State Persecution

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed satisfaction at a court ruling in Argentina requiring the government to place official advertising in the newspaper Perfil. At the same time it criticised Guatemala's federal government for suspending state advertising in all print media in the Central American country. In Argentina last week, the government, which has been accused of...

China's decision to establish a list of reporters who break reporting rules and prevent them from continuing to report or edit news is a cause for concern, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The decision to create a blacklist was reported in an article on the website of the official China Press and Publishing Journal. The journal's report, titled "Strengthen oversight and service...

The Tanzanian minister of information, sports and culture has ordered three newspapers to provide reasons why they published what he calls "defamatory" news reports. The newspapers in question are Taifa Letu, Sema Usikize and Taifa Tanzania. The minister on February 13 accused the three newspapers of writing defamatory reports against three prominent figures, namely Reginald Mengi, the executive...

The publisher and editor of the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Ayam were arrested and questioned for wanting to do a report about the king’s mother, a subject regarded as off-limits in Morocco, delayed reports said. “Police measures of this kind result in abuses that we find very disturbing,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “Political and judicial harassment of the Moroccan news media is...

More than six years after her detention and torture, Nepalese journalist Meena Sharma Tiwari has been granted compensation of 15,000 Nepalese rupees (150 euros) by the Appellate Court, the International Press Institute (IPI) has reported. Tiwari is the fourth Nepalese journalist to receive compensation in connection with detention and mistreatment by the authorities. "IPI welcomes the judgment as...

Radio Kalima journalist Zakia Dhifawi was arrested by six plain-clothes Tunisian policemen Tuesday afternoon as she was leaving a trade union building in Tunis and was held for an hour at the Charles de Gaulle Street police station, where she was subjected to humiliating treatment. Kalima trainee journalist Faten Hamdi was meanwhile threatened with prosecution yesterday, three days after she was...

Media freedom is nowhere on the agenda in the Middle-East, North Africa and the Gulf. The region remains generally opposed to the free flow of news despite some easing of press laws and a few signs of opening up and greater tolerance. The three sub-regions have very different national constitutions and press laws and a variety of regimes (that also often clash with each other, sometimes violently)

Sudan has expelled a foreign journalist for reporting on the country's Darfur crisis and arms industry. Canadian-Egyptian reporter Heba Aly, who wrote for US news agency Bloomberg, Boston-based Christian Science Monitor newspaper and the United Nations news service IRIN, left the country last week. She told colleagues that officers from Sudan's security service contacted her and ordered her to...

Seven people were arrested on Sunday after taking part in a tribute to slain human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova in which flowers were lain at the spot where they were gunned down in the centre of Moscow on January 29. Interior ministry Omon anti-riot police arrested them on the grounds that they were holding an “unauthorised” demonstration. Human...

Two publications which recently came into the Swazi media scene have been threatened with closure for failure to register with government, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has eported. By law, all publications in Swaziland, including newspapers and magazines, are required to register with the government. Registration is accompanied by a bond of US$100. One of the publications, CAP...