State Control

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has supported the decision to take strike action by members of the Syndicat national des journalistes tunisiens (SNJT), an IFJ affiliate, in protest over the attempts to censor media coverage of month-long riots over corruption and unemployment which have claimed 21 lives so far. "Journalists in Tunisia are right to show solidarity with citizens...

Tunisian authorities must end their weeks-long crackdown on bloggers and reporters covering street protests, the Committee to Protect Journalists has demanded. Scores of journalists have been detained in the past four weeks, three of whom remain in custody. Local and international reporters have faced continued harassment, including detention, restrictions on movement, and denial of entry into the...

A new executive decree issued on January 6 in Vietnam that will give authorities greater powers to penalise journalists, editors, and bloggers who report on issues deemed as sensitive to national security, New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The new media regulations were issued amid a mounting clampdown on dissent shortly before Wednesday's opening...

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government should repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Committee to Protect Journalists said after a late 2010 amendment to the legislation hiked mandatory registration and accreditation fees for the press working in the country by as much as 400 percent. Since 2002, AIPPA, a draconian piece of media-licensing legislation, has forced...

The history of terrestrial TV channels in the Arab World goes back to the early 1960s. Until the booming era of free to air satellite TV, terrestrial TV was the main source of entertainment and information for people in the Arab World. Local terrestrial TV stations are still alive in the region, but regulations and market dynamics have ensured that -except in a few countries- the number of...

A member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration has that Sarkozy wanted to gather representatives of Internet operators from each of the G8 countries prior to the upcoming international summit. That summit, which is currently slated for May 26-27, is to be held in Deauville, in northern France, according to Deutsche Welle. "The idea is that representatives from each G8 nation should...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern that the French government and parliament seem deaf to the concerns being voiced by civil society about a proposed domestic security law known as LOPPSI 2 and the threat it poses to online freedom of expression. “Despite all the criticism from free speech groups and certain legislators and despite reports showing...

China’s Propaganda Department, which is under the direct orders of the country’s Communist Party, has marked the New Year with a series of directives to the media. Regarded as state secrets, they have been delivered by word of mouth to journalists at meetings where note-taking has been banned. However, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has obtained details of the...

The Belarusian security service, known as the KGB, continues to relentlessly raid newsrooms, confiscate reporting equipment from publications and journalists' homes, imprison independent and pro-opposition journalists, and harass their families, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). At around 4 p.m. on Saturday, three local police officers detained...

Tunisian journalist Nissar Ben Hassen of Radio Kalima was arrested Tuesday after posting video footage of events in Chebba, 65 km north of the city of Sfax, online. He was editing another video on the violence in Mahdia at the time of his arrest, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Members of a special presidential unit arrested him shortly after midday at...