State Control

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Olympic officials defended on Tuesday the collection of information on journalists, saying such databases would be used to help the media at Beijing 2008, not to create blacklists or hinder reporting. The comments came a day after state media said authorities were building a database of information on about 30,000 foreign journalists accredited to cover Beijing 2008...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's muzzled press and burgeoning Internet have given citizen reporters an audience and an opportunity -- however fleeting -- to spread news quicker than government censors can control it. Zhou Shuguang, whose amateur reporting of a famous property dispute lead to him being hailed as China's "first citizen reporter", poses in front of a dismantled house in Beijing November 2...

Chinese authorities closed an unregistered newspaper and arrested two "fake" reporters, state media reported yesterday. Social News was not licensed for publication in China and provided false information about its registration in Hong Kong, the Xinhua news agency quoted the General Administration of Press and Publication saying. President and chief reporter Gao Yang, who was not accredited by the...

The Georgian government shut down two popular Tbilisi-based television channels shortly before declaring a state of emergency Wednesday night. Imedi, considered the main Georgian opposition television and radio broadcaster, was raided by special forces and taken off the air. Kavkaziya, a small independent channel, was also shut down. Later Wednesday night, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli told a

(RSF/IFEX) - On 6 November 2007, two plainclothes police officers disrupted an interview with demobilised soldiers by "Economist" reporter James Miles and his assistant Jin Dan from the British weekly's Beijing bureau in Yantai, Shandong province, eastern China. The two had been followed by an unmarked car as soon as they arrived in Yantai the previous day. Two police officers who had been...

On the eve of “Journalists’ Day,” which China is celebrating tomorrow, Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to stop violating journalists’ rights on a massive scale. The record leaves no room for doubt - 33 journalists are currently detained, several dozen have been injured this year and one has been killed. To illustrate the scope of the government’s editorial control, the press...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has asked Yahoo! to take advantage of the 6 November 2007 Congress hearing to set the record straight on the company's collaboration with the Chinese authorities. Congress is investigating sworn statements Yahoo! made during a February 2006 Congress hearing regarding its role in cyberdissident Shi Tao's arrest and conviction on a charge of "illegally...

Newly elected Argentine President Cristina Fernández is already a star in Santa Cruz, the southern provincial capital and hometown of her husband and former President Néstor Kirchner. Getting constant media attention, only the death of Pope John Paul II in April 2005 pushed her and Kirchner off the front page of daily El Periódico. All thanks to the huge official advertising revenue the paper

Television channels ordered off the air after the airing of footage exposing The Narendra Modi government's involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots have resumed broadcasting. The Gujarat Government blacked out several TV channels on Thursday night after they beamed a sting operation done by Tehelka that accused Chief Minister Narendra Modi of fomenting the 2002 Gujarat riots. Ahmedabad District

Two new pieces of legislation in the United States will help protect reporters' sources and promote Internet freedom. The US House of Representatives approved a legislation on October 16 that would bolster reporters' ability to keep their sources confidential in federal court cases. PEN American Centre said it was elated by the overwhelming (398-21) House vote, calling the Free Flow of Information