Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) welcomes the release of Al-Waha editor Nedjar El-Hadj Daoud Tuesday evening in the southern city of Ghardaïa, where he had been jailed on the morning of March 2. The Algiers-based daily El Watan said he was released from the city’s prison on medical grounds. “A commission tasked with executing the court ruling decided to suspend the detention order,” Nedjar told Al...
A TV production company in a Parisian suburb was raided on March 2 in connection with a documentary about Martinique in which a member of the French Caribbean island’s white business elite, Alain Huyghues-Despointes, made racist comments, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) The comments sparked a controversy after the Tac Presse documentary, called “The Last Masters of Martinique” and...
The Almaty appeal court has been accused by press freedom groups of seeking to ruin an independent newspaper by imposing a fine that it and its journalists would find impossible to pay. A case for defamation was brought by parliament deputy, Ramin Madinov, against the editor of the weekly newspaper Tasjargan, Bakyttoul Makimbai and a journalist, Almas Koucherbayev after it carried an article on...
Algerian newspaper editor Nedjar El-Hadj Daoud has been arrested after a local court in Ghardaïa (467 km south of Algiers) confirmed a six-month prison sentence for libel that was originally imposed in 2005, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. He edits Al-Waha, southern Algeria’s only regional newspaper. The six-month jail sentence was originally passed by a Ghardaïa court on November 14...
Brazil's Federal Supreme Court (STF) has made a "preliminary" decision to extend a suspension of 22 clauses—including 20 articles—of the draconian February 9, 1967 press law. The clauses at issue that allow prison sentences for offences of "defamation", "denigration" and "insult", were suspended for the first time for a period of six months, by the country's highest jurisdiction on February 27...
The preliminary results of an Afro Barometer Survey indicate that a majority of people in Botswana support press freedom and critical speech, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The survey, conducted by the Department of Political and Administration Studies, Sociology and Statistics at the University of Botswana reveals that "Batswana overwhelmingly showed their support for...
The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has temporarily closed Mzimba Community Radio Station, based in the northern part of the country, on grounds that the station did not comply with the regulatory body's rules and regulations as stipulated in the Communications Act, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. Details behind the community radio station's closure...
Journaliste en danger (JED) has applauded the February 19 release of Bwamputu Akienzin Zéphyrin, a correspondent for the public broadcaster RTNC in Bandundu province, western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Zéphyrin had been facing charges of making damaging allegations against a former RTNC director. A Bandundu court declared the charges pending against the journalist unfounded, acquitting...
Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico newspaper recently accused the government of Álvaro Colom of censoring the press by using government advertising funds in a discriminatory fashion to punish or reward media outlets. As a result, the newspaper has asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights's (IACHR) Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression to intervene in the situation. On...
A case brought against Radio Dunya for playing the Kurdish folk song "Mihemedo" in 2007 has ended in acquittal, IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET) has reported quoting broadcasting editor Mehmet Arslan. However, another case against the station is still in court. Radio Dunya broadcasts in the province of Adana, in southern Turkey. On February 23, the radio station's lawyer, Tugay Bek, learnt...
