Ethics and Freedom

More Internet journalists are jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, released Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 45 per cent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors. Online journalists represent the largest professional category for the first time

An independent Kazakh journalist is being continually harassed by the country's National Security Committee (KNB), which wants him to reveal how he obtained an internal KNB memo. The harassment led Ramazan Esergepov to seek refuge inside the US consulate in Almaty. “The pressure applied to Esergepov was out of all proportion,” Reporters sans Frontières said. “KNB should track down the source of...

Rachid Nini, publisher of Al-Massae newspaper, has been fined another 600,000 dirhams (54,000 euros) by a Casablanca court for allegedly libelling a prominent lawyer. The fine, imposed on December 1, may force Morocco’s leading Arabic-language daily to close down. Al-Massae had already said it would probably have to shut down after an appeal court ruling on October 30 confirming that it would have...

A freelance journalist has been sentenced to six months in prison in the Kurdish city of Erbil for writing an article about health and sex for independent weekly Hawlati. Adel Hussein, a doctor and a freelance journalist, was found guilty of violating "public custom" on November 24 by a court in Erbil for publishing an article in April 2007 in Hawlati about health and sex, Tariq Fatih, the weekly...

Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, the editor of the privately-owned Arabic-language weekly Al-Aqsa, has been imprisoned in Mauritanian capital Nouakchott on a criminal libel charge. Abeidna was immediately jailed Tuesday on his arrival from Dubai, from where he was extradited. “Abeidna’s imprisonment is disproportionate and counter-productive, and confirms the urgent need for a reform of Mauritania’s...

An Iraqi court on Sunday ordered the release of a freelance photographer working for Reuters after being held by US forces since early September, the news agency has reported. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, and ordered that the US military release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport. Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged in...

The treatment meted out by the French police to Vittorio de Filippis, former managing editor of leftwing daily Libération, has prompted widespread condemnation and furore. Filippis was manhandled, handcuffed, humiliated in front of his sons, twice forced to strip and submit to body cavity searches and interrogated without lawyers by an investigating magistrate— all over a two-year-old libel case...

Editors of Egyptian newspaeprs Al- Masry Al-Youm and Al-Wafd and three other journalists have been summoned to appear in court in connection with a ban that has been placed on the publication of any material concerning the Susan Tamim murder case, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has reported. On November 22, the prosecution investigated Magdy el-Gallad, the editor of the...

Nigeria President Umaru Yar’Adua has initiated action against independent daily Leadership after it carried an article on the state of health of Yar’Adua saying he had to cancel official engagements for two days because of ill health. The article also said that doctors had been flown in from Saudi Arabia to treat him, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The publisher of Leadership, Sam...

Somali police have arrested the director of a radio station in the south-western town of Baidoa. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Hilal Sheikh Shuayb of Warsan Radio was arrested following the orders of the governor of Bay Region, Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim. The journalist was accused of airing live the judgment of a Baidoa Court judge who ruled on a Transitional...