Press Freedom Overview

For more than 40 years, the Mafia has been targeting journalists who try to expose the organisation's criminal activities, says an Italian media watchdog. In a new report, the Italian-based rights group Information Safety and Freedom (ISF) says that nine journalists have been murdered by the mafia since 1960, from Cosimo Cristina who was killed in Sicily in 1960 to Beppe Alfano in 1993. Many other

Eighty-two journalists fled their native countries under threat or harassment in the last 12 months, with more than half coming from conflict-ridden Iraq and Somalia. The rate of journalists going into exile—about seven per month—is double the average that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has recorded since it began compiling such data in 2001. In the majority of cases, journalists

Global press freedom underwent a clear decline in 2007, with journalists struggling to work in increasingly hostile environments in almost every region in the world, according to a new survey released by Freedom House. The decline in press freedom—which occurred in authoritarian countries and established democracies alike—continues a six-year negative trend. Freedom House formally presented

There is genuine press freedom within the European Union. No state has ordered the murder or imprisonment of a journalist and state censorship is a thing of the past. Media express a diversity of opinion and a pluralism of ideas is generally assured. But the situation is not perfect for all that. Thw word of caution comes from Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), which has for the first time

Democracies from Colombia to India and Russia to the Philippines are among the worst countries in the world at prosecuting journalists' killers, according to the Impunity Index, a list of countries where governments have consistently failed to solve journalists’ murders. The list has been compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The countries with the worst records for impunity—Iraq

Attacks on journalists and media outlets have intensified in the Americas over the past six months. If court cases and judicial rulings against the media are anything to go by, apart increasing violence against journalists, the times are bad for journalists in the region. Journalists, in fact, continue to be killed in high numbers in the Americas and the vast majority of these murders go

The United Nations Human Rights Council is acting as a cover for Islamic and other countries aiming to restrict free speech. That's what free speech advocates have to say. The 47-nation council passed resolutions Friday imposing new instructions for its investigator on freedom of expression, free speech advocates say, bows too far to concerns about defamation of Islam, which have flared again with

In January this year, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN released a comprehensive report on how criminal defamation legislation is being used in Africa to silence print journalists who report on corruption, mismanagement, and other abuses of power. It looked at cases of defamation-related persecution in the 17 months to November 2007. Now, three months into 2008, new

Freedom of expression in Yemen remains in peril. there have been a series of blows to press freedom in the past few days in this peninsular country. Authorities banned distribution of the monthly Abwab and the weekly Al-Sabah on March 14. The website www.aleshteraki.net, the mouthpiece of the main opposition party, has been inaccessible since March 12. At the same time, the daily Al-Sharea, its

Nine years after King Hamad bin-Issa al-Khalifa’s installation as head of state of Bahrain, the Gulf island nation is yet to implement the legislative reforms that it has been promising for several years. While Bahraini journalists are able to speak out a bit more than their colleagues in many other Gulf countries, the press freedom situation is far from satisfactory. No journalist has been