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(CJES/IFEX) - On 19 January 2007, in the city of Partizansk (Primorsky region), Tamara Golovanova, correspondent for the newspaper "Vesti", was badly beaten while on assignment. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Ms. Olga Aksakova, informed the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the journalist was beaten in the offices of a public employment agency while investigating a collective complaint...

Journalists striving to expose the misuse of government power are increasingly living under the threat of politically motivated arrests, physical assault and even death, Amnesty International said today. The organization's report, Azerbaijan: the contracting space for freedom of expression, reveals a pattern of encroachment on the rights of members of civil society, and in particular journalists...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF today called on the federal authorities to relaunch the investigation into the April 2005 disappearance of journalist Alfredo Jiménez Mota of the daily "El Imparcial" in Hermosillo, in the northwestern state of Sonora, after a municipal police officer, Lt. Jesús Francisco Ayala Valenzuela, told the National Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH)...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the expulsion of US journalist Phillip Wellman on 19 January 2007 and a decision to ban him from returning to the Maldives for two years on the grounds that his visa was not in order. Wellman works for the office of the news website http://www.Minivannews.com that is located in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. "The Maldivian government's...

(PROBIDAD/IFEX) - The Transparency and Access to Public Information Law (Ley de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información Pública), which was approved on 27 November 2006, was published on 30 December, in number 31,193 of "La Gaceta", the official record of Congress, with substantial modifications that may well limit its effectiveness. Some of its articles and definitions seem to imply that the law...

New York, January 23, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the bomb attack targeting the Gaza City office of the Dubai-based satellite news channel Al-Arabiya on Monday night. No causalities were reported, but the office was severely damaged, Al-Arabiya reported. A bomb exploded around 9 p.m. outside the entrance to Al-Arabiya’s office in the Al-Shurouq towers building, which houses...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - As many as 100,000 people filed silently through Istanbul on Tuesday to pay their last respects to Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink, whose murder has stirred debate about the influence of hardline nationalism in Turkey. From early morning, tearful mourners, many holding identical black-and-white signs reading "We are all Hrant Dink" and "We are all Armenians", gathered...

Reporters Without Borders reiterated his call for the release of journalist and writer Michel Kilo after his trail was postponed for the second time today. A new hearing has been set for 19 February. “Kilo is 67 years old and has now been held for more than nine months awaiting trial,” the press freedom organisation said. “There is no justification for his detention, which seems to be the prelude...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced stupefaction at the two-month suspended prison sentences and fines of 300,000 CFA francs (450 euros) which a court in Ouagadougou on 22 January 2007 passed on Germain Bitiou Nama, the publisher of the privately-owned fortnightly L'"Evénement", and Newton Ahmed Barry, its editor, for linking the president's brother, François Compaoré, to the 1998...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned a Kigali judge's decision on 19 January 2007 to place Agnès Uwimana Nkusi, the editor of the privately-owned fortnightly "Umurabyo", in custody for 30 days while she awaits trial on charges of "promoting divisions," sectarianism and libel. "Given that the charges are so political and vague, the court issued an unfair decision and rode roughshod...