Ethics and Freedom

Ecuadorian journalist Milton Chacaguasay Flores, editor and owner of weekly newspaper La Verdad, was sentenced to ten months in prison for committing libel against Judge Silvio Castillo. The sentence was issued by a criminal court in the province of El Oro on November 15, the Peru-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) has reported. The journalist was arrested on November 30 and imprisoned at...

Kinshasa's N'Djili court has handed down 10 and nine-month sentences, respectively, to Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of the Kinshasa-based, independent bi-weekly Interprète, and his assistant, Davin Tondo Nzovuanga, according to Kinshasa-based Journaliste en Danger (JED). The court's decision of November 27 was made public a week later. The two men were arrested by state security agents in March and...

Kurdish physician and freelance journalist Adel Hussein has been released from prison in Erbil (330 km north of Baghdad) under a pardon granted by the president of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan at the start of every religious festival, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Hussein had been in prison since November 24, when he was found guilty of offending public decency under article 403...

The public outcry over the arrest and humiliation of the former managing editor of leftwing daily Libération, Vittorio de Filippis, may lead to the modification of libel laws in France. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, giving in to the simmering discontent, over the journalist’s arrest, has said that he wants to change the law and decriminalise defamation, thereby removing the threat of arrest

The Council of Europe’s decision to adopt a treaty on access to information has created more ire than evoking support because of its "incomplete" and "unsupportive" status. Without discussing issues pointed out by members of parliament, over 250 civil society groups, a dozen European information commissioners and several governments—the secretive approach of Council of Europe (CoE) has raised

The ‘war on terror’ in Europe has seriously affected freedom of expression while providing little benefit in fighting terrorism. The last seven years have seen many policy and legislative changes in several nations which have threatened journalists' ability to gather and disseminate information. Since 2001, nearly all European countries have revised their legislation and policies relating to

Fiji's interim government has asked the court to jail the publishers and editors of two of the country's daily newspapers for six months each and impose a fine of $1 million (approx. US$539,000) over their publication of a letter that criticised the High Court's validation of the 2006 military coup. The Fiji Times and Daily Post newspapers have published statements acknowledging their guilt on...

Nazif Iflasoglu, a reporter from the daily Radikal, has been acquitted of the accusation of "securing and spreading secret documents". He had faced the charges for publishing an article about the strategy of the Follow-Up Committee at the Prime Ministry regarding its fight against the radical Muslim Hizbullah Organization, the Istanbul-based IPS Communication Foundation (BIANET) has reported. The...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the judicial harassment of Freddy Aponte Aponte, a journalist based in the southern city of Loja who works for privately-owned radio station, Luz y Vida. After being given a six-month jail sentence on September 25 for allegedly slandering a former mayor of Loja, he has just learnt in prison that the ex-mayor is now suing him for a million dollars in...

A 13-year prison sentence has been imposed by a prosecutor on Haci Bogatekin, owner and editor of Turkish fortnightly Gerger Firat for an article accusing another local prosecutor of bias. A four-and-a-half-year sentence was also requested for the editor of a website that posted the article, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Bogatekin’s December 2 court appearance was the seventh time...