State Control

The Burmese junta, which has appealed for international aid to cope with the impact of Cyclone Nargis, has barred foreign journalists from entering the country and expelled one BBC reporter, news agencies have reported quoting state media. BBC Asia correspondent Andrew William Harding was stopped by Myanmar (Burma) immigration officials at Yangon International Airport from entering the country May...

Russia's lower house of parliament voted Friday to widen the definition of slander and libel and give regulators the authority to shut down media outlets found guilty of publishing such material, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The legislation, passed by the State Duma 339-1, is the latest attempt by the government to squeeze the country's increasingly embattled news media. Some details...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has delpored deplores the Tunisian government’s apparent censorship of the opposition weekly Al-Mawkif. Over the past month, Tunisian authorities have prevented distribution of four successive issues of Al-Mawkif, published since 1984 by the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). Rachid Khechana, editor of Al-Mawkif, told CPJ that plainclothes...

A proposed bill to amend the law on extremism will impose further restrictions on press freedom in Russia. Drafted by the prosecutor-general’s office, the bill was presented at a meeting organised by the Duma’s security committee on April 10. The proposed changes would allow prosecutors to exercise additional control over publications, especially websites. They would, for example, make it...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Monday began a four-day official visit to China aiming to put in place measures that will protect journalists facing new threats as political confrontation intensifies in the run up to the Olympics. "In the last few weeks the political heat has been turned up over Tibet and the Olympics and journalists have found themselves in the crossfire," said...

The new Pakistani government’s move to lift restrictions on media imposed by President Pervez Musharraf last year has been welcomed by press freedom organisations. Information Minister Sherry Rehman Friday last introduced a parliamentary bill to repeal amendments made to media laws when Musharraf suspended the constitution in November 2007, . In comments made to journalists, Rehman also promised a...

The Arabic Charter on Satellite has claimed another victim. Nilesat, an Egyptian government-owned satellite transmission company, stopped carrying the London-based Al-Hewar Television channel on April 1 without warning or explanation. The station remains accessible to viewers on the Atlantic Bird satellite system, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In a letter...

The Zimbabwean police has arrested two unaccredited foreign journalists at a hotel in the capital Harare. The police issued a statement Thursday saying that the reporters had been covering the country's election without any accreditation. Pulitzer Prize-winner Barry Bearak, a New York Times correspondent based in Johannesburg was arrested Thursday evening. The identity of the other journalist has...

Egypt has ordered the confiscation of a special edition of German magazine Der Spiegel about Islam that the government said insults the Muslim prophet Mohammed, Egypt's state news agency MENA said. Information Minister Anas el-Feki said the decision "comes in the context of defending Islamic values and standing firmly against those who try to insult the prophet, the Islamic faith, and religions...

Press freedom organisations have expressed outrage at the campaign being waged by the Afghanistan ministry of information and culture, the lower house of Parliament and the Council of Ulemas against privately-owned TV stations, especially Tolo TV, for broadcasting footage of men and women dancing together. The Council of Ulemas and the information and culture ministry announced on March 30 that...