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Since his accession to the throne in 1999, Bahrain's King Hamad bin 'Issa Al Khalifa has vowed to bring about reforms and freedoms to the Persian Gulf island-state; reforms that were celebrated by some, while others questioned the intentions behind them. Critics of the ruling family accused Al Khalifa of drafting and passing laws aimed at restricting civil and political rights in Bahrain and...

(MFWA/IFEX) - Salif Dago, a journalist with "L'Enquêteur", a bi-monthly privately-owned newspaper, who has been charged with publishing false news, made his first appearance at a regional court in Niamey on 1 September 2006. According to an MFWA-Niger source, the State Prosecutor requested a 12-month prison sentence for Dago. Dago was arrested on 28 August and held in detention at the central...

Lilongwe (AND) A journalist with the Business Day of Malawi, Maxwell Ng'ambi was this afternoon convicted for criminal libel, the first journalist to be convicted since the country gained its independence from Rhodesia in 1964. The Lilongwe first grade magistrate court allowed Ng'ambi to pay an option of a $100 for criminal libel. The journalist has since paid the fine as admission of guilt...

New York, September 1, 2006—A reporter for the private newspaper l’Enquêteur has been jailed since August 28, making him the third journalist imprisoned in Niger in recent weeks, according to local sources. Salif Dago was tried Thursday on charges of publishing false information and sent back to jail, the newspaper’s director Idrissa Soumana Maïga told CPJ. A verdict is expected September 15. The...

(MISA/IFEX) - On August 24 2006, the minister for public service and information, Themba Msibi, warned the Swazi media against criticising the king, instilling further fear into an already timid press which cannot freely operate due to a perpetually hostile environment that continues to prevail despite the kingdom's new Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. The minister's threats...

New York, August 31, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the criminal defamation trial of Indonesian journalist Teguh Santosa, who faces charges of defaming Islam by posting online controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. State prosecutors outlined the criminal charges, which under Indonesia’s penal code carry a possible five years in prison, at the trial’s opening...

The typical New Zealand journalist is a European women in her 30s who works as a reporter for a newspaper, holds a bachelor's degree, has less than five years experience, is paid about $40,000 a year, has no religious belief – and probably speaks French well enough to conduct an interview with Jacques Chirac. THE NEXT TYPICAL JOURNALIST: A journalism student at Massey University Journalism

AN already grim landscape for independent media in Russia has grown even bleaker with the sale of one of the last major independent newspapers to Kremlin-connected billionaire Alisher Usmanov, journalists and analysts said today. Mr Usmanov announced the purchase late yesterday of the Kommersant publishing house from Georgian tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, a business partner of exiled Russian...

The 15-year-old brother of a BBC reporter has been killed in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan. Taimur Khan, brother of Dilawar Khan Wazir, was found with severe head wounds in the town of Wana on Wednesday after going missing on Tuesday night. He later succumbed to his injuries in hospital. Officials say it is not clear who carried out the attack or why. The Khans' house was targeted...

TEHRAN -- An Iranian reformist journalist, Issa Saharkhiz, has been handed a four-year jail term for "publishing lies and libel," the student news agency ISNA reported Monday. "The court has sentenced Saharkhiz to four years in prison and a five year ban from press activities," a judiciary official, Hossein Hosseinian, was quoted as saying. "The licenses of his monthly, Aftab (sunshine), and his...