Ethics and Freedom

Defamation charges have been filed against a Moroccan editor by a group that represents close relatives of King Mohamed VI. A Casablanca court has summoned the editor to appear on Tuesday, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The charges against Driss Chahtan, managing editor of the independent weekly Al-Michaal, stem from a front-page story titled "The Scandals of the King's...

Intelligence officials at the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Kabul detained two Afghan journalists detained on Sunday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Qais Azimy and Hameedullah Shah, producers for Al-Jazeera, were detained separately on Sunday, two days before the country's presidential election campaigns are set to begin, according to according to an Al...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the Fiji military regime's extension of strict media censorship and emergency regulations, saying the regime's effort to stamp out public discussion is undermining all fundamental rights of the people of Fiji. Under the emergency rules, initially imposed in April, the media is forbidden to publish or broadcast anything negative about...

Iranian authorities have criticised international media reports and taken steps to control the flow of information from independent news sources as anti-government protests raged in the country for the third day on Monday. Opposition candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have appealed to their supporters not to accept the “rigged results.” The British Broadcasting Co said that electronic...

The editor of a private newspaper in the Gambia has been in police custody since Wednesday because of a story that falsely reported the sacking of two government officials, according to local journalists. Abdulhamid Adiamoh, managing editor of the daily Today, is being held in a cell at the Major Crimes Unit of police headquarters in the capital Banjul since his arrest on Wednesday, the...

This set of documents has been put together in the hope that they will help inform the ongoing (if sporadic) public debate on media regulation in India, with particular reference to the broadcast sector. This set includes a backgrounder on media regulation (or the lack thereof), a backgrounder on broadcast legislation, summaries of case law relating to different aspects of media practice, and a...

There is a stark lack of balanced and independent electoral coverage in the Iranian media. And, 15 journalists have been threatened or summoned for questioning in the cities of Machhad, Ahvaz, Sanandaj, Khoram Abad, Khohdasht and Tabriz since the campaign for the June presidential 12 election began on May 21. They have been targetted for criticising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is running

Three journalists were injured when they were assaulted by workers of the Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). The journalists were assaulted while covering an IJT protest rally on June 8 in capital Islamabad, the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) has reported. The injured included Syed Mehdi, photojournalist for the daily the Nation, Muhammad Asim, photojournalist...

A magistrate's court in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, suspended on June 3 distribution of the June 2009 edition of L'Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine, and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover page that the court claimed were an "insult" to President Abdoulaye Wade. According to the presiding magistrate, the headlines "Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal...

the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) has urged CRTC to allow Al Jazeera English Television to be broadcast in Canada. CJFE sent a letter in support of the application urging the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to approve ECGL's (Ethnic Channels Group Limited) request for the addition of Al Jazeera English to the lists of eligible satellite services...