Ethics and Freedom

The media have become part and parcel of Thailand's intensifying political conflict: Two privately held satellite television news stations are openly aligned with competing political street movements, and state-controlled outlets are under opposition fire for allegedly misrepresenting recent crucial news events, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). As the conflict escalates and

Park Dae-sung, who blogs under the name Minerva, was acquitted of charges in South Korea on April 20, 2009, under a rarely used law of "spreading false information with the intent of harming the public interest." The Seoul court that heard his case ruled that Park wrote without malicious intent, even if his articles were misleading his articles, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has...

A high court judge in Singapore ruled on March 19, 2009, that Melanie Kirkpatrick, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, was in contempt of court for two articles and a letter to the editor published by the Dow Jones-owned Wall Street Journal Asia last year, according to international news reports. Kirkpatrick was ordered to pay SG$10,000 (US$6,549), according to the...

Indonesia's Supreme Court reversed its own 2007 ruling on April 16, 2009, and dismissed a $106 million case against the Hong Kong-based Time Warner publication that had been filed by the country's late President Suharto and continued by his heirs, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The decision marked the end of a lawsuit launched shortly before Suharto's death in 1999, a few...

As part of its declaration of a state of emergency on Sunday, the Thai government issued a decree that empowered officials to censor news considered a threat to national security, according to international and local news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the government to immediately rescind this order of censorship. On Monday, the government ordered the blocking...

Two photographers reported being shot at by bodyguards outside the home of Brazilian supermodel Giselle Bündchen in the western Costa Rican city of Santa Teresa de Cóbano on the afternoon of April 4, 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local and international news reports. No one was injured. Yuri Cortez, a Salvadoran photographer for Agence France-Presse (AFP)...

Following Thursday's release of independent journalists Sakit Zakhidov and Asif Marzili in Azerbaijan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Azerbaijani authorities to free the remaining journalists serving jail terms on trumped-up criminal charges. Zakhidov, a prominent satirist and commentator for the pro-opposition daily Azadlyg in Baku, was released early Thuesady morning under...

The Algerian government has decided to ban the distribution of the current issues of three French publications – L'Express, Marianne and Journal du Dimanche – on the eve of the April 9, 2009 election (where the President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is running for the third term), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.. "This censorship is disgraceful," Paris-based RSF said, expressing outrage at...

On March 31, in the commercial city of Abidjan, Judge Aissata Koné convicted Op-Ed Editor Nanankoua Gnamenteh and Managing Editor Eddy Péhé of private weekly Le Repère of charges of "offending the head of state" over an article in early March that was critical of President Laurent Gbagbo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local media reports. Koné sentenced Gnamanteh...

A district court in Baku has sentenced Asif Marzili, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly Tezadlar, to one year in prison on charges of defaming managers and professors of Azerbaijan International University, the Azeri Press Agency reported. Ruling on Tuesday, the court also handed down a six-month suspended corrective labor sentence to Tezadlar freelancer Zumrud Mammedova in the same case...