Ethics and Freedom

An Azerbaijani court convicted Ali Hasanov, editor-in-chief of the pro-government daily Ideal, on defamation charges and sentenced him to six months in jail, according to the head of the Baku-based Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), Emin Huseynov. The journalist was taken immediately into custody in court on Friday. His lawyer plans to appeal the ruling, according to Huseynov...

Two Nigerien journalists were sentenced to prison Tuesday on criminal libel charges over editorials critically scrutinising the director of the country's electricity supplier. The two men are free pending an appeal after spending five days in prison. A criminal court judge in the capital, Niamey, sentenced editor Moussa Aksar and reporter Aboubacar Sani of the weekly L'Evènement to three months in...

Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, editor of the Huhuonline ( http://huhuonline.com) website, has been released after a week of interrogation by Nigeria's State Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency, but deplores its refusal to let him to go back to the United States, where he lives. “Irked by websites with political or satirical content, the Nigerian authorities are trying to force online...

A federal appeals court in the US on Monday threw out a contempt order requiring fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to personally pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J Hatfill, who was...

Zambia's members of Parliament (MPs) have called for the regulation of media organisations through the use of statutory instruments as opposed to self-regulation because of the alleged biased media coverage of the just ended presidential by-election. According to a report in the Zambia Daily Mail of November 14 and the live broadcast of Parliament Radio which Media Institute of Southern Africa...

The Press Council of India has issued a new set of guidelines for reporting within India on people suffering from HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), revising a set of guidelines issued last in 1993. The guidelines, developed in association with UNAIDS, were released on Sunday, and emphasise on factual accuracies and ask journalists to report a story...

A judge has banned media coverage of the trial of Egyptian tycoon Hisham Talaat Moustafa who is accused of ordering the killing of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim who jilted him, according to news reports. Egyptian media said Tamim, a close friend of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, and part of a powerful group long seen as above the law in Egypt's hierarchical class-based society...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and the Burma Media Association (BMA) have expressed outrage at the two-year sentence passed on Ein Khaing Oo, a 24-year-old journalist with the weekly Ecovision Journal, for taking photos of Cyclone Nargis victims. Ein Khaing Oo was arrested in Rangoon in June 2008 and convicted on November 14. "This unjust sentence comes amid a wave of unprecedented sentences for...

A district court in russia has ordered a newspaper to refute information, apologise and pay moral damages in defamation case, the Moscow-based Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES) has said, quoting delayed reports. On October 10, the Ufa Oktyabrsky District Court issued a ruling in the defamation lawsuit filed by Justice Rosa Gilyazitdinova against newspaper Chas Pik. Na Magistrali...

Journalists from various media outlets in Ecuador have protested the new security measures that have been implemented since October 22 by the National Assembly's Legislative and Auditing Commission, better known as the "Congresillo". According to the new regulations, journalists may only occupy the press room and cannot access the offices of the General Secretariat, the Presidency or any upper...