State Persecution

Reporters Without Borders today reiterated its call for Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) to be allowed to resume free terrestrial broadcasting after learning that the privately-owned broadcaster will resume transmission by cable and satellite to paying subscribers on 16 July. The government refused to renew RCTV’s terrestrial broadcast licence a month and a half ago. “Since losing its terrestrial...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on an Ethiopian court to reject the prosecutor's demand for the death penalty for four journalists who have been convicted, along with opposition members and activists, of attempting to overthrow the government, treason and inciting violence. "We condemn this cruel and unreasonable demand by the prosecution who wants journalists...

The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum (WEF) have called on African leaders, who are meeting in Ghana at the African Union Summit, to abolish "insult" laws and to accept the principles of press freedom set out in the Declaration of Table Mountain, which calls for the abolishment of all laws that restrict freedom of expression. The International Federation of...

Reporters Without Borders has learned of the arrests of three more Iranian journalists, one of them two days ago. They bring the number of journalists detained in Iran to six. “The Iranian regime is one of the most repressive in the world towards the media,” the press freedom organisation said. “Independent journalists are closely watched and constantly harassed. Arrests are frequent, and months...

Five Malian journalists who covered a high school essay assignment — and the teacher who commissioned the lesson — have been convicted of insulting President Amadou Toumani Toure, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the verdicts, which stemmed from a classroom exercise about an imaginary presidential sex scandal, and called for the...

Yemeni authorities are questioning a journalist over alleged links to Shiite Muslim rebels accused of planning attacks against strategic sites, the ruling party said Thursday. Abdelkarim Al-Kiwani, editor of the Al-Shura weekly of the Union of Popular Forces Shiite party, "is currently being questioned ... about a link to the terrorist cell" led by Abdulmalik al-Huthi, it said on its website...

Journalists in Yemen rallied in protest after police arrested a Yemeni opposition editor accused of backing the country's Shiite rebels. Dozens of journalists gathered in front of the general prosecutor office in the Yemeni capital, San'a, demanding the release of the Al-Shura weekly's editor Abdel Abdul Karim al-Khawinay, taken by police to jail earlier in the day. Undated photo shows Yemeni...

At least three journalists a month since 2001 have fled their country to escape violence, imprisonment, or harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has found in a new report for World Refugee Day, June 20. Only one in seven exiled journalists ever returns home, and those who remain in exile face slim opportunities in journalism. Less than one-third of journalists now in exile have...

The mother of a Chinese journalist thrown in jail after US Internet giant Yahoo provided user information to the Chinese government arrived in Washington Thursday to campaign for her son’s release. “There is a lot of international concern, it is not an isolated case now,” Gao Qinsheng told AFP after meeting her American lawyer and the Washington representative of Reporters Without Borders, a press...

On 23 May 2007, regional UHF channel Llanovisión's news programme, "La Entrevista de Hoy", was suspended after it commented on the Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) case. The programme was hosted by sociologist Laure Nicotra and was broadcast in the state of Barinas, southern Venezuela. Nicotra said that the measure was the result of an interview with lawyer Pedro Gonzáles, broadcast on 22 May...