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(IPI/IFEX) - Vienna, 5 December 2006: The International Press Institute (IPI) is deeply concerned by the intimidation and violent threats made against the management and staff of the Fiji Daily Post by the Fijian military during a coup d'état led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama. According to information before IPI, the Fiji Daily Post was forced to halt operations and evacuate their premises for a...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep concern about a fatwa (religious decree) issued by an Iranian ayatollah calling for two journalists in neighbouring Azerbaijan to be killed for an allegedly blasphemous article. The fatwa's targets are Rafiq Nazar Oughlo Taghizadh of the Azerbaijani fortnightly "Sanat" ("Industry") and his editor Samir Sadaght Oughlo. "We urge the Iranian...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) demands the Fijian military show respect for the media and journalist safety, as reports about increased tension and rough treatment of journalists in the Fijian capital sparked fears of an imminent military coup. According to IFJ sources in Fiji, the military surrounded Prime Minister Laisenai Qarase's residence earlier today and...

The International Mission for Press Freedom in the Maldives has recently expressed concern that the Maldivian Government is not progressing with the democratic reforms that it had previously promised to implement. In a statement issued Monday, the Mission, which is comprised of several press freedom organisations including Article 19, Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today called on the Mexican government to step up its actions to protect journalists after reports that a missing journalist had been found dead in Veracruz only days after another journalist was killed in the region's other media hotspot, Colombia. "These latest killings once again push Latin America into the ranks of the world's most...

(MRA/IFEX) - On 2 December 2006, agents of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria's anti corruption agency, raided the privately owned radio station Cosmo FM, based in Enugu in south-eastern Nigeria. They arrested some staff, took away documents belonging to the station house and shut the station down for about two hours. The EFCC operatives raided the station on the...

(IFJ/IFEX) - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemns the violent threats against staff at the Fiji Daily Post which forced the newspaper to temporarily shut down this afternoon. According to IFJ sources in Fiji, the newspaper's head office in Suva was temporarily closed down at 3:30 pm (local time) today out of fear for the lives of their workers, after the newspaper...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association have voiced outrage at the military government's use of intimidation to disrupt the celebration of leading writer and journalist Ludu Daw Amar's 91st birthday on 29 November 2006 in the central city of Mandalay. "The treatment reserved for this 91-year-old woman writer is akin to the way 77-year-old U Win Tin, another famous...

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrests of two journalists, Shirko Jahani and Hussein Saidpour, and the suspension of a weekly newspaper amid mounting pressure on the media that has prompted five provincial newspapers to stop publishing in a gesture of protest. "The Iranian authorities have once again shown that repression is the only policy they know how to adopt towards...

(CPJ/IFEX) - New York, December 4, 2006 - Unidentified gunmen killed Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi, 36, a news editor for the privately-owned station Radio Dijla, shortly after he left his home in Baghdad's al-Washash neighborhood for work today, sources at the station told the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We offer our condolences to the family of Nabil Ibrahim al-Dulaimi," said CPJ Executive...