Ethics and Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over Russia's denial of entry to a British journalist into the country last week. Freelance journalist Simon Pirani had a valid, multiple-entry visa to Russia when he was stopped by border guards at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on June 17. Officials handed him a “declaration of return,” which stated that he could not enter the country...

An Egyptian appeals court has upheld a guilty verdict against newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa who wrote stories questioning president Hosni Mubarak's health. Eissa, editor of the independent daily Al-Dustour, was sentenced Sunday to two months imprisonment. Eissa was originally convicted in March and sentenced to six months on charges of reporting and publishing "false" information that questioned...

Free expression defenders have won a small, but important victory: the UN Human Rights Council has dropped efforts of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and some African countries to endorse the concept of defamation of religion at its latest session. Following calls from IFEX members ARTICLE 19 and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), among other press freedom...

The Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) has defamed the city-state's two most powerful leaders, Singapore's High Court has ruled. The publisher and editor of the magazine, owned by Dow Jones & Co, are to pay damages to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, after defaming them in an article published in 2006, Reuters reported. The damages for the...

Iraq's largely autonomous northern Kurdistan region has passed a modified media law aimed at protecting journalists' rights, abolishing jail terms for offences such as defamation, Reuters has reported quoting parliamentary deputies. An earlier version of the law passed by parliament last December carried tough sanctions for journalists including imprisonment, fines of up to 10 million Iraqi dinar...

Australian federal police raided the house of a Canberra journalist Tuesday seeking to identify the source for a story quoting classified material from the top-secret Defence Intelligence Organisation, the Age has reported. Seven officers searched the home of Canberra Times national affairs correspondent Philip Dorling at 8.30 am. They took Dorling's laptop computer, the hard drive from a second...

Stanislav Glukhov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Khabarovsky Express, has been convicted of slander (a crime under Article 129 of the Russian Criminal Code), for disseminating false information and defaming Dmitry Rozenkov, a member of the local parliament, according to the Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES). The court found that Glukhov knowingly allowed the...

A top Saudi cleric has issued an edict saying writers who challenge or criticise religious sheikhs should be fired from their jobs, flogged, and jailed. This comes close on the heels of another top cleric calling for the death of owners of satellite TV stations that air “immoral” soap operas. Sheikh Abdallah Ben Jabreen, a former member of the Saudi Arabia’s Establishment of Fatwas, told Al-Majd...

Nigeria's National Broadcasting Commission restored Friday the broadcasting licence of Channels Television, two days after it was revoked for mistakenly reporting a fabricated report that the president may resign due to his health. NBC said the station apologised and accepted responsibility for the false report, according to Reuters. NBC director-general Yomi Bolarinwa said the commission was...

Turkish journalist Cengiz Kapmaz, editor of pro-Kurdish daily Alternatif, has been sentenced under the Anti-Terror Law to ten months in jail for “making propaganda” for the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in an article published in June 2006, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The Court of Assizes in Istanbul also sentenced the paper’s publisher Hasan Bayar and its owner, Ali...