Ethics and Freedom

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of Zakari Alzouma, the editor the independent weekly Opinions, who has been detained since October 30 in Niamey as a result of a libel complaint by the interior minister and whose case will not be heard for another week. “Niger’s legislation on press offences comes in handy for a government that does not want to give up its bad habits,”...

Sudanese journalists have launched a mass hunger strike and three independent newspapers stopped work for three days in the country's biggest organised media protest against censorship. Over 150 journalists began a 24-hour hungerstrike and the Ajras al-Hurriya, Al-Maidan and Rayal al-Shab newspapers halted production, saying they could no longer accept government restrictions over editorial...

Twelve prominent human rights activists, including three leading journalists, who advocate for reform in Syria have been sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The leaders of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change—the largest opposition coalition in Syria—were sentenced on October 29 under criminal legislation that prohibits “spreading false news” and “weakening national sentiment”...

Morocco has banned an issue of French magazine L'Express International, claiming it insults Islam in articles exploring the relationship between that religion and Christianity. Algerian and Tunisian authorities followed suit three days after the October 31 Moroccan decision. Moroccan Information Minister Khalid Naciri said Sunday that he had no choice but to ban the current issue because of the...

The Zimbabwean government had asked officials to spy on the emails of editors employed by the state-owned Zimpapers group from August 3-15 this year to gauge their loyal to President Robert Mugabe, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “As a result of this illegal decision, editor Bhekinkosi Ncube of the magazine Umthunywa has been suspended for nearly two months and could lose his job...

The Tunisian government has seized the latest issue of an opposition newspaper and to summon an independent editor to appear before a public prosecutor, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The Interior Ministry seized the October 22 issue of Mouatinoun, the weekly newspaper of the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties party, for “publishing unlawful allegations,” said...

An Afghan appeals court has sentenced journalist Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh to 20 years in prison for blasphemy overturning a death sentence ordered by a provincial court. Kambakhsh was accused of printing and distributing an article from the Internet about Islam and women’s rights, on which he had written some comments about the prophet Mohammed’s failings on that issue. "The court has sentenced...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned an Egyptian court’s decision on Saturday to levy steep fines against an editor and reporter for an independent weekly that published a satirical piece about a prominent cleric. A criminal court in Al-Geeza ordered El-Fegr editor Adel Hammouda and writer Mohamed al-Baz to pay fines of 80,000 Egyptian pounds ($14,341) apiece on charges that...

The Supreme Court has expressed its strong disapproval of obscenity and violence being telecast on country's TV channels and said it has become impossible for families to sit together and watch the programmes being telecast, the Press Trust of India (PTI) has reported. A three-judge Bench of Justices BN Aggrawal, GS Singhvi and Aftab Alam on Wednesday granted three weeks' time to the Union...

The lawyer of Afghan reporter Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh sentenced to death on blasphemy charges accused authorities Thursday of holding his client beyond a legal deadline, as the young man neared a full year in detention, says an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report. The appeal of Kambakhsh -- arrested last October and sentenced to death by a primary court in January -- has been repeatedly delayed...