Zimbabwe has allowed the BBC and CNN to resume operations in the country. This development is the outcome of meetings held by representatives of the organisations with the Minister of Media, Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu and his Permanent Secretary, George Charamba, the Zimbabwe Standard has reported. The details: [ Link] The BBC last officially covered in Zimbabwe in 2001 five weeks...
The police in the city of Muzaffarabad barred journalists from entering the court room on July 27 to cover the case against three colleagues who had been accused of scandalising the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK). According to press reports, when media teams from Islamabad and other areas reached the court building, they saw a large contingent of police...
The interim government in Honduras has been maintaining a selective censorship of news in the country since the June 28 coup d’état. Media regarded as critical of President Roberto Micheletti are being systematically obstructed. The programming of Radio Globo, one of the few media still criticising the new regime, is often interrupted. Soldiers tried to force their way into its studios on July 25
The Democratic Republic of Congo government has shut down local FM retransmission of the French public radio station Radio France Internationale (RFI) throughout the country since July 26, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist in Danger (JED) have reported. JED has confirmed from various sources that RFI’s broadcasts on the FM waveband have been cut since July 26 in Kinshasa (the country...
The government in the breakaway republic of Somaliland has launched a crackdown on the independent press as September presidential elections near. On July 13, Somaliland police arrested private Radio Horyaal Director Mohamed Osman and News Editor Ahmed Suleiman at the station, accusing them of inciting violence, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported. The two were remanded in custody...
Real progress at the start of King Mohammed’s reign in Morocco has been followed by reverses and tension, especially from 2002 onwards. Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of Mohammed VI’s accession to the throne on July 23, 1999. The priority continues to be a thorough overhaul of the press code, which is much too severe, says Reporters sans Frontières (RSF), which has carried out an evaluation
The Propaganda Department to Chinese news media and news websites has censored reports about a corruption case with links to President Hu Jintao’s son and about the closure of a human rights law centre, according to Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “The Propaganda Department’s readiness to suppress news is an insult to the rights of Chinese citizens to be informed about matters of...
Niger's privately owned press on Monday started a week-long strike to protest a presidential decree that allows sanctions against the media without warning, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. "The strike is on and it is being well followed," Boubacar Diallo of the Niger Association of Independent Press Editors (ANEPI) told AFP. The three main dailies — L'Enqueteur, Le Canard Dechaine and la...
The Yemeni government's crackdown on independent media now extended to satellite television stations, according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Al-Jazeera was the first to be targeted after a ruling party official, Mossaad Allahbi, called for the closure of the local Al-Jazeera office for allegedly broadcasting news "hostile to the unity and security of Yemen." The...
President Rafael Correa called the El Universo newspaper a "travesty of a paper, the voice of the most pernicious political mafias in the history of Ecuador." The president's comment came in response to a July 10 editorial in the newspaper which criticised the replacement of the Deposit Security Agency's (Agencia de Garantía de Depósitos, AGD) manager and announced the newspaper would be...
