Ethics and Freedom

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed concern at attacks on news media and journalists in Nicaragua, preventing them from covering the unrest following the November 9 elections. Reporting teams from the newspapers La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario and Canal 2 planning to cover pro- and anti-government demonstrations in León were reportedly stoned and prevented by supporters of the...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has accused the German Football Federation of launching an unfair campaign of distortion and lies against a journalist who has criticised its President, Theo Zwanziger, one of the country's leading sports officials. Jens Weinreich, an investigative journalist with Berliner Zeitung, is a specialist in the area of international politics of sports who has...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged Taiwan's National Police Agency (NPA) to stop asking media personnel for information about protesters at a recent public demonstration. According to the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ), an IFJ affiliate, members of the Taiwan police have reportedly asked media workers to provide photographs of demonstrators who participated in the...

A newspaper reporter has been imprisoned for two months after having been detained by military personnel when he was on his way to cover a confrontation between opposing gangs of suspected drug traffickers in Arcelia, Guerrero, southern Mexico. According to national and Guerrero-based media outlets, on September 6 a group of approximately 30 men from Mexico State arrived in Guerrero and entered...

An Abu Dhabi court of appeal has suspended the Emarat Alyoum newspaper for defamation. The court also on November 19 fined the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Sami Al-Alraymi, 20,000 dirham (approx US$5,400) and the newspaper 500,000 dirham (approx US$136,000). The sentences are based on a lawsuit filed by the Warsan Stables, based in UAE, in January 2007 following a front-page article published in...

Radio Ritmo station in the western Ecuadorian province of Santa Elena has been closed down. The close, according to the Lima-based Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), came after the Telecommunications Superintendence (Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones, SUPERTEL) acted on a resolution by the National Radio and Television Council (Consejo Nacional de Radiodifusión y Televisión, CONARTEL) which...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the Swaziland attorney-general’s threatening statement that journalists who criticise the government could be arrested under a new anti-terrorism law that has just been used to crack down on opposition groups. “In a country already under King Mswati’s tight control, the government has clearly decided to step up the pressure and leave no room for any...

The supreme court in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan in the west Uzbekistan has upheld a ten-year jail sentence for drug-trafficking against journalist and human rights activist Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The court in the capital Noukous passed sentence without taking into account defence argument that the authorities targeted him because of...

Moscow prosecutors say they have warned the Russian-language edition of the Newsweek magazine for allegedly insulting Muslims, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. [ Link] The Moscow Prosecutor's Office says the magazine published two stories that could be "insulting or humiliating" to Muslims. It said Tuesday an article also included one of the 2005 Danish cartoons depicting the prophet...

Russian prosecutors are launching inquiries across the country against news media reporting on the financial crisis in a bid to stem growing concern about its impact, Moscow-based business newspaper Kommersant reported on Wednesday. "It's not censorship. We're just checking how reliable the information is," a press official from the prosecutor general's office was quoted as saying by Agence France...