing “defence secrets," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. To date, neither of the two journalists has actually been arrested. “The sentence...

A magistrate in the Gambian capital, Banjul, has charged seven journalists with sedition for criticizing President Yahya Jammeh's televised comments about the unsolved 2004 murder of editor Deyda Hydara, their defence lawyer said. Gambian security forces arrested an eighth journalist Thursday morning, although no charges were immediately brought, the committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has...

A journalist in Equatorial Guinea, facing a criminal libel charge over a flawed story, was imprisoned on Wednesday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported, quoting local journalists. Rodrigo Angüe Nguema, a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Radio France Internationale (RFI), was arrested by a plainclothes security agent at a courthouse in the capital...

Two Al Jazeera journalists, Qais Azimy and Hameedullah Shah, who had been detained since June 14, have been relased, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The two journalists were released on June 16. Their colleagues said they spent part of the time chained to a chair and were prevented from sleeping by the National Directorate of Security officials who were holding them. Asked about...

Gambia's national security agency arrested Monday seven journalists who published a union press release criticising President Yahya Jammeh's recent comments about the unsolved 2004 murder of editor Deyda Hydara, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Monday evening, National Intelligence Agency (NIA) plainclothes agents picked up veteran Managing Editor Sam Sarr, an advisor to...

Iranian authorities are continuing a crackdown on journalists and information that began after the announcement of the disputed presidential election results. Journalists are still being arrested and more censorship measures have been adopted as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s allies try to suppress media coverage of fraud allegations. “Independent sources of news and information find it very hard...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned as “bogus” and “dishonest” technical and official explanations given by the Ministry of Transport and Communications for banning broadcasting by the radio station La Voz de Bagua Grande in the town of the same name in Peru’s north-west. Paris-based RSF called on the government, unhappy at the media’s support for recent indigenous peoples’...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the Ecuadorean government and National Council for Radio and Television (Conartel) to withdraw the latest administrative proceedings against the privately-owned national TV station Teleamazonas, which could force it off the air. The offensive comes amid a war of nerves between the station and President Rafael Correa, who has said he wants to “put an end”...