(MFWA/IFEX) - The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is alarmed by the increasing number of violations against journalists and media rights in West Africa. In 2006 alone, the MFWA recorded 168 cases of violations in fifteen of the sixteen countries in the region, compared to 148 attacks registered in 2005. Nigeria tops the list with 32 cases of abuse of press freedom rights, representing 19 %...
(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, January 17, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that Mexican reporter Sanjuana Martínez has been threatened for her coverage of allegations that a Catholic priest sexually abused dozens of boys in Mexico and the United States and that two cardinals sought to protect the priest. Martínez told CPJ that she began receiving death threats in...
Journalists Driss Ksikes and Sanaa Al-Aji breathed a sigh of relief Monday (January 15th) when heard that the three-year prison sentence handed down to them by a Casablanca judge would be suspended. The journalists, accused of insulting Islam and moral values following an article they published in Nichane magazine, were ordered to pay an 80,000 dirham fine, and the publication of the magazine was...
New York, January 16, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Moroccan court’s decision on Monday to sentence two independent journalists to suspended jail terms and close their magazine for two months. The Casablanca court handed down three-year suspended sentences to Driss Ksikes, director and editor of the independent weekly Nichane, and reporter Sanaa al-Aji for denigrating Islam...
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the 12-day prison sentence passed on 14 January 2007 by a Baku court on Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, the editor of a news website that has been blocked by the authorities for the past several days for criticising the government's economic policies. "The arrest of an online journalist, like the censoring of his website, are very bad omens," the press...
(IPI/IFEX) - According to information provided to the International Press Institute (IPI), the Walloon regional parliament has adopted a motion recommending new measures to prevent the repeat of false news stories such as the one shown on the French language public service television channel, RTBF. Shown on 13 December, the fake documentary appeared as a breaking story during the evening news...
(HRinfo/IFEX) - HRinfo condemns the charges and the investigation launched against Huweida Taha, a journalist from Al-Jazeera TV. Taha is being investigated because she was in possession of footage documenting torture in Egypt that was to be broadcast on a show by the television channel. Security forces confiscated the videotapes while Taha was on her way to Doha, Qatar during the week of 8...
(CJFE/IFEX) - (Toronto, January 15, 2007) CJFE is concerned about reports it received today from journalist Mohammed Elmi that the independent radio station HornAfrik, of which he is a founder, has been closed down along with other radio and television stations in Mogadishu, Somalia. Mohammed Elmi reports that the order was given at 1:30 pm today by the National Security Agency of Mogadishu. An...
(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, January 16, 2007 - Unidentified men at an illegal coal mine in Huiyuan County, Shanxi Province, severely beat reporter Lan Chengzhang on January 9, leading to his death the following day, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating to determine whether Lan's death was connected to his journalism, and it called on authorities to bring the...
(CIHRS/IFEX) - Cairo,16 January 2007 - The prosecution released, the day before yesterday, the Egyptian journalist Howeida Taha on bail of LE 10,000. Authorities had formerly held her under custody for interrogation, based on the fact that she had prepared a documentary program on citizens' complaints about the Egyptian police machinery. She was accused of being involved in acts harming Egyptian...
