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March 12, 2007 - Ill and aging, veteran Burmese writer U Win Tin is once again spending his birthday in a prison cell in Insein, Rangoon. Today is his 77th birthday. Journalist U Win Tin has been detained for his political involvement and critical writings about the ruling junta. "They are scared to release him," said Tate Naing, secretary of the Assistant Association for Political Prisoner (Burma...

New York, March 12, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that police and security services harassed several journalists covering local parliamentary elections on Sunday. Police in the southern city of Samara detained reporter Pavel Sedakov and photographer Artyom Pigarov of the independent business daily Kommersant when the two tried to interview a local leader of the...

New York, March 12, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned criminal defamation convictions handed down last week by a court in the capital, Bamako, against two journalists for a December 2006 story critical of a government minister. Director Diaby Makoro Camara and Editor Oumar Bouaré of the private monthly Kabako were sentenced to four-month suspended terms, fined 50,000 CFA...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today warned of increased pressure on media in The Gambia after the launching of two recent court cases against journalists at the request of other companies. The first case is one in which a newspaper is being sued for libel by the head of a government company. The second is a misconduct case brought against two media workers accused...

A daily paper that was widely rumoured to have been taken over by Zimbabwe's secret service has stopped publishing, it emerged on Friday. The Daily Mirror, originally a semi-private paper that was owned by moderate ruling party member and intellectual Ibbo Mandaza has not published an edition since Tuesday. Jonathan Kadzura, the board chairperson of the Zimbabwe Mirror Newspapers Group, told the...

New York, March 8, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by the arrest of Atiqullah Khan Masud, editor and publisher of the popular Bengali-language daily Janakantha, in a military raid on the Dhaka newspaper’s office Wednesday night. Bangladeshi police today accused Masud of corruption, criminal activities, and “tarnishing the country’s image abroad” through his newspaper’s...

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 5 March 2007, the Bamako Commune II County Court sentenced managing editor Diaby Makoro Camara, and editor-in-chief Oumar Bouaré, of "Kabako", a privately-owned, monthly newspaper, to a four-month suspended sentence for defaming Mariamantia Diarra, Minister of Planning and the Interior. Camara and Bouaré were ordered to pay an amount of 50,000 FCFA (approx. US$99) in damages. The...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, March 9, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is disappointed that a freelance video blogger will remain in jail after a court-appointed arbitrator was unable to mediate a settlement that could have led to the journalist's release. Joshua Wolf has spent 198 days in jail, the longest incarceration of a journalist in U.S. history, for refusing to provide the court with...

(MISA/IFEX) - On March 7, 2007 the High Court of Swaziland dismissed a E750,000 (approx. US$100,000) lawsuit against the "Times of Swaziland" newspaper filed by the Minister for Education, Themba Msibi. The case was dismissed on grounds that the wrong parties were cited in the particulars of claim. Msibi, ex-Minister for Public Service and Information, was suing the "Times" for alleged defamation...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - On 7 March 2007, the military-installed government reversed its earlier decision to suspend broadcast of Thailand's sole private station, which was declared bankrupt and due to be taken over by the state, allowing it to continue on-air pending legal settlement of the takeover and liquidation of the station's assets. Bowing to mounting public pressure orchestrated by a defiant iTV...