Uncategorised

The gruesome murder of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association, Samuel Ennin last Friday in Kumasi has sent a wave of fear and panic among media practitioners in the Ashanti Regional capital. Even though the security agencies are yet to make any arrests or establish the motive for the bizarre killing of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the GJA, political reasons are not...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has urged parliament not to back a proposal for criminal law modification, which passed its first reading on 7 February 2007, three articles of which pose a very serious threat to freedom of expression and the press. The worldwide press freedom organisation also wondered what prompted this development, when the tendency in most of the American continents has been towards...

Guyana’s leading daily, a vocal critic of the government headed by President Bharrat Jagdeo, is now suffering from a total boycott by state advertisers. “Governments must not allocate advertising to some news media as a reward, and withdraw it from others as a punishment - this is spelled out in the Chapultepec Declaration, which Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo himself signed,” Reporters

Reporters Without Borders hailed the release today of Li Minying, the former director of the newspaper Nanfang Dushi Bao, three years before completing a six-year sentence for alleged corruption. He was arrested in January 2004 at the same time as the newspaper’s manager, Yu Huafeng, who is serving an eight-year sentence. The newspaper’s news editor, Cheng Yizhong, was also detained in 2004 but...

Reporters Without Borders voiced dismay today on learning that freelance photographer Robson Barbosa Bezerra was gunned down on the evening of 8 February as he was returning home in Rio de Janeiro. The organisation expressed its condolences to the family and urged the police to investigate the possibility that he was killed in connection with his work. “If it is confirmed that the motive was...

(CJES/IFEX) - A CJES correspondent has been sentenced to three months in prison on spurious criminal charges. On 22 January 2007, Uzbek journalist and human rights defender Umida Niyazova was arrested and taken to the pre-trial detention unit in the Uzbek city of Andijan. She was detained for four days. On 26 January, she was handed over to the Office for Prosecution of Transport Offenses in...

Journalists at almost half of Sweden's newspapers received personal threats in 2006. Two thirds of all newspaper editors were threatened with physical injury or damage to property during the same period. In some cases the threats had the desired effect, as newspapers decided to drop their coverage of sensitive issues, according to a study carried out by Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall. The...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, February 12, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the brutal attack on Friday against the editor of a private bi-monthly after the newspaper published articles critical of the government. Editor Jean Bosco Gasasira of the Kinyarwanda-language Umuvugizi remained in intensive care in a hospital in the capital Kigali late today after being attacked by three...

(TNA) - More than half of Bangkok residents believe deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra sought to highlight his case through high-profile international media to advance and protect his own interests, according to a poll by Dhurakitpundit University. About 58 per cent of the respondents say former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has actively engaged with foreign media to save his personal...

By Ria Novosti, [RxPG] Moscow, Feb 10 - Law enforcement agencies said Saturday they are investigating an attack, apparently by skinheads, on a Newsweek magazine correspondent at a Moscow metro station. A police spokesman said Aidar Nuribayev was assaulted and beaten by four young men, who were apparently skinheads, at 11.30 p.m. local time - Friday at Tverskaya metro station in central Moscow. He...