State Control

The International Federation of Journalists has announced its support for Tunisian journalists currently on strike at Tunisian state Radio Television. The 150 journalists, cameramen and other technicians have been organising a sit-in since Monday in protest against the failure of management to provide them with proper full contracts in line with Tunisian labour legislation. "It is unacceptable...

Plainclothes police surrounded the offices of a newly launched satellite radio station in Tunisia and detained one of its journalists on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Police continued their siege of the station Wednesday. The journalist, Dhafer Otay of Radio Kalima, said he was held for four hours and then released without charge...

Bolivian President Evo Morales launched a state-run daily newspaper on Thursday, hoping to strike back against what he calls media bias three days before the country votes on his new constitution, Reuters reported. The paper, published with color photos on high-quality newsprint, is called Cambio, or "Change." Its slogan is "The truth will liberate us." The first issue hit newsstands on the three...

Zimbabwe's Retrenchment Board has ruled against the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings' (ZBH) bid to retrench six of its journalists who were suspended in June 2008 on allegations of "acting in a manner inconsistent with the fulfillment of the implied conditions" of their contracts, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. Monica Gavela, Patrice Makova, Garikai Chaunza...

The proposed changes in the Cable Television Network Regulations Act have been put on hold after top editors of major television news channels unanimously agreed to oppose the proposed amendments. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday stepped in to assure news broadcasters that nothing would be finalised without "the widest possible consultation with all the stakeholders and eliciting their...

Two east Jerusalem employees of a production company servicing various media outlets worldwide, including one based in Iran, were indicted in Israel Tuesday for breaking Israeli military censorship, the Ynet news site reported. Kadir Shahin, a reporter with Iranian Arabic-speaking Alalam television station, and producer Muhammad Sarhan are accused of reporting that Israeli ground troops had...

A number of prominent Israeli human rights groups have slammed local media outlets for muzzling criticism of the army's deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip. "Opinions criticising the decision to launch the offensive or the army's conduct during the war are hardly heard," the heads of eight rights organisations wrote in a letter to the editors of Israeli papers, television news channels, radios and...

Malaysia has withdrawn a ban on a Catholic newspaper's Malay-language edition imposed in a row over the use of the word "Allah", an official said Thursday. The decision was made after the Herald weekly threatened to sue the government, the Home Ministry's publications control unit secretary Che Din Yusof told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "We received their letter. We have reviewed the decision and...

The editors of two leading Vietnamese newspapers were fired on January 2, the latest in a series of measures by the Vietnamese government to stifle criticism and dissent, Human Rights Watch has reported. In December, the government announced strict new regulations banning internet blogs that disseminate politically sensitive content deemed subversive by the government. During the last three months...

Thai authorities have blocked 2,300 websites for allegedly insulting the country's monarchy, with 400 more awaiting a court order to restrict them, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) has reported. The Economic Times Online quoted Information and Communication (ICT) Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee as saying on January 6 that "The blocking of websites that disseminate content and pictures...