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BOGOTA, Colombia: A reporter for a state-controlled television network in Venezuela was released Tuesday from a Colombian jail, almost two months after his arrest for allegedly plotting a series of bomb attacks with leftist rebels, authorities said. Freddy Munoz, a reporter for the Telesur network majority controlled by the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez, was arrested Nov. 19 as...

(IAPA/IFEX) - MIAMI, Florida (January 9, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed surprise and regret that a convicted murderer of journalist Héctor Félix Miranda in Mexico could be freed from prison before serving his full sentence, a move it called "a new transgression that only increases impunity and does nothing to end the violence that has been unleashed against...

(SEAPA/IFEX) - Government officials in Malaysia tore pages from the international weekly, "The Economist", and blacked out a paragraph whose content they alleged contravened Islamic teachings, according to the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), SEAPA's partner in Malaysia. Missing in the locally circulated 23 December 2006 edition of "The Economist", which is published by the Economist...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced its support for the Ouagadougou-based bi-monthly "L'Evénement", which is accused of libelling the president's brother, François Compaoré, by linking him to the 1998 murder of journalist Norbert Zongo. The trial is due to start on 8 January 2007 in Ouagadougou. "After last year's outrageous decision to dismiss all charges and close the Zongo case...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, January 8, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release in Gaza Sunday night of Agence France-Presse photographer Jaime Razuri, who had been held by kidnappers since January 1. Razuri, 50, was dropped off at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' compound in Gaza City by Palestinian security forces, according to AFP. Razuri was unharmed and said he was well...

HARARE, 8 January (IRIN) - There are renewed fears that the Zimbabwean government is intensifying its campaign against the few remaining privately owned media organisations in the wake of severe press criticisms of its human rights violations, a dismal economic record and President Robert Mugabe's plans to extend his stay in power by another two years. The government has stripped newspaper...

(FNJ/IFEX) - Krishna Lama, a correspondent of "Taja Khabar Weekly", was abducted from Samakhushi Chowk by Maoist cadres in Kathmandu on 4 January 2007 at 7:30 p.m. (local time) and later released around midnight the same day in Ratnapark. Lama said Maoist cadres threatened him with a pistol and then transported him forcibly to an unidentified place where they questioned him about a news report...

(RSF/IFEX) - In response to a call from RSF, around 50 journalists and photographers gathered this morning outside the headquarters of the French news agency Agence France-Presse in Paris in a show of solidarity with Jaime Razuri, the AFP photographer of Peruvian nationality who was kidnapped in Gaza City on 1 January 2007 (see IFEX alerts of 4 and 2 January 2007). The photographers laid their...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and journalists across the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip today demanded the immediate release of Peruvian photographer Jaime Rázuri, kidnapped in Gaza on Monday. "Free him now and stop this cat-and-mouse intimidation of journalists and media staff," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. The IFJ says kidnapping of journalists...

(IPI/IFEX) - According to information provided to the International Press Institute (IPI), Trevor Ncube, the publisher of the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent and Zimbabwe Standard, is facing renewed attempts to deny him Zimbabwean citizenship. At present, Ncube is seeking a High Court order compelling the government to renew his application for citizenship after it was initially withdrawn. In...