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The young editor of an Armenian newspaper critical of the government was found guilty of illegally avoiding military service and sentenced to four years in prison by a Yerevan court on Friday. The court backed prosecutors’ claim that Arman Babajanian of “Zhamanak Yerevan” used fake documents to win exemption from the two-year compulsory duty in 2002. But the presiding judge, Mnatsakan Martirosian...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan authorities confiscated all copies of the independent al-Sudani newspaper on Saturday, the latest move in a resurgence of censorship since the beheading of a journalist last week. Mohamed Taha, editor of al-Wifaq newspaper was seized from his home and his decapitated body dumped in a dirt street on Wednesday. Since then, censors have moved into newspapers to restrict the...

Kuala Lumpur: Journalists should not regard the proposed National Media Council as an attempt by the Government to curb their freedom but, instead, accept the idea as a means to protect them, Information Minister Datuk Zainuddin Maidin said. He said the media council would not be controlled by the Government but operating like independent bodies that had been formed by the Government such as the...

New York, September 8, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists deplores Lithuanian security agents’ seizure of all 15,000 copies of the semimonthly Laisvas Laikrastis (Free Newspaper), which was due out today with a story about alleged political corruption. Government agents, who said the story contained classified information, also briefly detained Editor Aurimas Drizius on Thursday. About 10...

Teheran (AsiaNews) –Iran could include suspension of its nuclear program in negotiations with the West, former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said yesterday in Washington. Khatami is on a visit to the United States at the invitation of the Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation of the Episcopal Church. The visit of the ex-Iranian president, which will include stops in New York, Chicago...

Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan says her media reform package has good prospects of becoming law and will be introduced to the Senate soon. Senator Coonan said she plans to begin introducing the legislation shortly to have the package of reforms considered by the end of the year. The changes would remove limits that prevent TV companies owning newspapers in the same market and loosen...

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The president of Sudan agreed to release American journalist Paul Salopek on Saturday after meeting with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a spokesman for the governor said. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Chicago Tribune and his Chadian driver and interpreter will be picked up by Richardson in the war-torn Darfur region, where the three were arrested, said Pahl...

The United States has long prided itself on enjoying a free press. Freedom House, an organization that measures freedoms worldwide, declared that journalists in the United States work in an environment of complete press freedom, according to its 2005 Map of Press Freedom. In the same year, among Arab countries only parts of Palestine were labeled “free,” while Bahrain, Kuwait, and Lebanon were...

Relatives of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov from the city of Djizak already kicked up a scandal upon discovering secret services' interest in their family in early August. Margarita Karimova, the mother of independent journalist Jamshid Karimov, had specialists of the Djizak Municipal Directorate of Internal Affairs remove all bugs installed at her place a year ago. Colonel Marat...

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has welcomed the arrest in Trinidad and Tobago of Ceferino García, suspected head of a drug cartel, alleged to have ordered the murder of Mauro Marcano, a programme host on a local Venezuelan radio station, Radio Maturín 1.080 AM, and columnist with the Venezuelan daily newspaper "El Oriental". The organization, however, condemned delays in the investigation and the failure to...