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(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has called on the federal and local authorities to make up for lost time in the investigation into the 20 January 2007 disappearance of journalist Rodolfo Rincón Taracena, of the regional daily "Tabasco Hoy". The journalist had just written two by-lined articles, one on drug trafficking and the other about bank hold-ups, when he went missing in Villahermosa in the south-east of...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has condemned harassment of the local press in Mexico after publications were censored and journalists spied on in the second half of January 2007 in Sonora state in the north-west, Guanajuato, in central Mexico, and Puebla in the south. RSF noted that the abuse of power was the work of local authorities already operating hand-in-glove with the justice system over press cases....

(AMARC/IFEX) - Between the night of 24 January and the morning of 25 January 2007, a confrontation erupted between militants of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Institucional Revolucionario, PRI) and members of the grassroots community council of San Antonino de Velasco, in the state Oaxaca. During the incident, Emilio Santiago and Darío Campos, both of whom are journalists from...

New York, January 29, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ongoing harassment of a popular newspaper in western Kazakhstan which exposed local government corruption. The independent bi-weekly Uralskaya Nedelya has been subjected to retaliation from government officials since it began a series on corruption last July, Editor-in-Chief Tamara Yeslyamova told CPJ. Three printing...

Reporters Without Borders today called on the authorities to withdraw their prosecution against journalist Claude Dassé of the privately-owned Soir Info daily, who was held for five days at Abidjan investigative police headquarters on a contempt of court charge concerning the state prosecutor. “Blatant abuse of authority is not the way to regulate the media in a democracy,” the press freedom...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) is concerned that police in Malaysia roughed up and arrested a blogger at a peaceful assembly, and briefly detained an online journalist covering the event on 21 January 2007. Blogger Tan Han Kuo had attempted to document the peaceful assembly held to protest a recent increase in highway toll charges, said a 26 January release from the...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, January 26, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned about new regulations imposed by the Bangladeshi interim government that severely restrict news reporting. The Emergency Powers Rules of 2007, announced on Thursday, restrict press coverage of political news and set penalties of up to five years in prison for violations. The new rules aim at a wide...

(CEMESP/IFEX) - One of the factions involved in the current leadership struggle in the Liberian House of Representatives has threatened to prevent journalists from covering their activities for what they term as "biased coverage" of the ongoing leadership crisis in that body. The lawmakers accused three radio stations - internationally funded Star Radio, Catholic-run Radio Veritas and privately...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today urged Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu to end criminalization of insult and libel laws in Romania, which could lead to journalists being jailed. "Romania must be careful not to retreat into the shadows of its political past by allowing bad law to remain on the statute books," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information wrote to Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei on 22 January 2007 asking him to intercede on behalf of Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (better known by his blogger pseudonym of Kareem Amer), whose trial is due to start on 25 January in Alexandria. Held since 6 November 2006, he faces up to nine years in prison for...